MESSAGE
| DATE | 2005-03-26 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir Secretary NYLXS
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] File Sharing Wars
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File-sharing case worries Indie artists
MAR. 25 9:18 P.M. ET Recording industry executive Andy Gershon sees
opportunity in the online file-sharing networks that most of his
rivals decry as havens for music pirates. As president of V2 Records,
home to such established acts as The White Stripes and Moby, Gershon
mines such Internet distribution channels for new fans and revenues.
"The cat is so far out of the bag and so far gone that it's pointless
to keep fighting it," Gershon said. "I might as well make as many
people fans of our music, whether they illegally download it or not."
A number of mostly independent recording artists and labels have
experimented with and embraced the freewheeling digital distribution
that the Internet affords. And many worry that a victory by major
recording companies in a landmark file-sharing case now before the
U.S. Supreme Court could short-circuit the very technologies that they
believe are making a more level playing field of the music business.
The nation's high court is to hear arguments next Tuesday on whether the
entertainment industry can hold file-sharing software firms Grokster
Inc. and StreamCast Networks, which distributes Morpheus, liable for
what computer users do with the technology.
Lower courts have sided with the software makers, which assert their
so-called peer-to-peer technology is as legitimate as a videocassette
recorder or a copy machine.
Several artist rights associations, music publishers and well-known
musicians, including Don Henley, Sheryl Crow and the Dixie Chicks,
are backing the major recording labels, which accuse Grokster and
StreamCast of profiting from a business model that depends on piracy.
From 1999 to 2004, the total value of the U.S. recording industry
fell $2.4 billion to $12.1 billion -- a decline the industry blames
primarily on file-sharing.
But some artists, including Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, see an upside
to file-sharing.
"I look at it as a library. I look at it as our version of the radio,"
Tweedy said. "It's a place where basically we can encourage fans to
be fans and not feel like they're being exploited, which is basically
what the whole industry is geared to do."
Tweedy encourages fans to tape Wilco shows and has distributed tracks
over the Internet for free months before releasing them on CDs.
He agrees artists should be compensated, but "you try to encourage
people to feel more like a patron of the arts instead of a consumer."
V2 Records taps file-sharing networks and other Internet distribution
means by selling songs and offering free promotional materials like
music videos. Though results are difficult to quantify, Gershon credits
ads on Web sites and song giveaways with raising the profile of The
Blood Brothers.
"The CD sales have stayed steady," said Gershon. "For a band like this,
a lot of the steadiness of the sales is based on people being turned
on to it online."
Mitch Bainwol, chairman of the Recording Industry Association
of America, says artists and labels can be creative with online
distribution and promotion but those decisions should not be left up
to listeners.
"If you want to give up your property for free as a way of trying to
drive other commercial advantages, that is certainly a strategy one
can employ," Bainwol said. "But it should be the individual (artist's)
choice."
About 20 independent recording artists, including musician and producer
Brian Eno, rockers Heart and rapper-activist Chuck D, filed a legal
brief with the high court in support of Grokster and StreamCast. They
insist file-sharing and related technologies help expose new audiences
to their music -- outside established channels of the recording labels.
The artists argue that file-sharing "has the immediate potential to
develop into a significantly more prevalent alternative distribution and
promotion system." But a ruling that outlaws or limits it "will block
that potential from ever being fully realized," the brief contends.
Some are concerned about the possibility of requiring file-sharing
companies to filter out unauthorized works, a move the major labels
consider crucial to legitimizing file-sharing as a distribution system.
"It definitely would greatly reduce the amount of traffic," said Chip
Schutzman, head of online marketing at Sovereign Artists Inc.
Santa Monica-based Sovereign has promoted and sold tracks by Heart
using the online Weed file-sharing format, in which listeners can hear
a song for free several times before having to buy it. Weed files are
distributed to Web sites and across file-sharing networks.
For Sananda Maitreya, who also joined the legal brief, online music
distribution gives him the freedom he says he lacked when he was signed
with a major label in the 1980s under his former name, Terence Trent
D'Arby. Back then, Maitreya recalled, committees had to sign off on
any music released.
"The Beatles could not have faced that criteria and come up with
anything other than the most mediocre, conservative music," said
Maitreya, who now lives in Italy.
Maitreya and the rap group Fine Arts Militia, featuring Chuck D, have
released albums through Weed. Representatives of the groups declined
to give specific sales figures.
John Beezer, president of Weed-creator Shared Media Licensing Inc. in
Seattle, estimates that fewer than 100,000 tracks have been sold in
the 18 months since the software went into use. Beezer said more than
7,000 artists have offered their songs through Weed, and the vast
majority aren't signed with recording labels.
But even for unsigned bands, the potential to cheaply target the pool
of music fans on file-swapping networks can be tantalizing.
Kevin Martin, vocalist for the 1990s band Candlebox, credits a
file-sharing song promotion involving the Yoo-hoo drink brand with
generating online interest and some sales for his new LA-based band,
Kevin Martin and the Hiawatts.
"We're not doing 10,000 records a week," he said, "but to see yourself
go from 15 records to 62, it's pretty exciting."
--
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