Entertainer David Bowie speaks to reporters before his performance at a concert celebrating his 50th birthday Thursday, Jan. 9, 1997, at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Labels large and small are itching to get jiggy with MP3, but strictly on
their own highly controlled terms. Sony is reportedly demanding that new
signings give the label final say on all online activities. The big
companies are handling MP3s with hospital gloves, as if the format could
infect and destroy the fabric of cultural commerce. "They call MP3 a
virus," says rapper Ice-T, another Atomic Pop convert. "But the virus
doesn't see itself as a virus. It sees itself as a living organism. It
forces the artist ... to give consumers something extra so they'll want
to acquire it legitimately." Is MP3 just another word for added value?
If every song is essentially an advertisement for its creator, MP3
has it all over billboards, banner ads or print advertising in terms of
sheer buzz. More than one online surfer has discovered -- or rediscovered
-- an artist or group after stumbling acro ss its music online. Clif
Marsiglio, 27, a manager and programmer for Indiana University, listened
to David Bowie during the '80s. "While trying to find his new single
online," he says, "I ran into a Bowie archive. I've been collecting his
discs ever since. A few bootleg songs prompted me to buy most of his
legitimate albums."
For decades, so-called bootlegging -- band-approved tape trading --
has been raising the profile of rock bands such as the Grateful Dead, the
Allman Brothers and Phish, which are famous for extended onstage
improvisation. Such groups not only condone the trades but also provide
sweet-spot seating sections for tapers to set up. "We got paid for what we
hadn't done yet rather than for what we had done," says John Perry Barlow,
a former Grateful Dead lyricist and co-founder of the Electronic Freedom
Foundati on. "We gave away our concerts as soon as we played them, but we
were in a good position to charge for concerts we hadn't played." The
Dead's social contract with its audience economically enriched the band
while providing fans with more new music than an y other major rock act.
Entertainer David Bowie speaks to reporters before his performance at a concert celebrating his 50th birthday Thursday, Jan. 9, 1997, at Madison Square Garden in New York.