All language subtitles for H.M.G.F.S01E02.WEB-RBB

♪ MTV ♪

When Napster
first came about, like,

I didn't understand
the Internet yet.

I thought Yahoo was
a person.

The music biz is
spiraling, y'all.

They never saw
the Internet coming.

This is completely illegal.

Like, completely
[...] illegal.

A small group
of digital pirates

have leaked hundreds
of millions of dollars

worth of copyrighted material
to places like Napster.

What do we do?

[...].

The industry tried
to fight back.

We sued them.

But, of course, that only
made it more popular.

Meanwhile in
Shelby, North Carolina...

ADEG was--he was a star.

Without him, none of this
would have happened.

A lone pirate was just
getting started.

[tense droning music]

[dial-up tone beeping]

♪ ♪

It spans the globe
like a superhighway.

It is called Internet.

Audio computer files,
MP3, dropped a bomb

on the multibillion-dollar
recording industry.

There's no reason that
you have to pick up a CD

in order to buy music.

Pirates go for the hits.

Willfully violated
thousands of copyrights.

The goal of the pirates
wasn't about money.

It's not okay.

I talk to kids.
They can't believe it.

And does the punishment
fit the crime?

$222,000.

Something's got to be done.

Will irreparably harm
the music industry.

Should you be compensated
for your work or not?

A lot of things are
possible.

It doesn't make it right.

That's ultimately where
the future should be going.

A whole generation got
used to the idea that--

all: Music should be free.

[dramatic electronic music]

♪ ♪

When I met Kali,

I asked him
what was the benefits

of me being a member
of the group, RNS.

And that's when I was
introduced to FTPs.

All these different
servers around the world

called topsites--

it looks like--basically
just like folders

with a name and a title,
telling you,

you know, what was inside
the folder.

There were things
called topsites,

which were these enormous

secret data repositories online

which probably
only at any given time

a couple hundred people
in the world had access to.

The access that I got once
I was in APC was crazy.

These sites had, like,

multiple terabytes

of data on them.

I had access
to the RNS topsites,

where I was able
to download things

for my own personal use.

My friends in real life--
I would be the source for them

if they wanted to hear
a certain song,

but they didn't know
that I was part

of this secretive group

on this, you know,
chat channel.

If you wanted it,

it was right there
at your fingertips--

you know, PlayStation games,
movies.

I was like, "Wow.

I can make a lot of money
with this material."

[dial-up tone]

[relaxing music]

♪ ♪

The only rules Kali had
in the group was,

we weren't supposed to sell,
like, any of the material

that came off the FTP sites.

Our philosophy really was,
as long as we weren't making

any money off of what
we were doing,

morally and legally, like,
that was what allowed us

to go to sleep at night.

I wasn't listening.

I saw a way
to make money.

Here in Shelby,

there's not a lot
of high-paying jobs.

To me,
the plant wasn't enough.

I had a child at the time
when I first started.

I wanted to set, like,
a trust fund up

so he would have money

and I could send him
to college

and he could pretty much have
everything he needed in life

Dell--what he started
to do was get

these first-run leaked movies
and burn them.

he would go
to the barbershops,

give the barber this massive
spindle of bootleg DVDs,

and then the barber would sell
those to his clients.

1 movie for 5, 3 for 10,

7 for 20.

What was your biggest seller?

I'm trying to think
of all the good movies.

Like "Passion of the Christ,"
must be.

Yeah, that was a good one.
Yeah, that definitely did good.

Before you know it, your shop
was running with people.

Everybody want movies and music
more so than haircuts.

♪ Just one step ahead is
a step too far... ♪

Ever since the textile mills
shut down,

life in Shelby had been hard.

The CD plant offered
a ray of hope,

but the fact remained
that most of Shelby's people

were living in poverty.

As a member of RNS, Dell saw
an opportunity to give

a little something back
to the community.

Pretty much everything that
I know with a computer

comes from this gentleman
right here.

Carmey was one
of my high-school friends.

He got out of prison
for selling drugs.

He had no job,
couldn't find a job

'cause he was
a convicted felon.

So I sit him down one day
at the computer,

and I showed him how
to burn material.

Coming from where
I was coming from,

working at the Waffle House,

things was not that green,
so I need a little help.

And that was a lot of help.

I would make $200, $300 a day,

and it was something to where
I could do a lot with my kids.

