Astropilot wrote some serious accusations over Altar Records recently on his Facebook page and over internet in Russian language. He turned against Altar Records after 10 years of collaboration. It seems many quickly jumped to the conclusion Astropilot was a victim. Sadly, without evidence and knowing my side of this quite long story. You got it..this is only a problem about ..: money !
So, let’s see the other side of the medal.
Firstly, let me tell you that is a painful thing to write, especially when having helped an artist to grow up and took him under Altar’s wing for years. Let me show you evidences that Astropilot got what he deserved as an artist but also on the monetary side. Secondly, I do not like to wash my ‘dirty laundry’ in public, so I sent an email to Astropilot personally.
I’ll illustrate this letter with screenshots and some pictures found on the public domain (mostly Facebook) to show you a bit more what we’re talking about and to place things in context.
After reading this letter, you’ll be able to understand a bit more who is Astropilot and maybe why he’s having a kind of aggressive behavior towards Altar. I hope this letter will open your eyes and that you’ll be able to understand the situation clearly.
I do not hope or wish you to take any part in this story. Read and see by yourself. Let’s stay positive and send love to Dmitriy … and finally, maybe there’s some lesson to be learned here.
1:
Hello Dmitriy, so you published all those with Altar Records ? 150 tracks .. wow! You must have had a sort of agreement, isn’t it? You must have been happy for this 10-years collaboration, no?
It seems that you are forgetting that you were ‘nobody’ living in a far place on earth 15 years ago and that the ‘verbal agreements’ / email agreements you had to release your first pieces of music with labels such as Avatar and Altar contributed to your growth as an ‘artist’ and put you on the map in this small psychill / ambient music scene.
So please stop right now discrediting the ones who were at the source of your success, because from your words, it looks the labels were never working side-to-side with you and for you. It seems that we were only acting with bad behavior when reading your post(s).
That’s one thing. Labels are working in collaboration with their artists and for them, for their happiness. If you were that unhappy with Altar, why did you stay, then?
I have a great digital distributor, I was working hard designing your CD covers, making mastering for your first releases, promoting everywhere on internet and kindly used word-of-mouth on festivals to try to book you wherever possible, paying your ‘fee’ each time the same day when you asked for, making videos, banners, updating the websites…and so on…I’ve even supported some of your releases on your label that you started in 2016 by buying a few of them.
So ‘publishing’ your discography on Altar Records was not just a one-way, one-time work by simply uploading digital tracks on the internet. Working for you all these years and now getting back anger and jealousy from you makes me sad. Helping out some artists to make a living out of their art and being ignored and injured nowadays is not a smart behavior from you.
2:
Well, here you are speaking about ‘ROUGH CALCULATIONS” you have no real evidence, that’s completely irrelevant! You are also completely mistaken in between Solar Walk app and Star Walk app. Astropilot has none of his music that was registered/distributed by Altar on the Star Walk app as far as I know. Altar Records was only contacted via Astropilot to get his music only on the Solar Walk app. If Star Walk app uses Astropilot music, then Astropilot should ask directly about it to the Developper of the app. A simple check on Youtube about the Soundtrack of Star Walk app(s) by checking “Show More” under the video, shows no evidence this is Astropilot’s music ! Check out for yourself: https://bit.ly/3fOD2rS . Maybe Astropilot got a deal directly with the developer but the music on this app is not tracks taken from any Astropilot past albums registered with Altar.
Also, you got a free App on iTunes and Google, those were participating a lot for the ‘big numbers’ that you saw along the sold Solar Walk app, but you certainly don’t know how to make the difference and that’s a shame because you also are a label manager and have a very average distributor. You admitted having made 3$ of sales for one track, out from great artists in 5 years on your Astropilot Music label ? Please quit this distributor and sign with another one asap! You are also forgetting that the app distributor takes his share, as well as the digital distributor and the label. If you wanted to get 100% of your sales, (as I told you in 2010 by the way), you must have opened your own label and go from there since the beginning. We had an agreement together.
One more evidence your rough calculations are irrelevant: not so long ago, I got contacted by an artist having released two tracks on Altar Records back in 2010. He stumbled across some Youtube video of one of these two tracks and saw that there was more than 6 million of views. He got in touch with me by email, simply asking me to check the accounting as “there might have $12.000 of sales” generated by the 6M views out of this monetized video on Altar’s behalf. This amount was his ‘rough calculation’, he was quite sure of him. As usual, I was keen to check his account. I came back to him with the real number of sales which was $440. After having the irrefutable evidence of the breakdown of the sales, I sent him his share and the story ended there.
