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Music Media

MP3.com, Warner Music Reach Settlement 100

Posted by Hemos from the making-nice-with-each-other dept.
Roger writes: "The New York Times is reporting that MP3.com and Warner Music have reached a settlement, after a few weeks of rumors that a settlement with the RIAA was near. My.mp3.com should come back soon. NYT; free registration required."
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MP3.com, Warner Music Reach Settlement More

MP3.com, Warner Music Reach Settlement

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  • There's a very big and very significant difference here-- radio stations play one song at a time. Many people can do many things simultaneiously on MP3.com, and a pay-per-play type fee would be a TREMENDOUS cost. It would add up much faster to much more than a radio station's fees. It would be ridiculous... a flat fee (even a huge one) for rights to use whatever songs fall under that label, however, will be cheaper in the long run and make much more sense for a "radio station" that responds to simultaneous demands... and as much demand as they can handle. And it'll pacify the copyright issues, and it'll compensate the artists (if the labels do the right thing with the cash.)
  • Comeon slashdot, can we get a rumor? anything? What were the terms of this agreement? Will mp3.com pay the RIAA (ie, they caved in) or will they be allowed to redistribute music on the mymp3.com ? Do we have to switch to some kind of proprietary WMF thing? DETAILS! I NEED DETAILS! I'm dying over here aaaaahh! :)
  • If you don't want to have to replace www with partners everytime you link to a NYT article login with username: cypherpunks password: cypherpunks works on a lot of other sites as well
  • Think about it. The "Big 5" ,as they have been referred to, have been dominating the market for too long. Artists that want to get a national distribution and backing have to sign some pretty crazy contracts with the Major Labels; certain number of concerts within so-and-so amount of time, certain amount of royalties from CD's, certain number of albums, etc. Musicians tend to get shafted with Major Label deals, since people are so eager to "sign up" simply don't look closely enough at their contracts. Sure, for every artist that makes money, 9 other ones don't, but it's not like these Major Labels are struggling because of all the failed bands.

    I think it's time for an mp3 giant like MP3.COM to step into the role of Major Record Label - all they need to do is have better, more flexible contracts than the Big Five. Distribution is very cost effective, promotion is garunteed, since they can jsut put it up on their site for people to try out. The millions they make off of advertisements more than pays for a couple hours in the recording studio, plus engineer time to mix it down. Bands pay for their own tours, anyhow. CD's cost about 75&cent to make with a jewelcase, with the insert cost varying widely.

    So perhaps the low-cost and low-hype of indie labels can be combined with the wide-distribution and mass-mrket of major labels?

  • No, it'll go to the lawyers.
  • If your getting 'invalid form key'
    How are you posting under your nickname.
    I had two posts wiped out with that damm thing
    [one of them a FIRST POST too.]
    I tried submiting a trouble report,
    no catagory, same for problems & complaints
    gripes, beefs etc. So I submitted a
    'Submit Story' but it doesnt have a submit
    'button'. If you go to submit story & use
    the first URL you come to You'll be talkin to
    that guy around here named after a food ending in 'aco'. I don't want to tell ya who he is to preserve his privacy but he'll get
    you fixed up.

    Good Luck
  • The record companies will share an undisclosed amount of money received in the settlements with its artists.

    If you have read the article, this seems to just further harden the relationship that record companies and artists have.. Looks like the artists are stuck just "getting a cut" from their own mp3s.

    Er, yeah, of course. See, the record companies were the ones who launched the lawsuit. They paid for lawyers, research, publicity to try to get the public on their side, etc. And when they won, they shared part of the settlement with the artists. Sounds about right to me. Do you realize how much they probably had to share with the lawyers?

    And this does cement the relationship with a record company, in a positive way. A newly signed artist is being protected by their label just as well as the guys who are successful enough to have done it themselves. They'll remember that, just like they'll remember the promotion the company did to help them make it. Record companies aren't evil, they're just part of the process.

    -Kahuna Burger

  • >>Well...MPPP's market cap is 1.4 billion... rumor has it that MP3.com has a large cash position and no debts, therefore making the 100MM a painful check to write but it doesn't break the bank.
  • Use of understatement to emphasize sarcasm. By the by, I'd also like to apologize for my offensive grammar - English is my first language, and I'm still getting accustomed to it. ::grins sheepishly::
  • The lyrics.ch mess received a lot less attention than it should have. It was a very powerful internet resource that is now lost for good. The RIAA argued that it could hurt the sales of sheet music. Yet, lyrics.ch was something very different. How many people do you know go to the music store and buy sheet music to look up lyrics? How many songs do we listen to on the radio have the lyrics and notes available in paper form at the music store? This myth that artists were somehow losing money to lyrics.ch is absolutely absurd. You can't argue that lyrics.ch was anything but promotional. When the site was in its prime, I used it too many times to count to track down the identity of a band and song through a few lines of the words I heard on the radio with the intent to buy the CD. The open nature of posting to the site enabled me to find relatively obscure material submitted by other users.

    Now, lyrics.ch is back up. Unfortunately, it is severely crippled. When the servers aren't spewing out errors, you will find that much of the lyrics aren't available and those that are you are
    forced to view via a slow and buggy java applet to make sure you won't be able to cut and paste anything. Thank you lawyers for making this world a better place.
  • The section towards the bottom about purchasing songs by the track online really frightened me. Sony has thrown out $2-$3 *per track* as a possible price.

    $2per track * 12 tracks per cd = $24 for a few files... you dont even get any physical media.

    Since when you're just letting people download the music there is virtually no distribution cost (a virtual web account somewhere..), and there is no middleman in the form of cd stores, they would be making huge amounts of money off this 'service' that is us consumers supposedly 'want'.

    sigh...
  • I've been trying to find this out for a while, and it seems to be an important factor in this debate:

    • HOW MUCH MONEY, PER EACH ALBUM SOLD, DOES THE ARTIST (NOT RECORD COMPANY) MAKE?