I was always there
at every event

for my girls,
basketball games for my son.

Most of my customers that
couldn't afford cable

couldn't afford going
to the rental store

and getting movies.

Netflix makes millions
of dollars

taking a copywritten movie
and making it available for me.

Yeah, we was Netflix
before Netflix.

It was the bootleggers.

Glover saw a way to build
an empire,

an empire of piracy.

He realized that
if he could get the CDs

out of the plant consistently,

he would get access to these
kind of elite topsites.

I had access, but in return,
we had to load these sites

with unreleased material.

I was an off-loader.
That's what they called it.

My duty was to check the CDs,
make sure there's no smudges,

no cracks in the jewel boxes.

You put a certain amount
on each cart or each pallet

based on the paperwork,
you know,

and how much supposed
to go on there.

Rodney ran--
real hard worker.

Worked there for years,
never got hired permanent.

He was pretty much one
of the best smugglers

inside the plant.

Dell saw a way to get paid,
as he should.

The only catch was, he had
to keep the leaks coming.

Next thing you know,
in the break room,

we sitting there talking,
we eating.

Dell--he happened
to come by the table,

and he was like,
"Oh, okay. Y'all eating good.

Y'all ain't eating
what the canteen"--

You know,
'cause Kim was cooking,

and we was bringing our meals
and stuff.

He's like,
"You got some more of that?"

He said, "I'll stop by
after work and get a plate."

And then when he came by,

that's when all the stuff
was discussed and everything.

- Mm-hmm. Like a manager.
- Dell was like a manager.

He had an office.
- Everything.

He went to the meetings.

He had all the intel.
- All the intel.

It's like,
just the one person.

Kali would always know
what was coming to the plant

before we would even know.

He just came up to me
one time.

He was like,
"You know they running

such-and-such a so-and-so
over on line whatchamacallit."

I was like, "Oh."
And then he'd just walk off.

He the damn manager.
I'm like, what the [...]?

So it made it easier.

Every week,
Kim would have a menu.

Kim--she worked
in hand packing.

She was known
for, like, selling food.

I'm charging them,
like, $10 to $12 a plate,

But it's worth it.

They were all paying for it.
- Dollar extra for dessert.

Yeah. So we had to deliver
the trays to the plant.

So that meant he had
to come out and get them.

- And they'd help me get them.
- Yeah.

So, while they helping him
get the trays,

they don't know
they helping him bring me CDs.

They smuggled them out
in food trays.

They noticed food trays
was never checked.

And the big metal
belt buckles--

a lot of guys would package
the CDs in a latex glove,

and they would stick them
behind the metal belt buckle,

because when the guard hit you
with the magical wand,

he would not make you
pull off your belt.

I remember when that
Jay-Z "Black Album" hit.

You know what?

I can get me
some of that money.

I'm going to get
this whole damn spindle.

And he did.

I had never saw anybody
get a whole spindle of discs

outside the plant.

I mean, I ain't stopping
their money.

And that's the way I was
looking at it.

Gold out, Versace,
brand-new teetheses.

How you doing?
This is Master P.

And welcome to my crib.
You heard me?

These are my racing cars.

This is a Impala SS.

Man, please.
I can't get $10?

That's the way
I'm looking at it.

So I didn't feel bad.

It's like a child
in a candy store.

You cannot put a child
in a store full of candy

and expect them
not to touch it.

And that's the way it was
down there.

You saw it,
you know it's that major--

it's that bum, bum, bum,

and you got to have it.

I didn't know
it was gonna turn into

what the hell it turned into.

People in the music industry
start losing they damn mind.

[dial-up tone]

All of a sudden,
you wake up one day

and two things are happening
at the same time.

One is, technology...

is moving 100 miles an hour
in our face.

The second thing was,

you had what was happening
with the leaks.

We went very quickly
from albums selling

two million
in their first week

or hundreds of thousands
their first week

to, within a year or two,

those numbers
had come down so much.

You couldn't be
in the top 50

with 40,000 your first week,

and 5 years later,

you could have the number-3
album with 40,000.

If you sell 50,000
your first week

because of leaks or whatever
the [...] happened,

you're going to sell 15,000
the next week.

We heard that
"The Black Album"

had leaked out.

They at it again.
They getting better.

[laughs]

A majority of the world
has heard your music,

but your record sales--
they don't reflect that.

Kids--they want the music,

and they don't want you to tell
them how to listen to it,

where and when.