So if you are an artist and you are reading this, please .. stop your ‘rough calculations’ based on what others are telling you to do or what your ego is telling you to think. You are wrong, and if you are not happy as you are in your daily ‘artist’ life, then become a label manager to get more insights on how things are really working in the digital domain, or change your lifestyle, music industry is maybe not for you.
Any Altar artist wanted to get paid for their Royalty share has to sign a contract since the beginning of 2019. No contract = no breakdowns, no reports. This contract has to be discussed in between the parties. No discussion = no contract.
Because of Astropilot, it is absolutely finish to be confident only by words or via FB or emails as I use to work in the past. I do not trust anyone, anymore. And I’m very sorry about this.
3.
I DID NEVER IGNORED YOUR ‘QUESTIONS’ because you never asked about the details of your sales before 2019. You were just happy to get your money on time, and you got the money each time you were asking for (the same day most of the time).
As previously said, I do not send such reports without a contract. The ‘incomprehensible amounts’ are because you were asking several times to get for your ‘fee’ trough the year. The sales are never the same amount and there’s external fees not only on the label, but also that has been shared in between the label and the artist. Being a label manager yourself, you should understand what I’m talking about here. If you were having a contract with me (as all other Altar artists) you would have all these details, as the others do.
You are the only one on Altar Records that complains over 60 artists. Everybody happy but you (and another artist, but that’s not the time to speak bout him at the moment). So, 2 unhappy over 60. I guess there is some exceptions to the rule and sadly, you are one of them.
4.
We already have covered this in point 2. However, you are still stuck in your “I’m sure that …” We ‘talked about” ..etc. No evidence and the amounts I were sending to you were not “small”:
5.
I did not ‘force’ you at all! How could I? I sent it via email. You just rejected the contract and asked me to “immediately remove all of your music” from Altar Records. Every contract is subjected to discussion in between artist and label.
No way to speak with you to make this contract suitable for both of us. So why not asking me for 10 years contract then? You just dropped the discussion and we could never come to an agreement by your fault.
As per the ‘transfer’ to my son, it is called a ‘legacy’. You have no kid so maybe you cannot understand that point. But again, thinking someone is ‘crazy’ about something is irrelevant, especially speaking about a contract in which both parties could enter to an agreement made to fit both needs. It is intended to be argued before having the document signed. You are the only artist in which I never entered a legal agreement. This is why this story started by the way. You took the liberty to ‘take back’ all of your music as a Copyright owner. I could do nothing against that and you did it.
Another important point here: If I offered you the first contract mentioning my son, it was because during your stay with me in Canada in 2015, you asked me to continue to pay your Royalties to your wife in the case something would happen to you. And I immediately agreed. So that was a natural answer to your question. Do not pretend I’m the one who forced you to sign a one-way contract.
However, you pushed it too far… Which brings us to point 6:
6.
-So you got the piece of the cake, and you eat it too ! I paid you by advance for each of your 150 tracks, 10 albums to help you to ‘pay the rent’, for your living. I also sent your Royalties each time you were asking for (usually artists get them once per year, but for you, as I knew your situation, I paid you every time you asked for your money.
And I also paid for this astropilot.bandcamp website. For placing your albums and sell them, and give your share and sell your CDs that I’ve invested all of the incoming money I had from your sales. That was such an investment. Now I’m stuck with thousands of your titles that I cannot sell there anymore because you have send a DMCA notification to Bandcamp to take down all of your music, with in mind to get ‘back’ this astropilot.bandcamp site to get money from sales and prevent me to sell the CDs. Because you want people buy your music from this site directly, you want everything having ‘astropilot’ name anywhere is coming to you and to you only.
-The remix was great and not made the ‘simplest way’ you’re talking about. We also did recorded amazing flutes lines from AEolia project in my studio. Anyways, I will send all those nice remixes to whoever wants them for free and if you are one reader wanting them, just ask.
-For the new demo song, I wrote some lyrics that apparently touched you personally even not intended to speak about you, that means they are quite right even if you were not directly aimed, you admitted by your behavior that was the case, then this ‘factious guy’ became you by your own means and will:
Anyway.
You are admitting here by your behavior and a kind of personal and emotional relationship with the lyrics having made music with 100% cracked software. Therefore, how can you argue ‘your’ music is really yours? You have never paid anything to make ‘your’ music except the computer, so you steal work from others (developers) to make a product that you are selling for your sole own profit. That’s an important point here, because actually you are doing to others what you are blaming Altar Records did to you.
Astropilot is making music with Omnisphere for 10 years a least, in each of his tracks you can hear this soft synth…but he never ever bought it. There’s also so many other pieces of software used in his tracks that he never bought from the developers.