    Thanks.
  • What are you talking about? I used to volunteer at a radio station and we had to pay a fee for each song we played (can't remember what it's called). We also had to log everything we played so that it could be used to determine which artists get how much % of the cash.

  • It's too bad for Mp3 though that the money they would/should have used for things like advertising, bandwidth and servers instead has to go

    towards content. Most commercial web sites buy content; should MP3.com be any different?

  • ...bunch of whores.

    OK. So mp3.com's management hands off a shitload of money to get them out of *this* hole, and they hand off a bunch of money to get them out of the other holes they're in, and the "recording industry" cuts them in on a piece of the action in return.

    If you think anybody involved in this is in any way looking out for your interests, you're nuts!

    Sony wants $2.00 - $3.00 per track!

    Come on!

    The people get screwed, and the front offices of all of these damned corporations keep getting richer! (Oh: and of course the investors get rich, too..)

    And just wait 'till you read the EULA for one of these downloaded tracks: I'll bet you 10-to-1 that you get to have only the one copy and therefore you (legally) can only load it onto one device at a time!

    Want one copy for the car, or one for the Rio, as well as the one on your hdd?

    "Hey, asshole! Pay us some more!"

    If you think you've seen an EULA you didn't like before now, wait 'till these parasites get done with this one...

    t_t_b
    --

  • ..."Money for Nothing." Read the lyrics to "Beverly Hillbillies" [emsphone.com] then browse the rest of the Yankovic! [emsphone.com] portal.

    --
    Any chance of "Beverly Hillbillies 90210"?

  • Perhaps they (mp3.com) will start charging for this service ? I wouldn't mind paying a dollar or two a month to be able to access my CD's, legitimately, from anywhere in the world. Of course if they can keep the service free and recoup the money in some other way, so much the better.

    I keep getting *Invalid form key*, is anyone at Slashdot aware of the problem ?

  • Good job! (Score:2)

    by / ( 33804 )
    In a thread about copyright infringement, you go ahead and commit one of your own. I salute you, sir!

  • If mp3.com had gotten agreements from the "big five" before launching mymp3.com, their wouldn't have been a lawsuit filed. It would've saved mp3.com at least a little bit of money.

    Yeah, but there also wouldn't have been this amazing press. Tons of news sites are talking about MP3.com and My.MP3.com. This kind of press you don't get easily. Now, whether MP3.com planned this all along is dubious, but things seem to be falling into place.

    On a side note, this seems to be the kind of digital licensing agreement that's been proposed. MP3.com gets money off of banner ads and what-have-you, and then pays licensing fees to the RIAA. Of course, I have no idea how it really works; if some details of the settlement were released it would be better understood.


    Mike Greenberg
  • It's not like MP3.com is just cutting 5 Million Dollar checks to just anyone. It's just like any other big business deal. MP3.com has a lot that the music producers want. Banner Ads, Listening Statistics, and a large community of people. Maybe even a little stock.
  • I really like mymp3.com. The UI sucks a bit, but I just loved not having to dig around for CD's, or have to transport them everywhere. The only time I need to take them out of their boxes en mass these days is for the car (and I don't use it very often which leaves a bunch of CDs in it that I'm too lazy to go and fetch when I want to listen to them.) It would be nice if mymp3.com allowed me to download the MP3s locally because then I could put them on to a portable MP3 player for the car, or beach. The biggest problem I have with mymp3.com is their obligatory spam: I tried to unsubscribe from their mailing list, but it seemed to go hand in hand with their service. You can't have one without the other.
  • ..but couldn't mp3.com simply get themselves the same license (BMI and ASCAP) as radio stations? After all, isn't that essentially what these things are? Sure, you download the music, but don't people tape things from radio? Does that not fall under the same "fair use" rules that apply to videotaping your favorite sitcom?
  • . . . how much of that $100 million will be given to the artists, who myMp3.com supposedly infringed upon? :)

  • Wired article proves it's only money (Score:3)

    by Spiff28 ( 147865 ) on Friday June 09, 2000 @05:04AM (#1013708)
    Wired [wired.com] seems to be painting a slightly different story. BMG is working with a startup to do almost damn near to the letter what my.mp3.com was doing. If there was ever any doubt in anyone's mind that this wasn't over profit and only profit, go have a read.

    Call me naive, but for some reason up until now I was actually buying the bullshit they were feeding me. I actually thought they were going after my.mp3.com because it broke copyright and facilitated piracy. I had my doubts once I'd gone and tried it out myself. Now it makes perfect sense that the more cynical (hell, smart) have been screaming the word money. They don't care about this stuff being done online. They care that they're not making enormous amounts of money on it.

    Yet...

  • Warner Bros. has ... business ties with ... AOL

    Ah, yes. And AOL owns Netscape ... who included Winamp in their browser! Which is a tool used for playing MP3s! Wow! It's like there's this big web!

    [I feel like an anime character using so many exclamation points.. :) ]

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Yeah. I know if I had a choice between paying $100 million for something that has a good chance of being completely legal and doing it for free I'd pay the money. Hands down.
  • If "AOL owns Warner Brothers" is what you mean when you say "egregarious business ties", then yes.

    --

  • I spoke too soon! It's been a while since I looked at my.mp3.com due to the lock out, but it looks like my biggest gripe has been fixed: when I browse by artist I'm no longer presented with a huge list of all their tracks, but I now can browse by album too. Before I found it unusable as I had to check all of the tracks individually for a particular album, from a potentially large list. I (like a lot of people) still like to listen to music from an album-centric point
    of view, and in the past this was difficult.