A whole generation got
used to the idea

that music should be free.

Marshall was very hesitant

to ever let his music
leave the studio

that was unreleased.

We had to send music,

and I wasn't going to
send it over the Internet.

So I was mailing shit
to Paul so he could hear it.

When he had new music that
he wanted me to check out,

he would send a physical CD
to me.

He was worried that people
would know that

it was Eminem sending
a CD to Paul Rosenberg,

so they would try to disguise
what they were sending.

And I put it in a big box,

and it'd be wrapped
ten different times,

and there'd be one CD.

Cans of sodas, you know,

a magazine, and a basketball.

Or put it in a tampon box,
send it to Paul.

Who's going to look
in the tampon box?

So I'd come to the office
or my house

and see this big box
and be like, what's that?

And then I'd look at where it
came from,

and I was like, "Oh, that's
the CD that Marshall was

going to send me."

Stress traum--

post-traumatic--what?
- PTLD.

Post-traumatic leak disorder.

Post-traumatic leak disorder
is what I had.

The artists did not know

anything about
the distribution plan.

They thought it was
the engineers.

They thought
in the recording studio,

the engineer that
was recording you

was selling the leaks.

The first time leaking was
an issue for me is

when a Jay-Z song got leaked.

Kid named Will. He's a DJ.

He just stays on the Internet
all the time.

And I told him,
"Just bring me over a copy."

So, when Will brought a copy,
his face was like--

"Yeah, it's real, man."

What's really happening--

we're blaming our friends
and people around us

and start trying
to keep this sealed,

and it's like,
there's nothing you can do

once it's on to that machine,

'cause you can't beat
the computer.

You can't.

We would send
locked briefcases, et cetera,

to the mastering room.

No one would have the tape.

We'd master it,
take everything with us.

We did everything we could.

Jimmy said,
"Imagine if a person cut

"on a faucet
and Coca-Cola came out.

"What would you do?

Because that's what's
happening in our industry."

It was sad to see, like,
the big stores

that used to hold CDs
not be there anymore.

Virgin Records went under
with us on air

You saw a lot of folks
become expendable,

primarily in the hip-hop space,

because hip-hop as a business

wasn't bringing in any income.

More bad news for
the record industry this week.

CD sales are down
20% this year.

We're looking at
the numbers, and Jimmy says,

we played baseball for so long

and now we're sitting
in the park.

You go to swing
for a home run,

but instead of it being
a baseball,

it's a wiffle ball.

It's not gonna go
out of the park anymore.

Albums were being decimated.
People were getting free--

And by the way,
I had four teenagers.

If my kids are getting
music for free,

everybody's getting it
for free.

So this is,
"Houston, we've got a problem."

I knew we had to race

to legitimate
digital distribution,

and I don't believe the
industry raced hard enough.

The mentality of labels is,
they play goalie.

They're playing defense
constantly,

especially in technology.

I remember Jimmy walking in
and saying,

we got to flip this.

We got to attack the problem.

How are we going
to use technology

as a weapon to the future

instead of defense
in the past?

How are we going to save
the business, one,

but, two, how are we going
to embrace the future?

That's when conversations
started in earnest

with Steve Jobs.

He was really nice but really
aggressive with me on the phone

in our first conversation,
where he said,

basically, "I love music.

"Of course I don't want
anyone to steal it.

"I think people
should buy music,

and you guys are idiots."

There it is, right there.
[applause]

So he built a device
to make music portable.

I bought in hook,
line, and sinker

to the idea,
to them as individuals,

to Apple as a company.

I was all in Apple.

I know that's when Jimmy
became Jimmy Iovine.

Like, he was Jimmy Iovine.

But once you go into
the goddamn Yoda house--

I call Steve Jobs Yoda.
Come on, now.

I remember calling Steve
and saying,

"You don't have
an urban market.

Hip-hop kids are not
buying this device."

I said, "Steve,

there's a song by this
hip-hop artist 50 Cent."

♪ I don't know what you heard
about me ♪

If you give me 150 grand

to make this video better...

♪ But you can't get a dollar
out of me ♪

I can put this in the video,

and it'll get the iPod
in the urban market.

He said, "Great."

I met Steve Jobs for the
first time in Jimmy's office.

He had an iPod, you know.

I was like, "How many songs
you said it hold?"

Jimmy goes, "You see that?
You see that?

