Not the real Slim Shady

Are the fake MP3s popping up on file-sharing networks part of the recording industry's war on piracy, or just the latest in music marketing?

By Dan Levine

Jun 10, 2002 | As any user of file-sharing services can attest, downloading music online is often more labor than love, thanks to files that are mistakenly labeled, cut off in midsong or of poor quality. But the altered Eminem tracks currently littering the file-sharing landscape are no accident.

Tony P., an AudioGalaxy and Grokster user who was searching for songs from "The Eminem Show" last week, found files that looked authentic, but consisted of a "20-30 second loop of the chorus that went on for three to four minutes," depending on the length of the real track. Other modified files alternated 10-second periods of music and silence.

"About half" of the songs Tony P. downloaded were misleadingly labeled, and he added that "it was hard to find legit tracks [because] the fake tracks were labeled in the same way as the real ones ... with additions to the titles like '(Dirty Version)' or '(Real, Full song).'" The use of this meta-tactic in particular made it impossible to distinguish real songs from "spoofed" ones.

Tony P. added that he had seen similarly mislabeled files only once before, when trying to preview the most recent -- and highly anticipated -- release by Eminem's Interscope label mates No Doubt.

Stacey Herron, an analyst who covers entertainment and media for Jupiter Media Metrix, notes that the creator of some or all of the files could be a suburban mom who hates the controversial Eminem, an Internet prankster "or Eminem himself." But there are also at least two good reasons for Interscope to be involved.

The first is the fight against file-sharing. As has been widely reported, Interscope advanced "The Eminem Show's" release date several times out of fear of piracy. (In spite of these attempts, the album fell victim to unprecedented CD-bootlegging, although those efforts copied actual CDs, not MP3 files.) Contacted for this article, Interscope representatives refused to comment, but a May 21 Los Angeles Times article directly stated that the label had "flooded the file-sharing networks with bogus copies of the songs." (Though no Interscope representative was quoted as acknowledging the practice.)

But the strategy could also have a marketing component. Including just enough of a hook to entice a listener, seeding the networks with variously labeled copies, referring to the labeling problems in the title of a copy that is itself modified, and even the professional-sounding quality of the looping all suggest a simple, but ingenious, tactic aimed at converting would-be pirates into CD buyers.

Interscope isn't talking, so there's little chance at the moment of settling the question. But what is clear is that file-sharing networks, whether one loves them or despises them, are increasingly becoming a platform not just for sharing intellectual property, but also for protecting, publicizing and just playing around with all kinds of content. The most surprising aspect of the Eminem MP3 mystery is not that it happened, but that more such peer-to-peer pranksterism isn't happening.

Next Page: Spoofing MP3s is "completely lawful," says the RIAA

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