  • A while back, they switched low-fidelity playback from RealAudio to MPEG layer 3:

    • MP3 streaming works better on Eunuchs and Mac machines, and
    • "Real.com" is already taken.
    There are help pages set up at MP3.com for Eunuchs, Mac, and Windows platforms. I don't see them alienating Eunuchs users by going to ::[+] WindowsMedia Player (or WiMP as we called it in school). -- EUNUCHS is not a registered trademark of the Open Group [unix-systems.org].
  • Well it's not really paying for it twice. The first time you are buying the music, true. The second time you are paying for somebody to 'bank' that music for you, so that you don't have to carry anything physical around with you to play it. True, as you said, it would be better to not be charged for this - after all, it's really the wrong way round (i.e you should buy the non-physical music first, and then pay a little extra to get a CD, if you want it).

    And you are right, a little of the money made should go to mp3.com for supplying the service, with the majority going to the artists themselves. The artists could then pay the RIAA for advertising, arranging tours, or anything else they do which is actually *useful* to the artists.

    Radical, I know ;-)

  • The biggest problem I have with mymp3.com is their obligatory spam

    Spam is defined by most Internet companies as "unsolicited commercial email or newsgroup/weblog postings." You solicited the mail when you signed up for My.MP3.com.

  • >>Musicians tend to get shafted with Major Label deals, since people are so eager to "sign up" simply don't look closely enough at their contracts

    this would be why people hire lawyers and managers. if you are not aware of what you are signing and the implications, then you are a fool.

    You're second paragraph is a great idea, but lives in a dream world. To take on the majors, you have to understand their world and the role that they play. MP3.com could and IMHO should get into the label business but its not as simple as you make it out to be:

    btw --all contracts are negotiable.

    1- How is promotion guaranteed and how will they make money in the online medium?

    Promotional slots on MP3.com are limited because they have a responsibility to advertisers that PAY them tangible $$'s. MP3.com is also currently limited to the online world, though they are rolling out to provide music streaming in stores. Don't know if that will work, but HEY give it a shot! Mass amounts of records get sold for 2 reasons: Radio and MTV. Those are the 2 most important avenues that most bands have to work with. Internet, concerts, hype, fanbase, etc all play a part but not nearly as phat as Radio and MTV. Here is where the majors excel - they have whole groups of people who work with outlets to get their artists promoted, played, seen, and read about! Its not cheap.

    Fact is, you need offline distribution! Eminem for example-- what, 1.6 Million records sold during the first week? Those are records that were sold in stores -- not online. Online sales were insignificant in the overall sales compared to the sheer number.

    2. millions they make off advertisements...

    Well, think about the rest of the money that MP3.com pays out. Couple hundred employees, rent, bandwidth, advertising, LAWYERS and Lawsuits, etc.

    Bottom line -- MP3.com [according to their Q1-2000 report] sold 71,000 cd's out of a total of 68,000 bands. Not a good sign, especially since this is a PERFECT outlet for a band lacking $$'s to get CD's pressed.

    3. couple hours in the studio

    Spoken like a true outsider. Listen to random band on MP3 and then random band on Warner. More than likely you will hear a HUGE difference. That difference is costly not only in "more than a few hours" of studio time, but producers/engineers, mastering, equipment, etc.. Don't expect to do a great sounding radio record for under $100k. [studio, producer, lodging/catering, blah blah -- insert rock star rider here]

    As a note -- you CAN do a record for much less - but in most occassions you get what you pay for. You mentioned engineer time -- uh, I could never do a record with an in-house engineer mixing and producing. Just think - the top mixers, strictly mixing AFTER you have spent months recording - make upwards of $3,000 plus points PER song.

    4. bands pay for their own tours..

    They can, but as a new breaking act you really look for sponsors and tour support from your record label. I've done tours where as a support act for a major band playing 3,500 seat venues (sell outs)we made $200 a night. 5 guys, crew, truck rental, food,rent, etc.... doesn't go far BUT it was great exposure and thats why you look for the underwriters. Its great to be able to make money and sell out shows in your hometown but its a different world when you are 2,000 miles away and no one knows who you are!

    For a great factual band experience, complete with $$'s and breakdowns - check out http://www.disgraceland.com/there's_this_band.htm its quite enlightening.

    A great example of what MP3.com could do is the Farmclub model. Instead of just an "online" model they have combined multiple mediums:

    online--seed it with big music stars--draw attention to TV show--showcase unsigned band--sign band to major record label--break band in all forms of media=airplay and record sales.

    Works well I think. Sonique [top 20 airplay] and Dynamite Hack [currently 13 on rr air charts] have already been proven to work. Sev will be next.

    -f
  • I have a really REALLY bad feeling about this.

    I know MP3 affiliated companies need profits to survive. but i'd really see them stand and fight against the record companies (and RIAA), then settle.... It reinforces the idea the RIAA has that no one can stop it, and everyone will eventually see things its way...

  • partners.nytimes.com is just another webserver...they've taken no attempt to secure it, so linking shouldn't be a problem at all. It's no different than type www.altavista.com or whatnot...if they secured it and we exploited some way around it--it wouldn't be too nice. But as it stands it's just another webserver.
  • whoa. umm, you're wrong. radio stations pay a gross percentage of revenues to licensing agencies such as ASCAP and BMI. feel free to visit their respective websites for the precise amounts. on the other hand -- the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) calls for payments to the record labels AND the ASCAP's of the world. Not really sure why broadcast fees should be greater online than in traditional radio, but they didn't ask me for my opinion.
  • (1) It came first - mp3.com ripped of their design
    (2) You can put any mp3 up there - taken from any source... there's a lot of cool vinyl stuff which I couldn't stick on mp3.com
    (3) They Support Unix
    (4) You can do 'Dj mixes' or just go and listen to mine.