"Strange enough, Steve,
this kid is golden.

They're gonna buy it
if he says it."

♪ No Cadillac, no perms,
you can't see ♪

♪ That I'm a [...] P-I-M-P ♪

It's gone.

[tense music]

Nobody benefited more
from MP3 piracy

than Apple did.

Are you going to go spend
$100,000 to fill up your iPod

with legally downloaded songs?

No, you are not.

Steve Jobs used
to put on the box,

"don't steal music,"

when of course that's what
people were buying it for.

Even though Apple
made billions

slinging iPods
full of pirated music,

the labels never came
for them.

Instead, they went to war
with their own fans

internally, they called
this plan "Project Hubcap."

The music industry made it
loud and clear today

to what it calls "pirates,"

who illegally share music
with others on the Internet,

the message,
"stop, or we'll sue."

Their reaction

was very Boomer-ish.

Like, I'm suing him.

I'm suing Carl over in Detroit.

That was a PR nightmare.

Suing anybody--
I didn't care about all that.

I only cared about,
there has to be an idea here.

That's why when I met Steve
at Apple,

I said, oh, here's an idea.

If we make it great
and it works,

the rest will
take care of itself.

Kids were getting these
threatening subpoenas

in the mail, saying,

give us $3,000,
or we'll take you to court.

So it was basically
a shakedown.

It was a moment where the
music industry was flailing,

trying to figure out what its
next move was going to be.

That was a tyrannical show
of force and power.

In high school,
I would download stuff

on LimeWire, KaZaA.

My friends would come over,
and we'd burn CDs.

And you would just
click and download it,

and it would appear
in your shared folder.

So it was like Nirvana,
"Come as You Are,"

Limp Bizkit, "Leech,"

Green Day,
"Nice Guys Finish Last,"

Beck, "Loser."

and the fact that they
automatically shared by default

became the basis
for the lawsuit against me.

A college student
who admitted downloading

and sharing music
with his friends

just got hit with a staggering
verdict of $675,000,

which breaks down to an
astonishing $22,500 per song.

Where are you going
to get the money?

Well, I don't have
the money for that.

I don't have the money

for even any appreciable
fraction of that.

I really have
no choice at this point

but to declare bankruptcy.

Ultimately, they sued about
17,000 people in this way,

all just average individuals.

Once corporations start
suing their consumers,

their customers, they're
really on a slippery slope.

You know, blaming the record
sales on the piracy thing--

it's so obviously bull[...].

The only people that
are scared

are people in
the record industry that

are used to things
going the old way

and they're always scared
of new change.

It's so obviously down
to the fact that nobody wants

to buy the records
they're making.

It's making the more business
side of the music industry

look like ostriches
with their heads in the sand.

I think people are
too concerned with, like--

it's going to kill the record
industry 'cause we're not

gonna be able to make
every penny.

How much money do you
think they spent

prosecuting me, persecuting me

with this big legal team
of theirs?

Oh, I'm sure six figures.

I'm sure well in excess
of a million dollars.

I'm like, ha!

Suck on that.
Eat your own poison.

You didn't get shit
out of me, RIAA.

We would be suing individuals
who we knew

were actually our biggest fans.

And we had done surveys
that showed that people

who downloaded the most
actually bought the most.

That seemed like kind
of a dumb strategy,

to take on those people.

The record companies
never gave a damn

about the artists anyway.

Four major corporations--
four of them--

and Hillary's fighting
to protect them.

Ms. Rosen,
isn't this strictly

about your profits
and your money?

I just felt like it was
a lose-lose at the time,

and I left RIAA

in June of 2003.

The music industry was facing
an enormous problem,

and there was no easy way out.

[pensive music]

♪ ♪

Is there anybody in this room
that honestly believes

that peer-to-peer will go away?

The RIAA and the MPAA--

they've always sought
to control,

and maybe this is
the one technology

they feel they can't.

P2P, to me, means
power to the people.

And let's get this
to a balance.

And that's all
we're talking about.

Thank you, Mr. D.

The music industry
and Congress--

they didn't have
an established relationship.

They were enemies.

I once got called up to
Senator John McCain's office,

but I brought
Sean Combs and Russell Simmons

to the meeting with me.

And he says,
"My kids are so excited

"that I'm meeting
with you guys today,

but I think you're filth."

When it became time
for the music industry

to appeal to Congress
to enforce

these copyright protections,

the federal government

just straight up did
not like them.

