Originally Posted by The Escapist

Insurers are blaming the deaths and damage caused by a stage collapse at the Pukkelpop music festival in Belgium last month on illegal music downloading.

Pukkelpop, according to its Wikipedia entry, is an annual music festival that's been taking place near Hasselt, Belgium since 1985. And it's not some hippie Belgian folk music thing that attracts a small crowd of local long-hairs and a half-dozen bored cops; bands who have appeared at the festival include the Ramones, Nirvana, Neil Young, Metallica, Guns n' Roses, Nine Inch Nails and Iron Maiden, and the 2009 event attracted more than 180,000 people. Tragedy struck in 2011, however, as a severe storm on the first night knocked over tents, lighting towers and video screens and caused a stage to collapse, resulting in the deaths of five attendees and injuries to 70 more. The remainder of the concert was canceled.

But according to insurance companies, the real cause of the disaster wasn't the storm. It was illegal music downloading.

I shit you not, and I'll give you a moment to let that sink in because I think you'll agree, it's a pretty creative interpretation of the situation. Let me say it again: the insurance companies claim the disaster is the fault of illegal music downloading.

Here's why. Millions of people around the world download music, typically without paying for it. That, naturally, has led to a dramatic fall-off in CD sales, forcing musical acts to rely much more on live performances to make their money. That means bigger festivals packed with more artists, attracting more people than ever before. And that means that when something does go wrong, as happened last month, the consequences are far more severe than they would have been a few years ago, when people were safely at home listening to their CDs.

It kind of makes sense if you look at it... well, no, who am I kidding, it makes no sense at all. It's possibly the most bizarre bit of twisted logic I've ever run into; in fact, I manually entered the text of this image capture of the original article into Google translate just to make sure it's not some sort of Onion-flavored irony. It is not. It is just sheer, unbridled ignorance and ridiculous spin. Hard to believe, but sadly true.

Originally Posted by Le Figaro Magazine

L'effondrement du podium du festival rock de Pukkelpop, qui a fait 5 morts et 70 blessés le 18 août dernier, n'est peut-être pas dû qu'à la violence de l'orage. Confrontés à plusieurs catastrophes similaires, les experts des assurances y voient en effet une conséquence inattendue de la chute des ventes de disques. Les groupes ayant un besoin vital de concerts géants, ils louent de gigantesques estrades, surchargées d'équipements vidéo et de spots. La pluie et le vent ne les détruisent pas plus qu'avant, mais quand elles tombent, cela fait beaucoup plus de dégâts.

Originally Posted by Babelfish

L' collapse of the podium of the festival rock'n'roll of Pukkelpop, which made 5 died and 70 wounded last on August 18, n' qu' is perhaps not due; with the violence of l' storm. Confronted with several similar catastrophes, the experts of the insurances indeed see there an unexpected consequence of the fall of the record sales. The groups having a vital need of giant concerts, they rent gigantic estrades, overloaded d' video equipment and of spots. The rain and the wind do not destroy them more qu' front, but when they fall, that made much more damage.

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants (Post 1155767)

Man journalism what happened to you....