  • The NY Times article was a good read.
  • are you kidding me? if it isn't in the artits contract, then they aren't seeing a penny of it... yeah right... like some big greedy record company is just going to "split up" it's lump sum settlment among it's customers aka artists

    ---
  • Don't forget OLGA [olga.net], the "We used to house 33,000 song titles now we have 1400". For non-musicians it was basically an online repository of online guitar and bass "tabletures" (basically transcriptions in guitarist shorthand, kind of like source code). Mirrored all to hell and back, there are a few sites that still carry the entire thing, but by and large the Harry Fox agency killed them. How giving a few computer savvy teens the instructions for playing cool riffs (most were actually excerpts with commentary on how to technically pull off the riffs, I would think fair use would apply) could damage the RIAA is irrelavent. Anyway, they at least have a search engine on their site that supposedly indexes the 'rogue' sites, and a few of the tabletures actually contain lyrics, so...
  • I mean, what are the bloody gory details. I want to know who, what, where, when, why, and most importantly how much. Anyone have a better link that has relevant information like how much it'll cost everyone in the long run?

  • No-login link (Score:3)

    by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Friday June 09, 2000 @04:13AM (#1013726) Homepage Journal
    partners.nyt ime.com link [nytimes.com]

    Yeah, we all know about it by now, EXCEPT THE PEOPLE POSTING THE STORIES, but a link is easier to use... :)

  • But at least the pressure for innovation and consumer demand has forced some compromise from the giants.

    Really not all that much to see here outside of the headline.

    --
  • While there wasn't much to the article (remember to replace "www" in the address with "partners" to see it w/o registering), I think it's a VERY good sign to see MP3 being talked about as a legitimate avenue for the future of music.
  • ....that mp3.com should've done this originally. If mp3.com had gotten agreements from the "big five" before launching mymp3.com, their wouldn't have been a lawsuit filed. It would've saved mp3.com at least a little bit of money.

    On the plus side, assuming that the other four record companies follow suit, mymp3.com and BeamIt should be back up and running. I can't wait!
  • If I'm not mistaken, Warner Bros. has egregarious business ties with (of all entities) AOL, right? I feel bad badmouthing my own ISP, but it seems like the reason this "settlement" was reached (and how it might end up) is with AOL's interest in taking over this type of thing. I have to say I applaud AOL for their good look at commercial applications of MP3 and all (what with the Winamp buy), but it seems a teeny bit fishy to me nonetheless...

  • Interestingly, there was an article [riaa.org] on the RIAA site [riaa.org] about digital music on the Internet. While they went through the usual things about "no one will pay for music they can get online instead", it talked about how online music can be a great help to an artist, especially since it helps him/her produce music without *gasp* a label. They actually sounded admiring.
  • That's true that they probably wouldn't have had a problem if they had gotten agreements before, but really they shouldn't have needed to. They weren't giving music to people who hadn't bought it already, so what did they do that was so wrong?
  • ...can be found here [yahoo.com], at the yahoo! news site. It looks as though MP3.com is going to pay a fee to the labels "for the right to use their songs" and other than that, not much has changed.

  • [partners.nytimes.com link]

    Yeah, we all know about it by now, EXCEPT THE PEOPLE POSTING THE STORIES, but a link is easier to use... :)

    Given that the NYT wants us to link to www.nytimes.com, isn't that what we should be doing?

    Phil

  • Here's a link to the story on Yahoo! [yahoo.com].

    Still, it's only 2 of the five record companies that have settled, and this doesn't get to the root of the whole mp3 fiasco. Basically, this story is good news to mp3.com (although not even great for them, still 3 more groups to worry about), but not for anyone else. And again, they're just settling, so apparently mp3.com decided that $100 million was a better deal than having those 2 extra labels.

  • Given that I want you to give me all your money, isn't that you should be doing?
  • Here's the CNet article on the subject [cnet.com]. All I have to say is Wooohooo! I love BeamIt (as well as many of MP3.com's other services) and will be glad to get it back. I also love the fact that their stock has practically doubled in the last few days.
  • Well...MPPP's market cap is 1.4 billion... I don't know how many shares they issued when they went public and therefore how much cash they raised, but even if they've drained their coffers, they can just issue 10% of their stock to the public or give 2% stakes to each of the the big 5 and be in the clear.

    Yeah, $100 million is a lot, but that's basically the reason that companies go public, to raise funds they wouldn't have had access to before. It's too bad for Mp3 though that the money they would/should have used for things like advertising, bandwidth and servers instead has to to paying off copyright infringement chargers...
  • I that things in life can't always be free..
    but..

    I pay about £15 for a cd - I decide I want to listen to it via MP3.com...

    I then would have to pay for this service to listen to my 'cd' - I am paying the 'record label twice!

    I'm not sure this is fair....
    (then again MP3.com has to generate a profit as a business anyway - that's o.k. as long as all the 'service charge' goes to MP3.com and NOT the 'recording label')

    Hmmm....

  • Something tells me mp3.com lost (Score:3)

    by dal3 ( 195148 ) on Friday June 09, 2000 @05:31AM (#1013741)

    We've seen something like this before: "Lyrics.ch and NMPA reach agreement" [slashdot.org]

    lyrics.ch used to be the end-all database of lyrics on the net that seemed to contain just about anything you could think of (or at least anything I cared about). It got shut down by the National Music Publisher's Association, then was allowed back up after the NMPA and the site owner reached an "agreement".

    It's been shadow of its former self ever since. Look up anything less than a top 40 hit and you're likely to find that your request "is not available at this time", but you will be supplied with links to at least 3 different sites that will be more than willing to sell you the corresponding album.