You should be embarrassed to
distribute the music you do,

and you want our help?

And so they weren't feeling

especially inclined

to enforce code actions

for copyright infringement.

The majority of artists,
the majority,

want to be compensated
for what they do.

We need protection.

And so the industry was

really just left out to dry.

I'm not against the Internet.

I just wish that these things
could be done,

music could be downloaded
legitimately.

- Thank you, Mr. Cool J.
- Thank you.

Politicians tend to
fantasize a little bit

about how they saw
this technology

evolving and coming.

We didn't.

There was a recognition
immediately--

this is copyright infringement,
everyone understood that.

Where people began to go
their separate ways was in

their answer to the question,
"What do you do about it?"

The RIAA embarked
on a campaign

to get the message out
years ago,

but we found that P2P activity
continued,

so we took the next step--
enforcement.

RIAA led with the idea,
we're doing this

to drive education,
to make people aware.

It's been painful,
and it's been difficult.

It was a last resort,

but it is building
awareness rapidly.

It wasn't disingenuous, but
it was a little cute to say,

you know, "We don't really
want to sue college kids,

"but we think this is the
only way to make them aware

what they're doing is illegal,
that it has consequences."

Try as you may,
you can't sue them all.

We could probably find
some lawyers that

would be more than willing
to try to sue them all,

but I don't think
that's realistic.

It was a bad look.

And, I mean, I said as much,

both in public and in private
to the RIAA.

And in many ways,
it was probably a worse use

of resources to get
the FBI involved.

[pensive music]

My name is Peter Vu.

I was a special agent
for the FBI from 1996 to 2018.

I think it was
approximately in 2005

when I was assigned
the music case.

The FBI had a big
anti-piracy contingent.

They loved to go after
bootleggers.

But when the MP3 pirates
came along,

these digital gangs were
very sophisticated.

Even though they
were all teenagers,

they had sophisticated
counterintelligence methods.

It was all encrypted.

The Cyber Division
was created in 2002,

shortly after 9/11,

and the whole focus of that
was to address cybercrime,

which was becoming exponential
at that point in time.

This was deep underground--
the warez scene.

And they knew that the FBI

were out there
looking for them.

And so they started to develop
a code or ethos

of being
totally anonymous online

and being very careful

about who was let
into the chat rooms.

Some of
the terrorist groups--

you can eliminate one of them,

and then another one pops up
over here

and another one over here.

It was the same way
with the warez groups.

You could identify and maybe
take down one of them,

and then there was another one.

It was very easy on the Web

for them to organize and do
their criminal activities

without being identified.

It was hard for the FBI
to bust these guys,

but what they figured
they could do

was bust some
of the lesser gangs

who didn't operate
quite as tight an operation,

and then maybe through them,

they could flip somebody
and get inside.

So they busted
a smaller group called

the Apocalypse
Production Crew, APC.

Like, you know it's taboo,

or you know that
it's frowned upon,

but, like, you're not
sitting there going,

okay, someone's going
to kick my door down

'cause I just--you know,
I just downloaded Tupac.

2 weeks after
my 21st birthday,

14 or 17 FBI agents surrounded
our apartment complex.

[rock music]

What was I gonna do,
throw CDs at them?

I was laying in bed.

I essentially got woken up
out of bed at gunpoint.

You know, then they basically
just interviewed me

in my living room
while they just, like,

collected my computer
and stuff like that.

They interrogated us.
They have all of the data.

So you're going
to ask me, like,

oh, do you know these people?

You have actual logs
that show you that I do.

I brought up, you know,

shouldn't this be
done with an attorney?

The one agent--he said,

"Well, you don't need an
attorney to tell the truth."

So we end up going
in this room,

and we go through
a bunch of information.

He asked me
a lot of questions,

and we ended up going
into his office.

And then I looked
at the board,

and it was
the entire RNS structure.

He's like,
can you fill any gaps?

At that point, 100% I knew
what this was about.

We were all collateral damage.

They literally
didn't give a shit

about anything
that we were doing,

and all they wanted were the
people that were on the board.

We're talking, like,
federal prison,

not, like, jail.

We're talking actual prison
that you're going to go to

because of the raw amount

of data that you had
on your computer.

You're this kid.
The government's after you.

You have nobody on your side.

I didn't know what the hell
I was going to do.

