/dev/random

Pixelspread posted this story about how the indie label Victory Labels abused their artists and employees.

Almost all of Victory Records major alternative bands including Hawthorne Heights, Atreyu, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, and Hatebreed, left them due to disputes. The head of Victory Records, Tony Brummel, is a bully who treats his employees, the label’s artists, and everyone else like shit. Worst of all, he never paid the bands their royalties.

When Hawthorne Heights left Victory Records, they issued the following statement:

“Due to recent events we have decided to leave Victory Records. Our departure is anything but amicable. We have decided to leave Victory in part due to the actions of the man who sits at the head of the label, Tony Brummel. Tony Brummel is a man that cares more about his ego and bank account than the bands themselves…â€?

“Tony is a man whose greed knows no bounds. After selling more than 1.2 million copies of The Silence In Black and White and If Only You Were Lonely, we have never seen a single dollar in artist royalties from Victory Records. Tony will claim that we have not “recouped,� a term used by those in the music business which means the label has spent more money in advertising than has been made by CD sales. In fact questionable accounting practices are the culprit and we are in fact owed substantial amounts of money much like audits from Taking Back Sunday, Thursday and Atreyu have uncovered. Despite earning more than $10 million, we’ve yet to see a royalty.�

Victory Records loved to sabotage other artists by recruiting street teams to visit record stores and move CDs by Victory artists to more visible spots while burying CDs by other artists. When he couldn’t sign a band, such as Acacia Strain, he signed a band that sounded exactly like them, marketed them the same way, and had their street team put their CDs in front of the other artists’s CDs.

Read the full article at http://thetrc.net/victory.html.