    This is not the same situation, but will the new industry-approved version of mp3.com's hosting be better in any way? To compare quotes:

    "[the NMPA's strategy is to offer a] web site to benefit both consumers and the industry, and to develop copyright-licensing policies that will still be effective in a world where consumers can get new recordings through digital downloads"
    NYTimes on lyrics.ch (Feb '99)

    "The "Big Five" record companies...are tenuously trying to embrace the digital delivery of their coveted music libraries, but through terms that ensure copyright protection of their signed works."
    CNET regarding mp3.com


    "Last Friday, the Switzerland-based operators of the Web site met with NMPA officials to discuss a proposal that would bring the Internet resource back online as an authorized commercial venture... [NMPA CEO Jack] Murphy acknowledged that he was willing to consider a revenue-sharing plan with the Lyrics Server."
    NYT re lyrics.ch again

    "Terms of the settlements and licensing agreements were not disclosed. However, the licensing terms could total about $11 million a year based on fees that record companies would charge on a per-play basis, according to one source familiar with the negotiations."
    CNET on mp3.com again

    My guess is that we won't see any sort of "pay for play" plan developed - just more links to online CD stores.

  • Sounds more like mafia-oriented strongarming and protection money, if you ask me (and I know you didn't *g*). This is where the RICO statues should be used, not in the Metallica v. Napster suit.
  • Because the my.mp3.com service stopped working for me, I was forced to look around for alternatives, now I've got my own system, and there is nobody to track it, or anything. I suspect there are a lot more ways of doing music distribution caused by this lapse in the presense of less evil. (The big record companies could at least track the one big server... but now that the've forced fate, and fostered people to do it on their own... look out.)

    Does CDDB track usage, or am I paranoid?

    --Mike--

  • depends on the deal. typical is between 1-2 dollars minus some odds and ends.
  • I want my
    I want my
    I want my MP3!

    Oddly enough, WAY already did Money for Nothing as The Beverly Hillbillies. It should be on the UHF soundtrack.
    --
    then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
  • My guess as to why the slashdot people don't post the partners link is mainly because the NY Times' lawyers might notice if they did. I'm not sure why the NYT has the partners link set up the way they do, but I'm guessing it's because they're charging other news outlets to be 'partners' so their news can be rebroadcast. They likely wouldn't take too kindly to Slashdot officially sanctioning getting past the registration process.
    As long as people keep writing comments like yours that give the partners link, I suspect that things will continue swimmingly (As other newspapers would like nothing better than the NY Times to try to censor Slashdot). But if Roblimo or one of the official slashdot crew makes that link, then they could be in big trouble.
    Granted, NYT could have just made a technological solution to the problem, but lawsuits are what's in style nowadays :)

  • They should have spinned my.mp3.com off from their other, more sensible and legitimate business. Now, when I buy something like a ShadowKeep [mp3s.com] CD from them, I'll be wondering how much of my money if going to pay for these settlements. Instead of my money going to the band and the people who made it possible for me to hear them (mp3.com), some of it is also going to Time-Warner. Lovely.


    ---
  • you forgot to mention that all the lyrics, instead of being given to you as text, were wrapped inside a "java applet".. which failed to work 90% of the time. In fact, it never worked for me at all. Maybe because i'm a mac user?
    I'll assume it was sluggy and semifunctional the rest of the time, but since i never witnessed it working i can't really comment.

    ..as well as a number of other changes in site layout and such which had no concievable reason for being added except to prevent anyone from being able to easily use the site..

    but yes, your analysis was completely correct.. lyrics.ch is dead. so i must stick to http://www.ohhla.com/ and google.com..

    the funny thing is that in its former self, lyrics.ch was actually getting money for the record companies. the reason being that if people heard a song they'd never heard of, they could search for a snippet of the lyrics and would get the song name returned to them.. which meant they knew what to buy..
  • For a great factual band experience, complete with $$'s and breakdowns - check out http://www.disgraceland.com/there's_this_band.htm its quite enlightening.

    Actually, I read this a couple years ago in the Baffler's collection: Commodify Your Dissent. It's an extract of a much longer article by Steve Albini, indie-pop cult icon, or whatever you think of him, I don't care.

    However my favorite part of the article is where he starts ragging on the industry types who use the terms "warm" and "punchy" when describing music. Ex: "Yeah, you guys got a good tune down; it's warm, yet punchy..." which is about as meaningless a statement as you can get.

    But you're right, my suggestion is a bit oversimplified, however my point wasn't really about challenging the Major Labels' financial emprire, just creating an alternative where a band can be become popular for all the RIGHT reasons, not because the marketeers have posted the image all over town.

  • Why should people have to pay-per-play for music they already own? That is supposedly how my.mp3.com works, and that is the argument they've been trying to make (because they know people wouldn't use the service much otherwise).

    - Steeltoe
  • i was really hoping this would go all the way to the end of the trial..

    we really, really need a test case that enshrines in legal precedent the idea that i have the right to download material over the internet assuming i already own it.
    in other words, if i buy an album, i am buying the right to use the content, not just the physical media. Therefore i should have the right to download it over the internet, and no copyright violation is taking place if i download mp3s of it because i've already paid.
    in other words, all these ROMs i have on my computer are legal since i have the original cartriges gathering dust upstairs.
    in other words, if i buy some software and then accidentally drop the package on the way home and a truck runs over it and crushes it, i should have the right to warez a copy because i paid to use it..

    you get the idea. this needs to somehow be embedded into the legal system or law or whatever. it's important, i think. but a settlement means that you can't really point to this case as a legal precedent in other cases..
  • As you know, mp3.com plays host to a really large number of indie musicians, many of which are really good. How much of that $3 per track do you think mp3.com is going to get to keep? When they sell one of my CDs they keep half... with my blessing... and the buyer gets physical media (rather nice- I just got some mp3.com CDs in the mail and the cover art came out just the way I wanted it, a lot better than I expected. I'm listening to one now).

    The major labels can play whatever stupid games they want to try to get $24 per album with no physical media- or even more restrictive things, if they can think them up. They do not force ME to follow suit and I offer one hell of a better deal- in conjunction with the same mp3.com- which has a vested interest in hanging onto people like me, because I can give them quite extensive rights regarding my music (which I still own), and Sony will never give them such a good deal.

