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Streetlight Manifesto urge fans not to buy their records

By | Published on Wednesday 7 March 2012

Streetlight Manifesto

US ska-punk band Streetlight Manifesto have urged fans not to buy any of their records or t-shirts currently being sold by Victory Records.

Confirming ongoing hostilities between them and their label in a blog post, the band said: “It is and has been for quite some time our position that Victory Records is an artist-hostile, morally corrupt and generally dishonest company, with whom we have had the displeasure of being associated due to a contract that was signed years ago”.

They continued: “We’re writing today to ask you to please boycott all Streetlight related items by not purchasing any of our records or merchandise from Victory’s website, any traditional CD stores, online third party retailers or any digital distribution service (iTunes, Amazon etc). Victory has a long-time reputation of pocketing all of the proceeds from a band’s music and merch, with shady accounting and generally bully-ish behavior”.

They then urged fans to only buy products direct from their website or at gigs. Or, failing that, they added: “Alternately, we’re sure you can find a way to get the tunes onto your computer that may not be, ahem, traditional… Speaking a bit metaphorically, there is a torrent of methods to accomplish this, and Google is your always loyal friend”.

Currently working on a new album, they confirmed this may still be released through Victory in order to fulfil their contractual obligations to the record company, adding that they refused “to let our constant battles with our own record label hold back the [new] album’s release” and that they “look forward to being free from Victory’s clutches once our contract with them ends this summer”.

Read the full post here.

This is not the first time Victory has been in dispute with one of its bands, of course. Hawthorne Heights sued the company in 2006 for breach of contract, kicking off a lengthy and extremely bitter legal battle.



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