80s Music Central News

Much to their dismay, World Wide Web-sawy fans of the Cure found Wednesday (Oct. 14th) that the largest online source of free live recordings by the band had dried up overnight. “The Cure MP3 Audio Archive” — which hosted 750 live cuts from throughout the modem-rock band’s 23-year career — was removed Tuesday after the student hosting it was ordered to do so by his university, which had been getting pressure from the Recording Industry Association of America. “We brought it to Elektra Records’ attention and said, ‘Let us know if the Cure is OK with the site or [if] they want us to do something about it." said Frank Creighton, the RIAA’s vice president and associate director of anti-piracy. “We got a response from Elektra basically saying that the Cure [were] fine with the RIAA addressing this.” In site owner Hajdik’s eyes, however, the site was doing the band a service by offering exposure and undercutting the market for bootleg live recordings. He is now searching for a new home for his massive library of live Cure works. “A few people have expressed interest, but nobody’s committed to anything,” he said.