    It's still the net- don't underestimate the effectiveness of indie content producers in conjunction with something like mp3.com. With them and us it's a real win-win situation- hell, I can buy stuff just retail from mp3.com, resell it at local record stores with the nice covers and all charging the store $5 per CD- the store can sell it at $8.99 and be happy- and in doing so I undercut the major label pricing structure by up to 10$ and _still_ make two bucks a CD.

    Try THAT with Sony *g*

  • In theory, the person was quoted as having used the www.nytime.com link - so that it wouldn't have been /. responsible at all. I dunno.
  • There have been no changes in the artist arrangement so your band will still get half- it's possible that some of the remainder goes to the lawyers instead of to funding 'payback for playback' for the musicians, or to promotions for the musicians.

    Try to think of it as unavoidable racketeering and extortion. I'm one of the mp3.com musicians and they haven't asked me to take a smaller percentage to help pay for lawyers. :)

  • Speaking of lyrics.ch, why the hell wasn't there a mirror site? I found the original lyrics.ch site useful enough that I'd have gladly eaten up a few hundred megabytes of my hard drive to hold my own local copy of it ;)
  • mp3.com artists make between $2.99 and $7.50 per album, depending on what price they set for it. It's a straight 50/50 split between the artist and mp3.com, who have a really sweet press-to-order system set up.

    Sony artists mostly don't get anything, because they are first put into fancy studios etc. to record the material- the 'advance' on royalties- and then the artist must repay the (already spent on musician stuff) advance out of royalties before seeing any money out of the label. Most bands that go platinum with their CD manage to recoup the advance and might see a few thousand dollars to be divided among the whole band for their work. Bands that don't go platinum? They got to see a fancy studio- and are contractually obligated to stay with the label. Sony is just like any other label in this- they are not particularly bad so far as I know. You have to go platinum to break even- it's not a way to earn any kind of money and in practice the band gets $0 for each CD they sell, because very few bands recoup.

    (listening to one of my own CDs, for which I will get paid $2.99 in royalties when they cut checks... ahhhh, the bliss of being past the break-even point without worrying about 'recouping' :) it's the "Dragons" album, fun stuff)

  • *g* I think you picked the wrong crowd to make some of those claims to. You're talking to geeks, this is Slashdot. What you're claiming is very similar to saying Windows NT has to be better, stabler and more secure than Linux because they have more money and their programmers have higher salaries...

    The fact is, the mainstream record labels don't necessarily put out good sounding records, nor is a high priced engineer/mixer a sure ticket to sonic Nirvana. I'm thinking in particular of Bob Clearmountain- he didn't adapt to 80's studios very well, and some of his work since his heyday in the 70s is appalling. You've got guys like Glen Ballard who did Alanis Morrisette's first album- guys like Steve Albini known for his work with the Pixies and Nirvana, and the same one whose glorious rant, "Some Of Your Friends Are Probably Already This Fucked", is often cited in Slashdot threads.

    The bottom line is this: professional sound is not about money- it's about technology.

    You need geeks to master the technology.

    Now, plenty of those pricey studios do in fact have geeks, and put out professional sound- but this is the era where you can get a 20-bit 48K eight-track dedicated recorder for well under $3000. The technology has _roared_ ahead, unbelievably. Particularly with regard to electronic artists, the geeks have followed and established the knowledge needed to deal with the technology. Doing ultimate mixing and mastering is really NOT harder than, say, learning C programming and kernel hacking. It's also not easier than that... you need to spend years, and not believe everything you read, and to be able to deal with the sounds of a musical piece in your head as if you were thinking up a new subroutine or something- there are rules and heuristics and it's a true craft, and not so mysterious as all that.

    Ironically, just as people are learning how to do this properly, the mainstream is progressively refusing to do it properly. Ever looked at the difference between peak and average levels on your VU meters? The competition for radio airplay has led to albums' sound being _crushed_ with compression, leaving no dynamics or muscle behind the music at all, the purpose being to make the albums LOUDER LOUDER LOUDER than the next one. It's quite like NT being tuned like mad to kick butt on Mindcraft benchmarks at the expense of realworld performance, and it's long established in the commercial sphere and will only get worse.

    Soon you will be able to tell the indie artists from the major label ones because the indie albums will all sound very different and have a lot of air and dynamics and creativity in the mixes, and all the major label ones will sound the same- exhaustingly, maddeningly loud and artificial and hyped-up. You won't be able to tell one major label star from another because they will all sound exactly the same...

  • Well, I hate to say that I saw this one coming from a mile away, but back when the judgement first came in, I noted that this was most likely going to be handled like a radio station

    Initial post [slashdot.org]

    and the follow up which clarifies the position a little bit [slashdot.org]

    Unfortunatly, in this case, I would have to agree with the RIAA, as mp3.com was making money off of their intellectual property without paying up. This is where sites that have you rip your own mp3's get away with it, since you are using your own copy (which will most likely differ digitally -- at least to some small degree). The only small analogy I can think of is if you made a tape of a CD and played it for yourself versus someone else making a tape and playing it for you.

  • You already have that right. Nobody argued that in the mymp3 case. What they argued was that MP3.com didn't have the right to make the original copies of the CDs that are in thier database. If they changed the service to require you to upload your copy first, the entire thing would be legal. That is undoubtedly why the labels are still negotiating with MP3.com.
  • This was an absolutely brilliant move by mp3.com.

    The problems:

    1. The music industry refuses to acknowledge mp3.com as a major player. [As in they won't seriously negotiate with mp3.com on the rights to distribute major label product.]

    2. mp3.com is now a publicly traded company that has to figure out a way to start charging money for their services, but they have a huge customer base that expects "free".

    The solution:

    They build a service which is right on the hairy edge of being copyright infringement to intentionally provoke a lawsuit. The RIAA wins, but they know they will be on thin ice if there is an appeal; so, they cut deals (if one label has cut a deal, the others will follow to keep from being left out).

