John doe of the Los Angeles band X got together with friends from Superchunk and Guided by Voices to produce a benefit album for Kosovo refugees that you won't find in any store. "CARE for Kosovo" is offered in MP3 file format only at www.emusic.com, another indication that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is far too late in promoting its Secure Digital Music Initiative specs. As much as the major labels would like to lock out consumers from downloading MP3, and lock out artists from working with anything but SDMI copy protection, the real lockout is happening in the other direction-many artists are refusing to deal with the RIAA and major labels in any way, shape or form.
Sometimes conspiracy theorists paint too bleak a picture of the RIAA's Hilary Rosen, who is not the source of all evil on the planet. It's hard to garner too much sympathy for Rosen, though, because the RIAA doesn't seem to get it. MP3 is not about bootlegging, it's about creating alternative distribution paths to eliminate mediators, and bring artists together with their audiences without the intervention of major labels that have long taken too large a profit slice.
It's no accident that business is booming for AniDiFranco's Righteous Babe label without big-shot distribution help, or that Jonatha Brooke has seen her sales triple since leaving MCA and launching her own Bad Dog Records.
Consumers' fragmented tastes fit the MP3 model for digital audio distribution in the same way that eclectic tastes in goods and services fit the one-to-one marketing model of the Internet. Traditional formats from print to vinyl to CDs will not die, but will be augmented by the newer, more immediate models.
Artists care about copy protection, but their primary goal is to get the traditional labels out of the music scene. They are pointedly rejecting lucrative contracts with major labels in favor of file-distribution deals with the likes of MP3.com and Audio Galaxy.
A skeptic might say that the labels will always force the mega-stars to sign SDMI-download contracts, but so what? Ask the Smashing Pumpkins about the fickleness of today's music-listening public. A recent Wall Street Journal article about high schoolers using MP3 suggested that most teenagers choose which groups to listen to, not from radio air play or MTV video rotation, but from new artists who are given the spotlight at commercial MP3 sites. Marketers who are trying to maintain intermediate sales layers outmoded by the Internet should pay careful attention to the lessons of MP3.
Timespeople this summer will examine the role of engineers in independent music production. if you help run an mp3 site as a labor of love or are continuing your day job just to fund your evening bar band, contact us at lwirbel@cmp.com for a chance at fame.
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