In the world of DJing, unreleased tracks are a sort of currency to impress crowds and demonstrate your own importance. For those of us lowly people who aren’t well connected, we suffice by downloading crappy rips from places like Soundcloud or YouTube. Producers know that these rips are vastly inferior in sound quality to the full fledged FLAC or 320 files they work with. However many of us have fallen victim to the temptation of using a rip in a set when we just can’t get the real thing.
It just so happens that one of Deadmau5‘ most in-demand unreleased tracks, “Imaginary Friends”, is on his Soundcloud and exists in rip-form in several places. Sure us regular people would snap that up and play it out, but would you do that on the stage of an international festival like Tomorrowland Brazil? This past weekend Alok did just that on the mainstage and caught the ire of Deadmau5 himself.
@deadmau5 Joel, did you let alok play “Imaginary Friends” at Tomorrowland Brasil?
— BEASTCOAST (@DsaPkngz) April 24, 2016
It’s not released, but funny to know there are still “big djs” out there getting paid to play shitty YouTube rips. https://t.co/QUJjPDHwmb
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) April 24, 2016
Because 90 percent of them don’t have any idea what they’re doing or why… Other than your money ofc. https://t.co/UGPek1JAVr
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) April 24, 2016
Well I hope he understands copyright law and performance royalties. https://t.co/bUMc9eAoZ2
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) April 25, 2016
then host a fucking radio show where people dont have to pay $200+ to listen to “shit you like” in a hot muddy feild https://t.co/77wXu8gpV9
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) April 25, 2016
i also realize that i support those artists by buying their work and respecting their release schedules. https://t.co/0rNDB50fUp
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) April 26, 2016
Then things took a turn as Deadmau5 pointed his anger at Tomorrowland.
tomorrowland asks me to perform… cool. i agree. Tomorrowland books some asshat to play my music, then airs it. real fuckin classy shit.
— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) April 25, 2016
In case you were wondering, here is a clip of the moment as it happened. Let this be a lesson folks, don’t play track rips at international festivals.