    The result:

    MP3.com has been admitted as a member of the club... AND they can blame the labels for the charges which they impose on the service (which they had to do sooner or later -- the comm bill for that my.mp3.com service has got to be substantial). From that standpoint, it was actually better for mp3.com to lose, than win.
  • Here's an article [washingtonpost.com] from Yesterday's Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] mentioning a deal the RIAA is pushing for. They are talking about $15-20 million in settlements to each of the 5 companies involved in this mess. Even if this wasn't completely nuts (which it is), where would mp3.com come up with $100 million. They aren't Ted Turner.
  • mp3.com's contention is that they TRIED to do this from the start and the record companies refused to even discuss it. That's why they went ahead and did it without them...in order to force their hand.

    Quite frankly, I'm inclined to believe them. The big five and the RIAA weren't interested in messing with the status quo and it wasn't until mp3.com, napster, et. al. started hitting them hard that they decided this phenomenon was here to stay and they'd better come to the table and negotiate.

    Good news for everybody! I can't wait for the complete adoption of music formats that will allow me to listen to anything I've purchased, anywhere, without having to carry artifacts around. Rock on, dudes...

  • You might want to try MP3.com's press release [mp3.com] on the matter, but it isn't incredibly helpful EITHER. I tried to find information at Warner Brothers, but they don't seem to have ANY press releases.
  • >>It seems pretty obvious....

    not necessarily. The old saying goes "it's easier to get forgiveness than permission".

    More likely they did try in advance (the mp3.com guys did say in earlier press releases that they HAD been negotiating with the RIAA et all when the lawsuit started) and then decided to force the industries hand. We've seen how unreceptive it is to change. You do have a somewhat better barganing position when you've built up a big client base "with their own music" (as the propaganda would say) then just going to the industry with a "i have a dream" pitch.

    The entertainment industry isn't big about giving up control.

  • Settlement or Merger - You Be The Judge (Score:3)

    by RobL3 ( 126711 ) on Friday June 09, 2000 @04:28AM (#1013765)
    You heard it here first kids, the new trend called "merger via settlement".
    This is how it works - The record companies get a well known portal for distribution, and the site owners avoid being constantly hit over the head record industry lawsuits.

    Can't convince yourself that this is a merger wrapped in a settlement? Read the following quotes from the article and pretend you know nothing about the lawsuit:

    "We look forward to working with WMG to expand its boundaries and are grateful to the entire WMG team for the insight and trust they've demonstrated and for making this opportunity possible."
    and
    "The licensing agreements will allow consumers to store copies of Warner Music Group or BMG compact discs they already own with MP3.com. The record companies will share an undisclosed amount of money received in the settlements with its artists. "

    Sounds like a merger to me...

    Over the course of the next year we'll begin to see the "lion laying down with the lamb" as both parties figure out that cooperation is more profitable than compitition.
  • Direct Link [nytimes.com] to the article
  • I wonder if any of the $ Warner makes from this (Hundreds of Millions?) will go back to the artists or if they will just keep it for themselves.
  • /., we do more copyright infringement before 8:00 a.m. than most people do in their entire lives.
    --

  • I Want My MP3! (Score:5)

    by jabber ( 13196 ) on Friday June 09, 2000 @04:34AM (#1013769) Homepage
    Now look at them lawyers, that's the way you do it
    You sue the whole net over the MP3
    That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
    Music for nothin' and tunes for free
    No, that ain't legal, that's the way they do it
    Lemme tell ya them geeks ain't dumb
    Hit the Napster site to get a whole album
    Leach a few tracks using Gnutella

    We gotta block all MP3.COM traffic
    Custom firewall .configs
    We gotta do it in the name of bandwidth
    We gotta stop those MP3s

    See that CEO with the torn jeans and the T-shirt
    No buddy, he's no MBA
    That little punk kid has a million dollar web-site
    That little punk kid just went IPO

    I shouldda learned to hack the TCP/IP stack
    I shouldda learned to rip CDs
    Look at Lars Ulrich, man! He's flipping off the camera
    Ugh! Metallica is losing fans fast
    Hey, who's there? What's that? Downloading noises?
    Filling up the next Gig cause the music's free
    That ain't legal? That's the way they do it
    Get their music for nothin' and your tunes for free

    No, that aint' buying, that's the way we do it
    We listen to all our music as an MP3
    It's not stealing, it's the new way to do it
    Music for nothing and your tunes for free
    Music for nothing, tunes for free
    Music for nothing, tunes for free

    Apologies to Dire Straits.
    Full rights to reproduce granted exclusively to Weird Al Yankovic. :)
  • Along the same lines, here is the CNN article on the subject [cnnfn.com]... With a little of the recent stock action at the end.
    Its good seeing a pro-mp3 news item compared to things like "napster looses shirt" and whatever.

    -invictus
    -----------
    #!/usr/bin/perl -sp0777iX+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0j]dsj
    $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
  • The record companies will share an undisclosed amount of money received in the settlements with its artists.

    I thought 0 was undefined, not undisclosed.
    --
  • I'll take your comment in the sense I assume you meant it (much like mine, a drastic understatement)... It's just funny that the first one that would take the easy, negotiable way out of the issue happens to be the one that *FINALLY* realized "Hey, we're already trying to make money from this - why are we trying to stop it too?"

  • That's right! Anyone remembers what happened with lyrics.ch ?
  • Ever seen what happens if you miss out the first dot in http://my.mp3.com? Lots of naughty screen saves!
  • I personally don't think that AOL/Warner had some big plan for the future of mp3s.

    Yeah, kinda like Microsoft didn't have any big plans for operating systems back in the early 80's huh? AOL would like nothing better than to be able to push songs to you via myMP3.com, or similar service.

