#dancing jesus

The Internet

The internet was changing quickly, Napster had been and gone, other peer-to-peer platforms had normalised music piracy to the point that people forgot to buy music anymore. People were losing their patience too, they were not wanting music for free, they were wanting albums before they were released. 

In the mid-2000’s it was rare that an album hadn’t been leaked online weeks, sometimes months before it should have been released. For the kids it was exciting, it always feels great to get something before anybody else but they didn’t realise the knock ons these leaks had. Costly marketing plans were wasted, and bands, who needed to get a top 10 album, tp get a new record deal might miss out because the album has been floating around the internet. The highly anticipated second Libertines album was leaked weeks before it was released while Arctic Monkeys had to release their debut a week earlier than planned as it had leaked.

Music piracy had changed, especially for the indie kids. Kazaa and Limewire was filled with virus’, they went to their internet home, the forums. The forums that built communities, where bands shared demos and announced tours, where people discussed music with others had become the place where albums would be leaked.

One of the most prominent was Dancing Jesus, a forum with 2 rooms, 1 for indie kids to talk about the hot new bands who the NME hadn’t heard about yet and 1 to share music. As it was in the “forum environment”, where bands had been sharing their own demos, it felt pretty innocent, then it became the go-to place for leaks.

It wasn’t built to cause trouble, founder, Kane Robinson from the North East of England was an obsessed indie kid who just wanted to talk about bands. The forum existed between 2006 and 2011 with 12,000 users but this wasn’t Kane’s first online indie venture. After discovering early Arctic Monkeys demos Kane, and his tech friend made a fan site for the much loved, (at the time) underground indie band which gained a following. It became so popular that the NME used it as a news source and Arctic Monkeys manager Geoff Barradale asked the Kane to manage their official website.  

In September 2011 22-year-old Kane was arrested but neither himself or the police took the crime seriously, Dancing Jesus was allowed to continue, on the condition that no links were allowed to be shared. 2 years later Kane was summoned to court as he was being privately prosecuted by the BPI (British Phonographic Industry). He pleaded guilty of copyright infringement and he was sentenced to 32 months in prison, the most severe punishment for music piracy in the UK. 

The BPI claimed that Dancing Jesus was one of the most damaging operations for music piracy in the UK and responsible for a loss of £240 million. 

Dancing Jesus~☆