So before complaining you have not enough income, then the software used in Astropilot tracks, remixes and masters should have been bought. It is time to grow up and stop ‘try before buy’, isn’t it?
7.
We already have covered mostly these allegations; however, it is important to tell that the tracks published on compilations are part of the Royalties that were paid to Astropilot through the years. A label is also making compilation to extend artist’s promotion over the internet. It is profitable to the label and to the artist. Not just for the label as Astropilot seems to state here. And again, these approximate calculations here are totally irrelevant as we covered this issue on point 2. On top of this, Astropilot Music label has taken back all of the Astropilot past Altar catalogue. Astropilot should now get all of the ‘money he deserves’ from ‘his music’.
However, I want to remind you that I upfront money for the 150 tracks by advance and I paid the Royalties over the years, too. Altar Records is not a label who ‘steals’ the music. On the contrary. That’s something Astropilot states all over the place. Altar Records have about 60 artists and has paid out about $80,000 of Royalties to them over 11 years of existence.
I think that some people or artists living in countries were there is much corruption are a bit paranoiac about ‘big numbers. There is also a problem of ego here and many people including festival organizers can relate if an artist is coming to a festival as a good person, to have fun and giving his best, his love for their event and guests or if they are coming just about the money, their ‘fee’, or push up their fame. I think you got the point and if you have noticed or been towards him during a festival, you know what I mean.
I strongly believe there is a lot of jealousy surrounding a ‘successful’ label coming from people in general who does not understand what it implies to run a label, also some jealousy coming from artists seeking to make a living out of their music. We won’t speak yet about animosity in between labels and the fact that each label has their own way to work here. There’s so much to say! Fortunately, this is not a ‘jungle’, this is regulated by laws and if you are interested in the subject, I do recommend you to read on this matter.
That said, let’s get to point 8:
8.
That’s right, we had no legal contract, so you took advantage of this to force the removal of everything having ‘astropilot’ name in it. Shame on you, you forced me to also remove our collabs that I also have made and paid your share over the years! That’s a really bad idea as the tracks were polished nicely on my side and were quite amazing to my opinion. But again, too much ego here…Music is for you to make money that’s all. No consideration for the people who need or want to hear some nice music, to make them feeling good. You already told me about this long ago, when you wanted to “make commercial music over psychedelic music, because an artist can earn more money than on the underground, small psytrance scene”.
THIS VIDEO WAS DELETED BY ASTROPILOT.
However, I have filmed with my phone this video before hand !
Just ask me for a private link and I’ll send it to you if you want to see it.
This incriminates Astropilot, shame on him for not allowing me to release our joint track WRITTEN TOGETHER at Altar Records studios. What an ego trip !…
9.
Thank you for saying I was ‘drunk’ at the party and thanks for your offense… because being ‘drunk’ means I could have said anything but the truth.
However, on your side, you were on the downside effect of amphetamine when I came on the stage to play at the festival right after you that Sunday morning, you took some speed during the night, before your set with your Russian friend A****N, you got much Vodka and was unable to finish your “live” set. You were so tired of your own music that you asked me to start earlier in order to cut on your play time.
I had to start 30 minutes before the beginning of my set to free you up, to accommodate you. This is a totally unprofessional behavior.
You left Canada with 1000euros fee from the festival + $1200 that I gave you when we get to my Bank in Montreal city together. That’s $2500, clear of taxes, in your pockets. (August 2015).
We took good care of you, like a brother. At the festival, when you wanted more tickets for drinks, food, you were afraid to not have enough, I helped out. Always asking me for something and be there for you. All the time. I welcomed you as a brother in my house.
My ‘house’ was a Mobil-home by the way, and was worth $35,000. I finished to pay the mortgage in August 2019. You don’t know what you are saying. You are trying to put in people’s mind that I’m rich and live in an opulent house.
I sold the Mobil-home (where you came in 2015 and where we wrote ‘Inflation Eternelle’ together) and I live now in a small apartment.
I got money to smoothly run Altar Records from 2 legacies (great loss for the family): in 2011 from my aunt and in 2016 from my grandfather. So, I could continue to upfront money to artists for their music on Altar Records and get a new car. Thanks life.
Now, before you came to that Canadian festival, we had this discussion, I think we can let readers ponder on it, it speaks for itself on what really moves you in your ‘artistic’ life:
I have all emails we have exchanged, all videos and all of your past posts when you agree to release your stuff on Altar Records and when you were happy about the help and all of the money I gave you for your Royalties + the advance for each albums.
