Kanye West caused a ruckus (again) on Twitter on Tuesday night when he tweeted a photo of his computer that had an open tab for the torrenting website, The Pirate Bay. West had posted a screenshot to Twitter to show his fans what he was listening to, specifically, “Death With Dignity” by Sufjan Stevens. The open tab suggests that the artist was looking to illegally download the digital synthesizer plug-in, Serum.
Electronic artist Joel Zimmerman, a.k.a. Deadmau5, quickly called out the rapper on pirating software. You can see the tweet below.
This pirating issue is personal for Deadmau5 as his long-time friend and collaborator, Steve Duda, coded the software for Serum and sells it via his Xfer Records imprints. To further his stance, Deadmau5 suggested that people set up a Kickstarter for West so that the rapper could properly purchase Serum.
According to TorrentFreak, West’s album, The Life Of Pablo, was reportedly downloaded on BitTorrent by approximately 500,000 people after its first day on Tidal. It topped The Pirate Bay‘s list of “most shared music torrents by a landslide.”
The following day, an anonymous source reported that Kanye West’s legal team was going to discuss the possibility of starting legal action against The Pirate Bay.
Looks like that ship has sailed now, huh, West?
Entertainment Weekly reported that West did not directly address Deadmau5’s specific complaint or even acknowledged the fact that he was torrenting in any way. Instead, in true Kanye West fashion, the rapper tweeted a series of broader and increasingly provocative criticisms of the electronic artist. You can see some of his tweets below.
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/705097867757752322
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/705098673852715010
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/705099993347133440
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/705100180065034240
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/705100376622637060
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/705100610002096128
I’m going to say it again: someone needs to take Twitter away from Kanye West and they need to do it fast.
West, there’s some substantial evidence that you were pirating. If you want to prove that you didn’t pirate Serum, show us the receipt of you legally purchasing the digital synthesizer plug-in and there’s no issue. If you keep up with this nonsensical Twitter barrage, the public is only going to assume that you pirated Duda’s software.
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