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THE STANDARD'S
B E A T S H E E T
The Latest Digital Music News - and It's Free
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For more on digital music, visit
The Standard's Media & Marketing page:
http://www.thestandard.com/subject/marketing
Tuesday, March 20, 2001
TOP STORY:
* The Nuge Speaks
NET NOISE:
* Rocknrollvault.com
BEATS:
* MP3.com Changes Its Payback for Playback Rules
DOT DOT DOT:
* Less to Share on Napster ... Oops, She Did It Again ... See Ya,
CDworld
SOUND OFF:
* This week's question: Would you pay $20 a month for a chance at a
slice of MP3.com's million-dollar pie?
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TOP STORY
~~~~~~~~~
The Nuge Speaks
By Julene Snyder
The fact that "Motor City Madman" Ted Nugent wrote an op-ed about
digital music downloads for the Wall Street Journal last week may seem
surprising, but what's more remarkable is the fact that the
opinionated rocker succinctly expressed his views without using a
single profanity. In the piece ("Want to Hear My Songs? Pay Up"),
editorial guidance - or, less plausibly, self-censorship on Nugent's
part - meant that the most inflammatory epithet the veteran rocker
used was "greaseball" (in reference to those who attempt to make money
from his work or image without his permission).
Nugent, who cusses frequently and explicitly enough to reduce even a
grizzled sailor to a full-body blush, is something of an anomaly in
the rock world; he's anti-drugs, pro-guns, and conservative with a
vengeance. While he doesn't speak so much as he proselytizes -
frequently asking, "Are you with me?" after making a particularly
outrageous statement - he's nearly as eager to share his views on
Napster-like file-sharing as he is to pontificate on the joys of
killing your own food. When the Journal approached him to write an
essay, he says he jumped on the chance to reach a broader audience
with what he calls his "clever Nuge-ism word structuring" regarding
music pirates, intellectual property rights and bootlegs of all kinds.
"They saw that I'm one of the rare rock-and-rollers that can actually
form a cognitive thought into a sentence," Nugent says, with
characteristic lack of modesty. He says that the essay - which
chronicles how he regularly patrols the parking lots at his concerts
to confiscate bootlegged merchandise - got such a large response from
readers that he's signed on to be a regular contributor to the
Journal's august pages.
When the conversation turns to the topic of music, copyrights and
cash, Nugent, 52, talks faster than one of his trademark blazing
guitar riffs. "I'm a hands-on kind of guy," he says by phone from his
Michigan home. "I change my own oil, I kill my own dinner ... I stop
my own bootleggers." He says that on occasion in the past, he's
actually gotten physical with bootleggers outside his concerts,
confiscating the "cheap imported booty" and any cash the hapless
T-shirt peddlers collected. Taking matters into his own hands is a
no-brainer for Nugent: "Those were my pictures on that shirt; how dare
you not give me at least 90 percent?"
A member of the National Rifle Association's board of directors,
Nugent admits that he's a latecomer to the Napster debate. "When it
comes to Glock, when it comes to Smith & Wesson, I'm pretty adept, but
when it comes to modern technology, I have to have my wife and
daughter turn my laptop on," he says. But once he got up to speed on
the latest digital music developments, there was no doubt as to where
he stood about file-swapping. "What Napster is doing is blatant, it's
flagrant, it's undeniably unfair and so criminal as to be laughable."
Nugent equates file-traders with thieves, though ironically he claims
he's never yet made any actual money from his biggest-selling albums.
As a young artist in the '70s, he signed the standard major-label deal
that left him with only a negligible fraction of the proceeds from
album sales after recording and touring expenses and agents',
managers' and lawyers' fees. "That contract was actually written on a
dry suppository. I just extracted it recently," he says. "Yeah, it was
rip-off city, no question about it." Over the years, he's hopped from
label to label, and says he now hires people he trusts to look out for
his best interests. But that doesn't change the fact that when people
download one of his big hits, say, "Stranglehold" or "Cat Scratch
Fever," because of the deal he signed, they're not actually taking a
penny from his pocket: "It's that creative accounting you hear about,"
he says ruefully. Nonetheless, he objects to file-trading on
principle, and says he's not interested in joining a musician's union
like the one Courtney Love recently proposed. "I hate unions," he says
flatly. "Unions are for wimps."
He may not have much affection for Courtney Love (and tosses a few
irrelevant insults her way), but Nugent does have a belated valentine
for Metallica: "I have never loved and respected them more," he says,
when asked about the metal band's early stance against Napster. "I'd
like to see Lars (Ulrich's) critics try to keep up with his vapor
trail through one year of touring and see how easy it is for them.
There's no way that the civilian network out there can fathom the
sacrifice that goes into creating a musical career. Only idiots like
us would subject ourselves to such outrageous punishment and call it a
career. There is zero guilt by any of my rich musical friends."
If Nugent put as much time and energy into the file-trading
conversation as he does with his other passions, the volume of the
rhetoric would certainly go up a few notches. "What (Napster's) doing
is wearing a trench coat in July into a food store, and we're supposed
to pretend that they're not stealing pizzas," he says. Nugent says he
believes that the Recording Industry Association of America is
fighting the good fight. "I think what the National Rifle Association
is to gun owners is what the RIAA is to artists," he says. "The people
in charge at the RIAA are just like the people in charge at the NRA.
The RIAA represents people whose interests are fair and legal
compensation for artistic productivity."
Somewhat surprisingly, Nugent admits a grudging respect for Napster's
Shawn Fanning. When asked what he'd say to Fanning if he found himself
alone in a room with him, Nugent doesn't talk about kicking butt.
