ICED EARTH guitarist/vocalist Jon Schaffer has issued the following statement:

“It has come to my attention that Century Media is suing fans over illegal downloads of (among others) our latest album Dystopia. I felt it was important to clarify that we had no knowledge of this motion and were, sadly, not asked permission.

We all know the music industry is changing. We have been adapting to this model by embracing legal streaming services such as Spotify and by bringing our music to places we have never played before by touring our proverbial asses off.

As much as we respect that the labels are having a harder time selling music, we feel this is a misguided effort and want to make sure our fans know we would have not given our consent would we have been asked.”

NorthJersey.com's Peter J. Sampson recently reported:

An independent record label, a foreign film company and several pornography studios have declared war on illegal file sharing in New Jersey, suing more than 12,000 people since June for allegedly using peer-to-peer networks to unlawfully distribute copyrighted material over the Internet.

After a lull of several years, 44 lawsuits have been filed in the state’s federal courthouses over the past 18 months against more than 15,000 “John Doe” defendants who, initially, are identified only by Internet addresses that stretch from Fort Lee to Honolulu.

The report continues: A Hackensack attorney, Jay R. McDaniel, is one of the lawyers leading the charge. He has filed 17 suits on behalf of three clients in U.S. District Court in Newark, alleging copyright infringement by more than 14,000 file swappers.

“What’s critical to these cases, and what many people don’t understand, is that it’s the distribution that is the evil influence,” McDaniel said. “It’s the distribution that does the real damage and harm, not just to the client but to the culture industries and to creative endeavors in general.”

McDaniel’s clients include a London-based record company, Century Media Ltd., which is suing fans of two popular metal bands for allegedly using the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol to unlawfully distribute their music online.

Two of the suits aim to halt the illicit distribution of Dark Adrenaline, the most recent album by the Italian band LACUNA COIL. The suits collectively target 3,136 John Doe defendants.

Four similar civil complaints accuse another 4,327 unnamed file swappers of illegally distributing Dystopia, the 2011 album by Iced Earth, a Florida-based metal band on the Century Media label.

Read the full report at this location.