you've got to fight for your copy right!

Kenny Nardozza

Heavy Metal Icons Iron Maiden have joined the fight against music piracy in perhaps one of the most, if not only, effective ways possible. Comic's Corner's own Moshing Maniac reports on the subject below. 

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Every once in a while a story about metal comes up that catches the eye of The Heavy Metal Maniacal Moshing Machine and the resident Metal Expert at 990WBOB's Comic's Corner had to write about this.  This story is about music piracy and heavy metal is not immune to the epidemic.  Sure some have tried to stop it in the past, like Lars Ulrich from Metallica for example. All he got out of it was looking like a spoiled little dick.  If you don't know what I'm talking about watch the South Park episode entitled "Christian Rock Hard" it's all concerned with the fact that people will potentially download their music from the Internet illegally.  Usually when famous artists speak out against copyright infringement they are left with nothing but a headache and maybe a satire.  However, there are alternate ways to battle piracy and metal legends Iron Maiden have found the solution.

Iron Maiden have been playing and recording music for over 30 years.  They have put out countless recordings featuring studio, live, split and singles.  They know that some of their CDs are rare and hard to find and are smart enough to realize that their fans, although loyal, will waste little time in downloading their immense discography for free.  I searched various torrent sites and found that there are a vast number of Iron Maiden treasures to download.  Hell, one can download their entire career if they took the time to search.   So, instead of getting angry about it like the former, Maiden set out to do something different, something that flipped music piracy on its head.

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Iron Maiden are metal legends and they got that way by being smart.  They are not going to let music piracy get them down.  They know they cannot stop or fight it but they can do something about it.  What they did was track down where their most rampant piracy occurred.  It happened to be in the area of Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, and Brazil.  So Maiden didn't run to the hills, crying about piracy and have their reputation shattered, they loaded up their custom Ed Force One and  refocused a tour of South America.  Maiden went into action, playing shows in front of sell-out crowds that pirated them the most and the result was more money.  The shows were sold out and met with crazy sales of merchandise and new followers on all their social media sites.  Maiden was laughing Aces High all the way to the bank.

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This is a blueprint for hope in the war against music piracy.  If you are in a popular band, simply look at the data.  See where you are most pirated and popular and go play a show there.  Iron Maiden showed that they are Troopers on and off the stage and now have piece of mind to know they can successfully battle music pirates.  This proves that nothing can stop Iron Maiden.  I see other artists will take a cue from this as piracy has affected other art forms like movies.  We were fortunate to have Lloyd Kaufman on the Comic's Corner (EP#25) last October and he was promoting Return to Nuke Em High.  Lloyd mentioned how he knew his movie would get pirated online and that was "ok".  Perhaps he knew that there would be other alternatives to get people to come out and pay to see his movie.  On Troma's facebook page they had a link to the Iron Maiden article and mentioned that they too were looking to see where Troma movies were the most coveted and retorted with they will play theaters there and bring Lloyd along!  I am giving them a standing ovation right now that is the perfect thing to do.  So come on Rhode Islanders get those computers running and download as much Iron Maiden and Troma until your eyes and ears bleed and maybe we can get Maiden and Lloyd to come here and breath new life into this depressed state!