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Last Updated: Tuesday 30 March 1999
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Doubleclick
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I Want My MP3
The Province
The Province
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Grant McDonough of Zulu Records
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Nettwerk Records' Adam Drake is asking offending sites "to graciously stop putting up these songs."
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(Elvis) Costello
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(Sheryl) Crow
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(Natalie) Cole
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There's a free lunch out there in cyberspace and it's giving the record
industry wicked indigestion. A new technology called MP3 is sweeping the
Internet, allowing computer users with the most basic techno-savvy to
download songs from the Net, for free.
There are rumblings in the music industry that it is the biggest
development in the way music is disseminated since the invention of the
compact disc. And according to the people who monitor this stuff -- in this
case, Searchterms.com -- "M-P-3" is bigger than "S-E-X" on the search
engines of the Internet. And that's pretty big.
To fully understand how MP3 works, well, your eyes would glaze over. But
essentially, it's a new compression technology that allows anyone with a
modem and Internet access to download and store large, CD-quality sound
files.
What just a few years ago took hours, ate up vast chunks of computer memory
and sounded like an AM signal pumped through a swimming pool, now takes
minutes, little memory space and to all but the most discerning ear, sounds
like a CD you'd buy at the local record store.
The fact that these files are available for free -- from legal sources, but
increasingly from hundreds of thousands of pirate web sites stuffed with
illegal MP3s -- is causing widespread panic in the multi-billion dollar,
piracy-paranoid music industry.
Music fans who collect and trade MP3 files do so with an anarchistic
flourish synonymous with surfing a decentralized and largely uncontrolled
Internet. To them it's a case of sticking it to the Music Man -- who last
year raked in an estimated $12 billion US.
Add the fact that MP3 hunters are "burning" their finds onto blank CDs,
downloading them on to Walkman-like devices called Diamond Rios, and
digitally copying and trading them like hockey cards across the web, and
the Music Man gets really riled.
"It hurts the industry as a whole, and the artist," says Patrick Zulinov, a
Vancouver representative with Sony Records. "The fact of the business is,
someone's got to make some money somehow to keep people going."
Zulinov says record companies are combating MP3 piracy by offering what
amounts to cyber-sound bites, samples of upcoming albums on their web
sites.
"We're cool with that. We like the fans to hear what's coming. It's in
everyone's interest to tease. But if someone works a long time to get a
record out and then everyone's getting it for free, well...."
At Nettwerk Records, senior web developer Adam Drake has been monitoring
the MP3 situation very carefully.
"It's a thorny thing to even begin to talk about," says Drake, whose
Vancouver-based label handles Sarah McLachlan and the Barenaked Ladies.
"With MP3 the main way people are going to go looking for songs is
illegally from underground sites.
"We've found a number of sites that feature Sarah McLachlan material and
Barenaked Ladies albums. If I wanted to grab a Sarah McLachlan song right
now, I could probably find upwards of 200 sites that have it. We're
currently in the process of tracking down these sites and getting them to
graciously stop putting up these songs."
Drake says the music industry ignored the threat of MP3 technology for far
too long and attempts at imbedding copyright tracers, called "watermarks,"
into sound files have been far too feeble.
"Any security platform can be hacked," says Drake.
Many major artists, he adds, are taking the bull by the horns and releasing
their own MP3s for fans -- usually rare mixes and live tracks.
Tom Petty debuted his single Free Girl Now on digi-music site MP3.com last
week and saw 156,992 downloads in 56 hours, one of the largest totals to
date. The Beastie Boys have included free, high-quality live versions of
songs from the Hello Nasty tour on their website. They Might Be Giants have
posted entire albums and Garbage and David Bowie have posted exclusive
mixes.
The Recording Industry Association of America -- which is purging the web
of illegal sites at a rate of 50 a week -- has teamed up with IBM and five
major record labels in an attempt to thwart MP3 pirates by creating a
heavily encrypted MP4.
The technology will be field tested this spring; by the summer, in will
undoubtedly be hacked.
"Those record companies, they can see a big, scary thing happening here so
they're going to police it," says Ron Obvious, technical director at The
Warehouse, Bryan Adam's Vancouver studio.
"They can't stop the wave so they might as well get in there."
But for small-time musicians and independent record labels, MP3 is a
godsend. A cheaper distribution network simply does not exist.
Al Rodger is a producer at Cross Town Studios in North Vancouver, and a
member of experimental band The Creators (which offers free songs on its
website at www.creatorsworld.com).
"The technology has gone from nowheresville in audio to pretty darn
decent," says Rodger, who believes MP3 technology will supplement
pre-packaged CDs, but not replace them.
"I can't see anybody surfing the web and finding audio sites and pulling
the stuff down and making their own disc from it," he says. "It just
doesn't make sense. A great deal of the appeal of getting a compact disc is
having it in your hand, opening it all up, looking through the lyrics and
all that, the touchy-feely aspect."
The record stores agree. It's a force, but a force that can be reckoned
with.
"Are people going to stop going to bookstores because books are
downloadable on the Internet?" asks Grant McDonagh, with Vancouver indie
record shop Zulu Records. "People like to look and socialize and talk. The
human eyes and the fingers take in a lot of information when you're in a
store -- the colourful graphics, the atmosphere. The Internet's kind of
sterile sometimes."
Some sort of distribution network is required to get popular music from the
studio to the consumer. If MP3 is going to provide that network, somebody
is going to have to pay for it.
So as the record industry plays technological catch up, go ahead, get your
free MP3. Legally, of course.
PLAYERS ON THE NET:
MP3 players, music to download, lots of information, all at
www.mp3.com.
Macintosh MP3 information at www.cbd.net/kdegraaf/mp3.html.
For "streaming audio," which is like radio for the Internet, check out www.shoutcast.com.
To search for MP3s, download or try some streaming audio, log onto www.mp3spy.com.
For LiquidAudio, see www.liquidaudio.com.
For the MacAmp MP3 player, log onto www.macamp.com.
SONGS ON THE NET:
Good Noise: www.goodnoise.com.
The Knitting Factory: www.liquidaudio.com/liquidtracks/knittingfactory/knitting.html.
Twin Tone: www.twintone.com.
For a search engine and a list of 500,000 MP3-format songs available for
download: www.mp3.lycos.com.
WHAT THE STARS SAY
"The Net allows me to satisfy a creative urge by releasing songs and live
stuff more often. It connects me with my fans."
-- Elvis Costello
"It changes things for musicians like me who like to make albums. It's
great if you have a single, but an album is something conceptual. I think
it's going to change the face of making a creative statement."
-- Sheryl Crow
"Music on the Internet is inevitable, and it's going to be interesting to
see how everything works out. Copyright issues are a concern, but the
industry is always very zealous about protecting them, so I'm sure they'll
find a way to deal with it."
-- Natalie Cole
Comments about this article? Send mail to Mike Roberts
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