    So now we are finally seeing true commercialization of MP3's. How long before Napster is bought out by one of the major record studios, and it's program changed to behave similar to myMP3.com?
  • Mp3.com thought it was rediculous to pay-per-play fees that the radio stations must do. They contended that this was JUST a way for users to listen to their music any way that they want. (anywhere any time). If they can play their music in their car via tape/CD, or listen at work on CD-ROM drives, why not simply allow them to play their music at any computer.

    the record industry constantly contradicts itself with its physical property vs intellectually property stance. on one hand, they say you are paying for the license, but yet if you want to return your scratched cd for the cost of the media, you can't do that. now they want mp3 for essentially a license that the user already has. they can't have it both ways! well what is it? am i paying for the license or the disc?!?!

    --
    J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
    Ejercisio Perfecto [nai.net]: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!

  • No record companies arnt evil, any more then microsoft, the IRS or any other large entity. They are simply driven to justify and maintain their own existance. I remember reading an article Entitled "Ten ways Record companies screw you" In a musicians 'zine. (sorry no ref. I have it at home and Im on the road presently). Some of the things they do: front a ton of money to an artist, then give him/her/them such a small cut of the proceeds that they can never get out of debt (This is why tom Petty filed for bankruptcy in the 80's while he was selling tons of albums), get the first to albums for the price of one (statitacly the first two albums a musician or band distributes nationaly are the ones to make serious cash$). there are 8 more I cant remeber. I do remember listening to Sheryl Crow testifying before congress, about a recently passed law that reverts music copyrights to the publishers, not the artist. Thats just theft! Lets also talk about what EMI does to small music venues- they charge them by the square foot for there existance! Thats right, if EMI or that other company (names escapes, sorry) Finds out that you have ANY MUSIC at your business (ie a radio over the dishwasher), you owe them, and if you allow someone to come in and play music, even an unsigned artist, you owe more. A small coffee hous in Centralia WA got a bill for 5K$ for that very reason. Now the logic behind this bill is that your local, unsigned atisyt MIGHT play a cover of a copyright protected song, therefore, the venue (which might proffit from this possible live preformance of a coprighted song) should buck up the $. . . Yes its legal. . .really. . . So the next part is even better: where does the money go? Well because they dont know whose copyrighted songs might have gotten played they cant pay out, sooooo, the companies (EMI f'rinstance) keep the dough. What a scam. I dont mind paying musicians for ther preformance (live or reproduced) but the thought of paying some company for the possability of what I might hear, and then not have that monet get back to the artist at all? That just makes me ill.

  • You solicit advertising email when you subscribe to an explicitly-identified opt-in mailing list.

    And you opt in when you accept the terms of service, which presumably includes something along the lines of "MP3.com will send you updates etc. by email. To stop receiving these updates, cancel your My.MP3.com account."

  • Reason is because the record industry is sad they didn't charge more way back when, when they first set the radio-station's pay-per-play set (or as you mentioned, the gross percentage amount) So, what happened, is it was a new pricing idea, and they were afraid to ask too much, and then not have the radio stations go along with it (I don't know what other options there were back then...) Years later, they found out how great it worked, how new stations lined up to pay, and they wish they'd have charged more to begin with. So it'll be more online, because they have a chance to now

  • "Sir, step out of the car. Do you have a license to listen to that Korn CD?"

    dc


    --
  • http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MPPP&d=t

    In early trading, MP3.com (symbol MPPP) is already up 3 1/2, more than 20%.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TWX&d=t

    Time Warner is also trading well: up 13/16. Might be interesting to watch these two throughout the day.

  • Mp3.com now a radio station (Score:4)

    by Rader ( 40041 ) on Friday June 09, 2000 @04:43AM (#1013782) Homepage
    -- mp3.com's contention is that they TRIED to do this from the start and the record companies refused to even discuss it. That's why they went ahead and did it without them...in order to force their hand. --

    That's just wrong. When mp3.com first went ahead and bought and ripped and stored 40,000 CD's (at the time), they refused the Big 5's request to pay up! The big 5 wanted royalties on each play of each song. (And wouldn't that add up quick! - I Bet it wouldn't be a free service!)

    Mp3.com thought it was rediculous to pay-per-play fees that the radio stations must do. They contended that this was JUST a way for users to listen to their music any way that they want. (anywhere any time). If they can play their music in their car via tape/CD, or listen at work on CD-ROM drives, why not simply allow them to play their music at any computer.

    The problem though, is that Mp3.com (through advertising) would be benefiting financially by providing this service. And the problem is, the Big 5 believe that ONLY they should benefit from music copyrights. And since they own the copyright, there's not much you can do unless you get permission. (ala Radio station fees, and now mp3.com's new fees)

    It's too bad. I fully agree that mp3.com had many great points. (I read Michael's messages and the message boards that followed since it all started) But when this came out, you could just tell that this time, they didn't have a legal leg to stand on. (Hard to do, when even the artists are slowly losing more rights to their own music to the big 5!!)

    Rader
    --- Out of Hard drive space again. 114GB of Mp3's.

  • Aren't they? Just think.. how many servers do they have? what kind of bandwidth? why are they doing any of this in the first place? where did they get the money for these court cases.. they aren't cheap? mp3.com is out to get filthy stinking rich, whether it's off advertising or who knows what later....
    To deny that would be silly.
  • From the article [nytimes.com]..( no login required :):

    The record companies will share an undisclosed amount of money received in the settlements with its artists.

    If you have read the article, this seems to just further harden the relationship that record companies and artists have.. Looks like the artists are stuck just "getting a cut" from their own mp3s. How ironic that the Recording Industry is using it's own anti-competitive tactics and applying them to the current distribution methods of mp3 and the internet..

    Maybe this signals a wake up call for us? Action needs to take place in the form of a slap in the face to record labels.. Things are getting out of hand

    ~Marshall

    --
    Homer: "No beer, No TV make Homer something something";
    Marge: "Go crazy?";
    Homer: "Don't mind if I do!"

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