Warner Bros Threatens Legal Action Against Hip-Hop Sites

It seems as if the war against mixtapes is far from over. Newindustrytips.com reported yesterday (April 8) that Warner Bros. Records—home to Gucci Mane—has threatened to file copyright infringement lawsuits against several hip-hop sites for posting music by the Atlanta rapper.

One of the websites in question is coast2coastmixtapes.com, a promotional site that features mixtapes by rap and R&B’s biggest stars, like Nas, Snoop Dogg, Keri Hilson, DJ Khaled and DJ Drama, among others.
“The funny thing is we don’t host any files on our site,” Coast 2 Coast Mixtapes CEO Kyle “Lil Fats” Hiersche told newindustrytips.com. “We help promote music to the fans and use other parties to help our efforts, meaning we don’t host any files but use providers like datpiff.com to stream music. When we we’re asked to remove all files we questioned the basis of the claims, stating that we in fact don’t host any music on the website. We like to promote music of all kinds but if Warner Bros. Records doesn’t want to be included then we will gladly stop promoting all their artists.”

Warner told XXLMag.com that the label went after sites that sell or distribute mixtapes containing copyrighted material. They also send letters to iTunes and amazon.com asking them to remove the same materials from their sites.

Stay tuned to XXLMag.com as the story develops. —Elan Mancini