TIME EUROPE
July 10, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 2
MP3s for the Masses
Having faced down upstart Internet challengers, the record industry gears up for digital distribution
By CHRIS TAYLOR San Francisco
Not so long ago, the idea that the recording industry would embrace Michael Robertson as one of its own seemed downright ridiculous. Robertson, founder and chief executive of San Diego, Calif.-based MP3.com, was trying to turn the music business on to the MP3 revolution, but all the suits saw was a maverick who went around claiming that they were dino-saurs. When Robertson launched My.MP3.com, a service that allowed users to copy their CDs into online folders and listen to them from anywhere they chose, those dinosaurs won a copyright-infringement court case that threatened to take Robertson's upstart dotcom for every penny it had.
But by the time that decision came down, the rise of Napster, a Web company which enables users to search for and share millions of digital music files, had made My.MP3.com look like a littering violation in the middle of a full-scale riot. And Robertson, because he sees a future in which record com-panies get paid for online distribution, has suddenly become a man the music industry can do business with. The settlement deal MP3.com cut with Warner and BMG last month — whereby Robertson will pay $100 million in damages and get a license to run My.MP3.com in return — may be only the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Robertson and the record companies are now aiming to streamline the $40 billion music business into a new digital-delivery system.
What they are banking on is that music fans will be prepared to pay a monthly fee — around the price of a single CD — to have online access to thousands of albums. This music channel — along with the CDs already in listeners' collections — will be available anywhere there's an Internet connection. Robertson believes the mainstream will choose this limited-pay model over legally dubious networks like Napster and Freenet. The site's first monthly-fee channel is an all-you-can-download classical music station; a second channel for children featuring fairy tales and nursery rhymes as well as songs is set for launch this month.
Robertson has learned that in the digital-music age, the labels still matter. The industry's lawsuit against Napster has that company seeking a settlement; last month the labels went after another startup, MP3Board, for copyright in-fringement. Meanwhile, the off-line music business is booming: in the U.S., sales of CDs and casettes are up 8% on last year. With the once radical Robertson offering a third way between the rigid order of the old world and the chaos of Napster — namely, a chance to charge consumers to listen to online music and still make a buck selling CDs in stores — the dinosaurs really are hearing music, and the sound of money, in their ears.
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July 10, 2000
COVER
Run, Chicken Run!
The inmates of Hut 17 are planning a great escape. Viewers will get one in this high, wild and hen-some stop-motion adventure
EUROPE
Are We All Agreed Then?
French President Jacques Chirac chooses the Reichstag to deliver one of the strongest calls yet for an avant-garde core group in the E.U.
Anger Unleashed
A schoolyard mauling stuns Germany into action
Second-Class Kids
Romas in the Czech Republic go to court alleging bias against them in the school system
Greece Hits the Wall
Organizers of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens scramble to recover from their painfully slow start
State of Expectation
Armenians think they may — at last — be on the winning side of history
Democracy Is a Family Affair
Despite the latest French carping, freedom needs a helping hand
AFRICA
Candles in the Wind
Democracy is still the exception rather than the rule in Africa — but there are glimmers of light
Mugabe Feels The Chill
Despite a campaign marked by violence and intimidation, Zimbabweans dare to speak up
A System of Government As Old as the Desert Sands
Talking it up in Botswana
BUSINESS
Funds in the Sun
Tax havens are coming under increasing pressure to clean up money laundering
A New Credit-Card Scam
The latest handheld "skimmers" let crooks use your charge card even as you return it to your wallet
MP3s for the Masses
Having faced down upstart Internet challengers, the record industry gears up for digital distribution
ENVIRONMENT
The Wild Side of Town
Transformed into Europe's biggest urban wetland center, a derelict London site quacks and buzzes with life, luring humans
THE ARTS
The Art of Sexual Vérité
With her shockingly explicit films, French director Catherine Breillat ignites a debate over pornography
Erudite Everyman
Author and literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki manages to get German TV viewers enthralled about books
Truth Sadder Than Fiction
An Aboriginal play about the "stolen generation" lays bare a shameful chapter of Australian history
DEPARTMENTS
Olympic Monitor
World Watch
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