March 02, 2010

On the heels of the encouraging news high that the “Hope for Haiti Now” charity album became the first all-digital record to top Billboard’s 200 music sales chart, we’ve also learned that there is a group of P2P users who are uploading and downloading the charity album illegally.    

As the “Reaching new lows – charity album piracy” post on James Gannon’s IP, Innovation and Culture blog notes, the album is now widely available on illicit BitTorrent sites like The Pirate Bay, Torrentz and more.  The posting highlights a truly ugly side of P2P piracy – the undermining of humanitarian fundraising efforts via online theft of the “Hope for Haiti Now” compilation.  So much for the notion that illegal downloading (“sharing”) is an effort to help advance the plight of artists.

If fans really want to help, the album is available at a number of legal music sites like iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon MP3 and Napster.  All proceeds from album sales on those sites will go to charity.  And that album isn’t all.  Additionally there’s the “We Are the World 25 for Haiti" remake and charity single recorded by the a group of Artists for Haiti and executive producers Quincy Jones, Lionel Richie, Paul Haggis and Wyclef Jean.  There’s also the “Download to Donate for Haiti” album by Music for Relief, a non-profit organization established by rock band Linkin Park in to help victims of natural disasters. “Download to Donate for Haiti” features a compilation of unreleased music by Linkin Park, Dave Matthews Band, Alanis Morissette, Slash, The All-American Rejects and others.  

We hope that fans will think twice about where they buy their music, but especially charity albums.  As always, check in at riaa.com for some of the more popular online music sources here.