The War on Indies: How Labels & Copyright Trolls Are Silencing Us

An Editorial by the Boss Global Radio Team

The war is here. Not a war of music, but of intimidation, lawsuits, and bogus copyright claims. Independent creators, educators, and dissenters are under siege. The attackers aren’t pirates or scammers—they’re the biggest labels on the planet and the law firms that feed on fear.

Universal Music Group: Striking Down Fair Use

Rick Beato recently called out Universal Music Group (UMG) for abusing YouTube’s copyright system. Instead of protecting artists, UMG weaponizes strikes to punish anyone who dares analyze, critique, or teach music.

Don’t call these “mistakes.” They’re not. They’re a strategy. Strikes silence critics. Strikes scare off dissent. Strikes consolidate control.

And here’s the truth: a copyright strike isn’t a lawsuit—it’s just an assertion. But when a billion-dollar label files one against a solo creator, intimidation is the outcome. They count on independents being too broke, too tired, or too scared to fight back.

Higbee & Associates: The Copyright Troll Machine

This isn’t just rumor. Public Citizen exposed Higbee & Associates in 2019 for running what amounts to a nationwide extortion scheme.

The playbook is always the same:

1. Crawl the internet for uses of copyrighted works.

2. Fire off threatening demand letters.

3. Inflate “damages” into thousands of dollars.

4. Bank on fear to make people pay.

Paul Levy of Public Citizen documented how Higbee sent boilerplate demand letters threatening up to $150,000 in statutory damages—even when no registration existed, making such damages legally impossible.

• One case targeted Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom (HUFF), a nonprofit blog fighting poverty in Santa Cruz. Higbee’s letter accused them of “infringing” a photo that wasn’t even hosted on their site—it was a deep link to the New York Times. By law, that isn’t infringement.

• When challenged by a lawyer, Higbee backed down instantly. The bluff collapsed.

• In another case, a community college professor was hounded for including a cartoon in a course syllabus until she dragged Higbee’s claim into small claims court. Faced with actual scrutiny, Higbee retreated again.

By his own admission, Higbee’s firm boasts that 75–80% of recipients just pay up. 

That’s not copyright protection. That’s extortion with a letterhead.

Weaponized Lawfare Against Creators

Put UMG’s strike abuse together with Higbee’s demand racket and you get weaponized lawfare: a system engineered to—

• Bleed indie creators of time, money, and energy.

• Scare educators, DJs, stations, and dissenters into silence.

• Rewrite the rules of fair use in practice, even if not in law.

This isn’t about safeguarding artists. It’s about silencing independent voices and locking culture inside a corporate chokehold.

Why We Speak Out

At Boss Global Radio, we have no corporate leash. That freedom means we can call this what it is: a coordinated campaign of intimidation designed to erase indie voices from the conversation.

We’re not in litigation. We’re not silenced. And under the First Amendment, we have every right to shine a spotlight on these tactics.

The facts are public. The patterns are obvious. The abuse is real. Calling it out isn’t risky—it’s necessary.

The Call to Action

Indie stations. YouTubers. Podcasters. Bloggers. Musicians. We’re all on the front lines. The war isn’t “coming.” It’s already here.

If we don’t push back, they’ll erase fair use, crush independent media, and silence dissent.

Boss Global Radio stands for transparency, fairness, and the right of independent voices to be heard. That means:

• Name the tactics.

• Expose the abusers.

• Refuse to bow to intimidation.

The fight for independent voices has never been more urgent. And the louder we get, the less they can silence us.