All language subtitles for How.Music.Got.Free.2024.S01E02.1080p.WEB.H264-ShoutOutToKali

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.