Musicians Yacht Sell Their Sex Tape For Five Dollars To Combat Hackers And Generate Album Sales

(PCM) LA-based music duo Yacht, who also happen to be romantically involved, are fighting back against the culprits who allegedly leaked a sex tape of the duo, by selling their own version of the tape for mere price of $5.00 available for download on their website. The pair claim that someone illegally got a hold of the tape and began to distribute it online. They did not elaborate on where the original tape was available or just how many people had actually viewed it.  The band members, Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans, posted the following message to Yacht Facebook page:

Claire and I — who have been romantic and artistic partners since 2006 — made a “sex tape.” It was intended for us only. We don’t feel the need to justify the reason we made it. Anyone reading this who has been in a long term partnership understands that preserving the relationship is an ever-changing and challenging thing. It’s especially difficult when the lines between career and romance are as merged as ours are. The financial pressures that we’ve been under, which de facto extend into our extracurricular lives, created a circumstance in which we felt like we needed a bit of an escape from the day-to-day. So we turned on a camera, became naked, and had sex. We assumed that we were the only people who would be privy to that video. I guess we were naive. Now you have the option to be privy to that video. For us, that’s a shame. We feel like art is an act of generosity. The art we make for the public is for that expressed purpose. And now we’re in an awkward situation where the art that we made for us and us alone is being viewed by anyone who has the inclination to hit play — a true and humiliating blurring of the public and private.

Jona and Claire went as far as to say that they planned to press charges against the individual who stole the tape and made the decision to release the tape themselves. However, as it turns out the entire situation is a hoax created as a way to hype the new music video that Yacht will be releasing this week.  It has been pointed out by several sources close to the band that they only people who have claimed to see it are celebrity friends/supporters of Yacht and no one else seems to be able to find it online. While this is certainly a great, albeit sneaky, tactic to generate buzz surrounding the band, many feel duped by the publicity stunt and angered that the band would go to this length to generate video views. When we made an attempt to check out the page with the “sex tape” in question we got an error message. Let us know if you or anyone you know of has been able to successfully download the video!