Slowly but surely, the major record labels are staking their claims in the gold rush of online music. In its fourth such settlement with the major labels, online music distributor MP3.com and Sony Music Entertainment reached an agreement in the copyright infringement suit pending between the two companies. The terms of this agreement stipulate, among other things, that MP3.com must pay Sony approximately $20 million in damages. In exchange, MP3.com will now be able to legally distribute the label's music on its online service--provided it pays a fee every time one of Sony's discs is registered by a user and every time a user taps into one of its songs.
MP3.com's My.MP3.com service came under fire for copyright infringement after it compiled an 80,000-album database for users to digitally store and access their files from any computer. A U.S. District Court ruling this spring encouraged MP3.com to reach settlements with five major labels. The company has already reached similar agreements with Warner Music Group, BMG, and EMI, leaving Universal Music Group as the only one of the five dominant record companies to not play nice with MP3.com. But Universal might very well have its own agreement by the time you read this.
So what will it mean once all five majors are officially in the fold? Cheap, high-quality music for everyone? Don't count on it, judging by some early efforts to purvey music online through official channels. The days of the appalling $2.99-per-download offers might be fading, but take a look at the page on eMusic's site that offers for download the new album by punk legends Rancid. The songs on the CD are available as individual MP3s tracks for 99 cents each. Good deal? Not really: There are 22 tracks on the CD, most of which average about a minute and a half each. Almost a penny per second of music is nobody's idea of a bargain. Who in the world would download any of these tracks in lieu of buying the "real" Rancid CD for, at most, $17?
If this is the thinking of other labels--to encourage the purchase of the whole by making purchase of the parts cost-prohibitive--look for Napster and other underground avenues of downloadable music to continue to flourish. Speaking of Napster, the company's recent success in court seems to have gone to its head. Napster attorneys issued a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, asking that the District Court's July 26 decision to issue a preliminary injunction against the file-sharing company be vacated.
The 79-page brief argued that the court's injunction was based on erroneous claims on the part of U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in her decision to grant the injunction requested by the Recording Industry Association of America, which is suing Napster for copyright infringement. Napster went on to claim that Patel's judgment was based on a bias toward the record industry. This strikes me as the courtroom equivalent of being pulled over, getting off with a warning, and then passing the patrolman at 90 mph.
The hot list
A new remix of Shelby Lynne's "Gotta Get Back" (from "I Am Shelby Lynne") is available at Rolling Stone.com.
Marilyn Manson is periodically previewing tracks from his upcoming album, "Holy Wood."
The site for the Rio MP3 player contains a wealth of downloadable music from virtually every category imaginable. Record labels big and small are gladly donating tracks to the highly trafficked site, making the level of quality and selection one of the best on the Web. Rioport's site also includes a mountain of spoken-word downloads of everything from books on tape (if they can be called that in a case like this) to old-time radio shows.
Smashing Pumpkins have posted an unreleased version of their video for "Try, Try, Try" on their Web site.