Rabid Neurosis--
they seemed to have access

to the best material

and at the earliest time.

They had something
inside that group

that was able
to get the material earlier.

So that was the job
of the team--

of me in particular--
is to go find that leak

The press almost relished
covering this.

The stories that were,

you know,
glorifying the leakers

and talking about how
the labels are going down.

My biggest memory of
something like that would be

the article that came
out in "Rolling Stone."

It literally listed
the artists and the albums

that RNS had ripped.

That was what
kind of publicized RNS

to the public, in a sense,
because we were very private.

Napster in the press
and in the media

and the public relations
try and make this

an issue between Metallica
and our fans,

and this is not about Metallica
and its fans.

This is not
about Metallica's fans.

We have a wonderful
relationship with most of them

Our goal was never
to put artists, you know,

in the street.

If anything, we were superfans.

Granted, we showed our
affection in some strange ways,

but, you know, it was really,
you know, an homage.

Like, we wanted to hear it
so bad--

like, bad enough
to teach ourselves

programming languages and
obscure encoding strategies.

But, you know,
as time progressed,

I guess the paranoia started
setting in.

I think we have
to kind of spin down

some of this really
flagrant advertising

of what we're doing

in preference
for more discreet methods.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

We were aware the leak

was generally
coming from the plant,

but we didn't know
exactly how or who.

The goal then was identify
and locate Kali,

the leader of the group.

In the middle
of the investigation,

the group shut down--

what we call a cold case.

The group has disbanded.
They had moved on.

What are we going to do?

2007 was
when RNS closed down.

The whole scene just
kind of went on pause,

really the MP3 scene,

because we didn't know
who was impacted,

who was caught,
who wasn't caught,

who was a Fed,
who wasn't a Fed.

Kali made the made
the final decision--

we're shutting down RNS
at a certain date.

This is our last release,

and we're all going
to go our separate ways.

He had heard about other
groups getting busted,

so I think he just wanted
to be safe.

I had leaked so much material

they told me
that I really didn't have

to leak any more material,

and I would still keep
all my sites.

From 1996 to 2007,

RNS leaked over 40,000 songs.

Dell's identity
still remained a secret,

known only to Kali.

[computer whirrs off]

[suspenseful music]

[dial-up tone]

We had an individual
who was able

to make contact
with Patrick Saunders,

also known as DALIVE.

He was a member of RNS.

Out of the blue,
ADEG contacted Patrick

and want to get back
into the scene.

Patrick introduced him

to an individual called Rick1.

DALIVEONE came to me
and said

RNS's star ripper had no one--

no one to rip for anymore,

and he started shooting me
releases.

He was giving me
some legit stuff.

I don't know
what he was doing on the side,

but at the time,

I think he just wanted
different content,

the archives that
he had access to,

archives in terms of,
you know,

the older games,
movies, and music.

Now, at that point, by now.
ADEG was a high-level source,

someone who had access
to pre-release material.

That was an opportunity now

for us to look
into that further

and hopefully identify
his real identity.

Yeah, going back in--

that's where I think
I messed up,

when I released the Kanye
and the 50 Cent.

♪ Don't stop,
I ain't got to move ♪

♪ I can sit and watch,
in the fantasy ♪

♪ It's plain to see
just how it be ♪

♪ Her and me ♪

♪ Backstrokin', sweat soakin' ♪

Saying that something is
number one

and being able to market that
is how you get press,

how you continue the momentum.

So, when your first-week sales
are being hampered

by some foreign object
called piracy,

then you lose the opportunity

to get that story out.

One of those stories
that was threatened

that I believe
really defines this

was the battle between 50 Cent
and Kanye West

on who sold more records.

It became like
the Super Bowl hip-hop event.

And, of course,
BET and "106 & Park"

was going to get behind it.

Clash of the titans, baby!
It's finally today.

[cheers and applause]

You're talking

about two music monster
mogul celebrities

Kanye West--
backpacker, college dropout.

50 Cent--
he got shot several times,

he's hood as [...],
and the girls like him

'cause he is sexual chocolate.

And them coming together--
it was just electrifying.

Because the sales increased
so big in the early 2000s,

it became a numbers game.

Like, the record company looks
at numbers and projections.

And if it shows
it has a lot of legs,

then you're going to get
maybe one more single

or one more extension
of your project.

Oh, this is Kanye West.

Kanye, what's up?
I was just talking to them.

