Atlantic Records Subpoenas Reddit to Nab Twenty One Pilots Leaker

There was major backlash a decade ago when major labels started suing fans and internet services over file sharing. While its unlikely to elicit a mass response, Atlantic Records isn't making any friends within Reddit's active and influential community of techies and music fans with a new legal action.

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Atlantic Records has asked a New York court to force tech site Reddit to reveal the identity of the person who leaked an unreleased track. "Heathens," by platinum act Twenty One Pilots. The song was scheduled to appear on "Suicide Squad: The Album" to be released this week. But a Reddit user leaked the song in mid-June.

"Prior to June 15, 2016, Atlantic had provided access to a digital copy of Heathens only to an extremely limited number of individuals,” according to the complaint. "These individuals included members of 21 Pilots, their manager, Atlantic and [label] Fueled by Ramen executives and members of Atlantic’s radio field staff….The Poster posted a link to the file he or she uploaded to Dropfile.to to the Twenty One Pilots subreddit (a publicly accessible message board, hosted by Reddit Inc.), with the title “[Leak] New Song – ‘Heathens.”Did it damage the release? “Following the June 16, 2016, release, sales of the Heathens single, which were unsupported by Atlantic’s carefully-planned marketing strategy, failed to reach predicted levels, causing substantial harm to Atlantic in the form of lost single and album sales revenue,” the complaint reads.H/T to TorrentFreak