Witches and Warlocks – Craft?

I came across this story on Yahoo! about a guy who was caught by the law because of the popular online game World of Warcraft. Basically, this guy, Alfred Hightower, had fled the country (United States) to Canada to avoid being caught on charges of dealing drugs. He was home free! Unfortunately, because he had to keep up his gaming, the authorities were able to track him down. How? Well, Blizzard Entertainment (the owners of World of Warcraft) gave out Hightower’s account history, IP address, screen name, billing address, and game server. With this, it was just a matter of looking him up on Google Earth – Bingo! And apparently, tracking down criminals through games has been happening a lot lately.

But what does this have to do with music? Well, nothing really, but it did give me a thought that I should mention something to every musician, and well, anybody who sets up accounts with any company or website. No, not that you should stop playing online games after you commit a crime. What you should do is read the “Privacy Policy” and “Terms of Agreement” of any website that you set up an account with, or visit regularly really. A lot of times when you just click that little “I Agree” button because you are in a hurry or just don’t care, you are basically giving the company (website) rights to use any and all information (including pictures…) you give them. Also, a lot of places that let you post your own music, well, they are free to use it at anytime – and don’t have to pay you a dime! Not fair? You agreed to it.





Next time you go to join a MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter, make sure you know what you are actually agreeing with!