Yeah, yeah, I was telling them
about how you're going to lose.

But 50 magnified that.

50 would say, I'm better,
and my SoundScan is this,

and your SoundScan is that.

Expectations were high.

He hasn't sold a fraction
of the material I sold.

We out here. Y'all know that.

Y'all don't need me
to tell you that.

People who aren't even
rap fans

talking about the supposed
battle between you and Kanye.

Yeah, I mean,
it's exciting, man.

We made it an event.

From the record company's
perspective,

they're looking, and
they're going, this is great.

Like, you know people
are buying two and three CDs

because that's
their favorite artist.

It was pretty genius

that they decided to do

this whole, you know, battle

of who puts out, you know--

who's gonna sell the most.

And what I didn't know
was that the leakers

were having a field day
with this.

[pensive music]

Kali and Glover are not able
to control themselves.

Even though they've
sworn off leaking,

they just have to keep going.

Sure enough,

two or three months later,

they decide to start again.

There was this competition
between 50 Cent and Kanye West

over who was going
to sell more albums.

In fact, it was Glover
who decided

the outcome
of this competition.

♪ ♪

Promised one to Kali,

and I promised the other one
to the leader of OSC.

♪ ♪

I recall Kali telling me

that he's gonna try
to get me Kanye.

One of the things
that he didn't know

was that I already had Kanye,

so I had tagged it,
had it ready to go,

and I think I had the better
of the two releases anyway.

This decimated their sales

and destroyed
this little competition

that they were
having with each other

because this factory worker
in North Carolina decided

that he was going
to win the competition.

Why the numbers
look like that?

What the [...]
just happened, bro?

As record stores continued
to close,

the FBI circled in on RNS.

And soon after Dell leaked
the 50 Cent and Kanye albums,

the FBI arrived
in Shelby, North Carolina.

We were looking
at some of the leaking,

when some of these things
were taking place.

And investigation
led us to the fact

that it needed to be
somebody on the inside--

but I say "the inside" that had
access to the music industry.

And Dell Glover worked
in a CD-manufacturing plant.

We had got enough evidence,
now we want to execute

a search warrant
for Dell Glover's house.

I had a maintenance man
come up to me

inside the plant,
and he was like,

look like some officers
standing around your truck,

You know, look out
when you go out there.

As I proceeded to my truck
and I hit the unlock button,

I had three sheriffs
approach me.

From their instructions,
they were just told

that they had to follow me
back to my house.

Got home,
I saw all the agents,

saw how they had entered
my house

and was hauling out my DVD
duplicators that I had built,

anything electronic.

♪ ♪

We knew at that point,
Kali was the leader.

Who is this guy?

What kind of interaction
do you have with him,

and what information can we get
to lead us to the leadership?

At the time,
they didn't arrest me.

They just took all my media
devices except my cell phone.

I kind of realized without
them taking my cell phone,

they had it tapped.

So Kali called me
a couple hours later.

And he told me that the FBI
was on the way to my house,

and I told him he was too late.

He asked me was I serious.

I said, "Very," and I told him
to shut it down.

Adil Cassim,
who is in his mid-30s

and lives at home
in an apartment with his mom--

they raid his house,
but they find almost nothing.

They find a bong,

and they find one CD
where he's recorded his résumé

in Microsoft Word.

And in the author tab,

the user who controlled
the computer--

Kali.

Oh, shit.

The trial for Kali and Dell
was set

for March 10, 2010.

I met
with this federal lawyer.

I gave him my paperwork,
and he looked at me,

and he said, oh,
this is nothing.

You ain't did nothing wrong.

I'm going to eat them alive
on this.

He come back and told me,

"Man, they think
you're the biggest dude

"ever came through
Cleveland County.

"You got about 12 pages
of stuff on you.

"You need to hire you
another lawyer.

I'm gonna send you
to a court-appointed lawyer."

My lawyer sucked,

and I hope he watches this.

He basically told me, you know,
you don't want to go to trial.

You're gonna lose.
Just plead guilty.

So my lawyer--he specialized
in white-collar crimes,

and he kind of knows
the ins and outs of the system.

He suggested that I cooperate
with the government

through a proffer, which is,
you can go talk to them,

but they can't
use certain things

that you say against you.

I knew that they had prosecuted
other groups in the past,

like APC, so they definitely
knew, you know, the structure

and sort of what we were doing.