Instead, he says he'd shake Fanning's hand and tell him how smart and
lucky he is. "I admire his entrepreneurial wizardry," Nugent says. "He
saw a unique niche created by technology advancing faster than the
understanding of its application."
While Nugent isn't interested in giving his music away under any
circumstances, he's learned a lot about how the music business works
over his decades-long career. Short version: Trust is for suckers. "I
want to see every document," he says. "And I want a second opinion. I
want a watchdog for my watchdog. That's how I operate."
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NET NOISE
~~~~~~~~~
Rocknrollvault.com
If you don't want to miss upcoming events like the birthday of the
Cars' frontman Ric Ocasek (relax, he won't turn 52 until Friday, which
gives you plenty of time to ship a nice, solid-gold Hot Wheels to him
or something), you'd best make this site a regular stop during your
virtual meanderings. Here you can take a stroll down memory lane and
find out which singles were top of the pops way back when (in the U.S.
30 years ago, it was Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee," and Heart's
"These Dreams" 15 years back); get Beatles monitor wallpaper, pithy
quotes and other goodies in a section devoted to the Fab Four; and
test your rock-and-roll trivia skills by entering weekly contests. A
labor of love, the site is authored by one "Moondog," who describes
himself as "a collector of music for over 25 years & is curator of The
Rock 'n' Roll Vault." He's one of those guys (anyone remember that
paean to ultimate music geeks, "High Fidelity"?) who likes to compile
lists; you can learn about Moondog's favorite ballads and Beatles'
songs, as well as which artists he considers overrated (Bruce
Springsteen, Nirvana and the Beach Boys, to name a few). You won't
find any hot new things listed anywhere on the site - except,
possibly, in the "new releases" section - but, no matter. What we have
here is an enormous Web-based love letter to rock-and-roll and the
fans that keep a' rockin' all night long.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
BEATS
~~~~~
MP3.com Changes Rules for Payback for Playback
From the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time-but-then-the-Internet-imploded
department comes the news that MP3.com will launch a new "premium
artist service" starting April 1. MP3.com will charge artists $19.99 a
month to become a member of the formerly free service, which
compensates artists based on the number of times visitors listen to
their songs. Normally, this sort of announcement might be met with a
shrug by MP3.com's rank-and-file musicians, but it turns out that only
these premium artists will be eligible for Payback for Playback
payments, which are handed out from a million-dollar pot based on the
number of times visitors listen to their songs on the site. The artist
area of MP3.com's message boards is buzzing with complaints from
disgruntled musicians. One diatribe sneers, "If MP3.com dies horribly,
it will be because the management decided to play like a major label
and screw over the people who were their most loyal support base,
loyal customers, and greatest value." Another apoplectic entry says of
the company, "You ask and want want want, like a child, yet you don't
give anything in return ... quit grubbing for money and get to work on
supporting us, not your pocket books." Yikes. Previously, cashing in
on the Payback for Playback money required nothing from artists except
registering to be included and a whole bunch of fans listening to
their songs. Hence, the company cut lots of checks for miniscule
amounts of money every month, which sure sounds like an administrative
nightmare. The company's metrics for February report that 59.2 million
"listens" were logged for that month, with 926,500 "available songs
and audio files posted." An MP3.com press release about the rule
changes went out this morning, claiming that the new rules benefit
artists and labels, since it's now "easier for artists to qualify for
the program by lowering the number of unique listens required."
Read more at TheStandard.com:
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,22942,00.html?nl=bts
DOT DOT DOT
~~~~~~~~~~~
Less to Share on Napster ... Oops, She Did It Again ... See Ya, CDworld
Web traffic tracker Webnoize announced last week that the average
Napster user is sharing a whole lot less music since the new
court-mandated copyright filter kicked in. According to a press
release, "nearly 60 percent fewer digital music files" were being
shared the day after the filtering system began, and Webnoize analyst
Matt Bailey says that "the number of downloads per user has dropped by
half." Bailey opines that "users will quickly migrate to alternate
systems." ... If you're dying to see the new Britney Spears' Pepsi
commercial before it makes its debut during the Oscars, you can pop on
over to pepsi.yahoo.com/britney and see it two full hours before the
broadcast this Sunday. Scuttlebutt on the ad is that it not only
features Bob Dole, but lots of costume changes. (Presumably, they'll
be for Britney, although it's at least theoretically possible that the
one-time presidential contender will don a peek-a-boo midriff top.)
While all of the hoopla over a commercial is hardly unprecedented, a
press release from Yahoo points out that for the entire weekend, Pepsi
has "purchased all the media available on the Yahoo home page," making
this the "first time that a company has been the exclusive advertiser
on the home page of Yahoo!" ... CDworld announced that the company -
which sold discount music, movies, software and games online - would
close its doors "slightly before 5 p.m. PST" last Friday. But for one
more week, intrepid bargain-hunters with a gambling spirit can still
take a chance on sending in a few bucks to the defunct company for
such treasures as a Yanni "Tribute" video ($12.99), a CD featuring
John Travolta talking about the movies "Michael" and "Mad City"
($8.99) and a hot rod video called "Wild in the Streets" ($6.99).
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SOUND OFF
~~~~~~~~~
This week's question: Would you pay $20 a month for a chance at a
slice of MP3.com's million-dollar pie?
E-mail your opinions to julene@well.com with "sound off" in the
subject line, and we'll print a selection of the responses in next
week's newsletter. Letters may be edited for clarity and length, so
keep them short and include your name and affiliation, if any.
Last week's question: What's the worst digital-music layoff horror
story you've heard recently?
Mine.
- Peter Cowley
Director of media development
MJI Interactive
STAFF
~~~~~
Written by Julene Snyder (julene@well.com).
Editor: Michele Keller (mkeller@thestandard.com).
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