We have reached around $20,000 over 10 years of collaboration that I sent you via MoneyGram, Paypal and by hand (you signed a receipt in the Canadian Bank). If you were unhappy with me, why staying then?
If Dmitry was ‘not in the best financial situation’ to pay his rent and bills, then maybe the problem is not the rent… Which brings us to point 10:
10.
So it could be done for free? You had no choice to wait if you were really in the need. A ‘chance’ you have had no kids, because with the lifestyle you have maybe life would be more problematic for both of you. Again, you were asking for advances?
In French we have a moto it is going like: “give him a hand and he’ll take your arm” … We all have problems in our lives and this is not the fault of others. That was your choice to move to Ukraine and to come back to Russia and spend a lot to move with your (expensive) cat, too. That was your choice to go to vacations and to buy expensive headphones…and so on. Do not try to put your lack of luck on others. That’s your life, you are the only one in charge of it. There are people much unluckier than you in the world. Maybe you have to rethink your lifestyle, which does not corresponds to your expectations.
Astropilot in vacations, over the world, Italy, Tunisia, Goa, India
11.
Indeed, why staying in a difficult situation when everyone else is getting a job for living?
Aside of Altar Records work, I did so many artwork and mastering jobs for other labels during the period of 2002-2015 to be able to live from my art. But I also did work at as a truck driver, at cafés, restaurants and other places to sustain my life and family life.
The ‘tremendous work’ you are speaking about was placed in good hands and has grown up during the years. The result today speaks for itself; you are far from the kind boy I met long ago, that was giving a hand to his grandmas to plant potatoes in the garden.
You should have been thankful for all of the help you got during these years but instead you became angry and jealous. That’s a shame.
12.
Thank you so much for declaring clearly, solely and officially that I have paid you, you got the advances and the amount of money relates to the end of point 9. As per the ones never got their Royalties, it is always written in our emails, verbal or legal contracts: my way to work is that each artist has an anniversary date to come back to me reclaiming their statements. This is the way I’m working and I’ve never failed to pay their due. Beforehand, if not happy working with Altar Records, then why accepting such conditions? I’m not the one to blame here. Maybe some ‘lazy’ artists out there are waiting for everything to fall from the sky. Please, stop dreaming.
13.
Well, again thank you for declaring I pay the artists, because from your own words spread across internet and stories shared with organizers and artists at festivals, it seems I’m a thief.
Yes, we now have contracts with everyone. Even if I always have had lots of confidence with all the artists over the past years, the story that happened with you turned to an obligation get contracts with everyone.
To avoid such stories happening again in the future. I guess that’s the most positive part of this story.
So, these tracks are part of YOUR albums? You mean the albums I paid you by advance and you never had sent anything to your collaborators?
You kept the $1000 without noticing the other artists? Wow what a way to make collabs with others pals!
So yes, I got their signature on legal contracts that stipulates that those tracks must return to Altar Records, obviously. And because they have your ‘astropilot’ copyrighted name on them, I cannot use them. You were not really clean in this story. On top of that you got them up AGAIN on your label, even some ‘2019 remaster’ were re-issued and you still have NOT sent anything to any artist involved in these tracks.
You are claiming that tracks were not issued in the past on Altar? Only two of them. That was an EP and you never paid anything to the artists for this… No advance, no Royalties. I have a good distributor, from which I can rely and from which you got money during our years or collaboration. So, I’ll manage to get money for these artists too for their work, if possible.
About your way to make ‘free compilations on Astropilot Music’, let me laugh out loud, you are getting paid from the streaming and ‘donations’.
Frankly, you are doing to others what you do not want done unto you.
Some last words:
A label is a business, I have no shame working hard and getting money out of it because it corresponds to what I love to do and I’m also an artist with several projects and abilities. We do not have the same relationship with business in America and in Europe I’m afraid.
The first ones taking advantage of my work (and apparently from my pleasant musical taste as I’m getting copied much from other ‘psychill’ labels) is the artists themselves.
During more than 12 years I declined the bookings I was offered to play in Europe to avoid traveling from Canada to make less plane pollution for the Planet, therefore I gave those bookings to artists already in place around the festival locations. You got a few, too.
I feel weird about what happened, I hope you’ll be happy in the future and that your expectations will be reached with your Astropilot Music label.
Still, there’s so many things to say and sadly, the Trance scene has becoming such a dirty place over the years. I’m missing so much the early years!
So please Astropilot, try to be nice, more professional, more lovely. Things will be better for you, for us, for everyone in the ‘CHILL’ scene.
Be well and take care,
(all pictures featured here are taken from Facebook or private messages in between parties – original Astropilot’s post can be found here: https://teletype.in/@astropilot/Ff-sczx8w
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