What they didn't know, per se,
was sort of

the inner workings of RNS

and the members
that were involved.

Really, they wanted Kali.

That's what they wanted.

Kali stood trial
with Matthew Chow,

AKA RL,

another RNS pirate who paid
for a specialized lawyer.

I came to represent
Matthew Chow.

RL was his name
on the chat rooms.

The government said,
"This is the biggest

copyright infringement case
that we have ever brought."

They made a big deal out of it.
They were very cocky.

They asked me to fly out
to Houston for the trial.

And I became, you know,
a witness for the prosecutor.

It was stressful.
It was my first time

being in a courtroom and
actually come face-to-face

with Matthew and Adil.

I was basically
a good mouthpiece

to explain to the jury,
you know, what RNS was,

what the warez scenes was,
kind of all the details

of, like, the structure
of the group.

I went to trial with them
in Houston, Texas.

All the questions they
asked me while I was there--

I pretty much played stupid,
because I didn't want

any of us to get in trouble.

So the Feds said,
"Okay, you're done."

And I went back to my motel.

The trial was
about a week long.

We didn't really fight the
technical aspects of the case.

We more or less conceded
that the music was copyrighted

and that
we had infringed on it.

The government never
could show

that Matthew or Kali
did this willfully,

that they had knowledge
of the law,

and their intent was to break
the copyright laws.

Many of the jurors had kids,

and they were sitting there
with horrified looks,

'cause they knew their kids
had done the same thing, right?

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

I felt like,

what is it that they have

that allowed them to fight

and win that I didn't?

And so what came to mind
was money, for one.

In these type of cases, what
we typically charge them with

is criminal
copyright infringement.

They didn't charge me
with copyright infringement.

They charged me
with conspiracy.

It's just much harder to fight.

There were definitely points
where I did feel guilty

of having to sell them out,
in a sense,

because we did have
that sort of friendship,

that relationship
that was built over many years.

You're always at risk
of being arrested

for this kind of thing.

If the FBI really wants you,
they're going to get you.

The scariest thing
about prison is,

you know, once you go,
once you've been there,

it doesn't seem so scary.

I just really felt bad
for those guys.

Now they will forever
be convicted felons.

There's times
where I have to get

background clearance
for certain things,

and I'm afraid
that it's going to come up.

And, you know, certain
countries I can't go to.

So there's, you know,
a lot of little things.

I think it was more harsh
on my family and friends,

you know, seeing me there
and feeling bad.

And, like, so...

For a digital file,
something that's not tangible--

I think I would get less time
if I robbed a bank, you know?

[pensive music]

It's nice and cool.

Cooled off a lot.
It ain't humid.

♪ ♪

He's just good
with gadgets,

computers and stuff
like that.

Even now, something so simple
with a computer,

I call him
and ask him a question.

"Man, all you got to do
is this and that."

He make it sound easy.

I said, "Look,
let me tell you something.

It's easy to you, but it's
hard to me, you know?"

He's a genius.

He's a genius
with technology.

It's funny how life goes.

I mean, to think that
an international industry got

turned on its head because
of a man nobody thought

to look at twice in a town
most people drive through,

never thinking to stop.

It was just me being
a young teenager,

experimenting with a CD.

And I figured it out.

I was doing it
just because I wanted

to share with the world,
you know, the experience

of being able to download
a song and listen to it

and not have to run
to the store and buy it.

Same thing Netflix
is doing right now.

Same thing Spotify
is doing right now.

I was selling the stuff that,
you know,

made everybody feel good.

What this one man did
in leaking the music,

taught the leaders
of the industry

that they had to change
the business,

and thank God they did that.

Piracy led to Beats.

Rather than, "Let's stop music
from being free,"

we said, "Well, it is free.
What do we do?"

Thanks to Dell
and the MP3 scene,

we're one step closer
to a world

where artists can chart
their own course

and fans can experience music
in their own ways.

These are people that
are valuable to the world.

They're geniuses.

Don't dismiss them because they
figure out something that,

you know, maybe we couldn't
figure out.

The real story
of how music got free

is not about money.

It's about freedom.

Today streaming is
growing at double digits.

If you like music.
you have more opportunities,

more channels, more support,

more curation
than ever before.

The artists themselves
are just having

more direct relationships
with the consumers.

The future's arrived.

Most call them pirates,

but they should call them...

pioneers.

pioneers.