Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 17:42:30 -0700
From: clark price <drywall@primenet.com>
Reply-To: drywall@primenet.com
Organization: sr dis-information
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 (Macintosh; I; PPC)
To: drywall@primenet.com
Subject: COURTNEY LOVES SPEECH/TALKING POINTS FOR DIGITAL HOLLYWOOD.


This came our way from our friends at UltraModern Records. It is long
..but it does make some very interesting and important points. of
concern to any artists / musicians out there who are internet bound....

Clark and Agatha Price at SR Dis-Information
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COURTNEY LOVES SPEECH/TALKING POINTS FOR DIGITAL HOLLYWOOD.

<<Today i want to talk about piracy and music. what is piracy?
Piracy  being the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention
of
paying for it.
im not talking about napster type software.

I'm talking about major label recording contracts.

I want to start with a story about rock bands and record companies and
do
some recording contract math.

This story is about a bidding war band that gets a huge deal with a 20%
royalty rate and a million-dollar advance.(no bidding war band ever got
a
20%royalty but whatever)  This is my "funny" math based on  some reality
and
i just want to qualify it by saying im positive its better math than
what
edgar bronfam jr would provide.

What happens to that million dollars?

They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band
with
$500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20% commission. They
pay
$25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.

That leaves $350,000 for the 4 band members to split. After $170,000 in
taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.

That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.

The record is a big hit and sells a million copies.(how a bidding war
band
sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but
its
based on any basic civics class knowledge any of us have on cartels. Put

simply the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke.
protecting us
just enough to not have to rename our park service the Phillip Morris
national park)

So this band releases 2 singles and makes 2 videos. The 2 videos cost a
million dollars to make and 50% of the video production costs are
recouped
out of the band's royalties.

The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100% recoupable.

The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You
have
to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent
promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they
can
pretend not to know that radio stations/the unified broadcast system/
are
getting paid to play their records.

All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.

Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band
owes
$2 million to the record company.

If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts
or
record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties since their 20%
royalty
works out to $2 a record.

$2 million in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses
equals........zero!

How much does the record company make?

They grossed $11 million.

It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1
million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio
promotion and $200,000 in tour support.

The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.

They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising,
but
marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times
Square
and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn
t-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and
cash
for tips for all and sundry.

Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.

So their profit is $6.6 million dollars; the band may as well be working
at a
7-11.

Of course they had fun. Hearing yourself on the radio, selling records,
getting new fans and being on TV is great, but now the band doesn't have

enough money to pay the rent and nobody has any credit.

Worst of all, after all this, the band owns none of its work.....they
can pay
the mortgage forever but they'll never own the house.like i said.
Sharecropping. Our media says-"boohoo poor pop stars they had a nice
ride
fuck them for speaking up" but i say this dialogue is imperitive. and
cynical
media people who are more fascinated with celebrity than most
celebrities
need to reacquaint themselves with thier value systems.

When you look at the legal line on a CD, it says copyright 1976 Atlantic

Records or copyright 1996 RCA Records.

When you look at a book, though, it'll say something like copyright 1999

Susan Faludi.or david Foster Wallace.

Authors own their books and license them to publishers. When the
contract
runs out,  writers gets their books back.  But record companies own our
copyrights forever.

The system's set up so almost nobody gets paid.

II RIAA

Last November, a Congressional aide named Mitch Glazier, with the
support of
the RIAA, added a "technical amendment" to a bill that defined recorded
music
as "works for hire" under "the" 1978 Copyright Act.

He did this after all the hearings on the bill were over. By the time
artists
found out about the change, it was too late. The bill was on its way to
the
White House for the president's signature.

That subtle change in copyright law will add billions of dollars to
record
company bank accounts over the next few years, billions of dollars that
rightfully should have been paid to artists.

A "work for hire" is now owned in perpetuity by the record company.

Under the 1978 Copyright Act, artists could reclaim the copyrights on
their
work after 35 years. If you wrote and recorded "Everybody Hurts" you at
least
got it back to as a family legacy after 35 years.

But now because of this corrupt little pisher, "Everybody Hurts" never
gets
returned to your family and can now be sold to the highest bidder.

Over the years record companies have tried to put "work for hire"
provisions
in their contracts and Mr. Glazier claims that the "work for hire" only
"codified" a standard industry practice. But copyright laws didn't
identify
sound recordings as being eligible to be called "works for hire," so
those
contracts didn't mean anything. Until now.

Writing and recording "Hey Jude" is now the same thing writing an
English
textbook, writing standardized tests, translating a novel from one
language
to another or making a map. These are the types of things addressed in
the
"work for hire" act. and writing a standardized test is a work for hire.
Not
making a record.

So an assistant substantially altered a major law when he only had the
authority to make spelling corrections. That's not what I learned about
how
government works in my high school civics class.

Three months later, the RIAA hired Mr. Glazier to become its top
lobbyist at
a salary that was obviously much greater than the one he had as the
spelling
corrector guy.


The RIAA tries to argue that this change was necessary to because of a
provision in the bill that musicians supported. That provision prevents
anyone from registering a famous person's name as a web address without
that
person's permission. That's great. I own my name and should be able to
do
what I want with my name.

But the bill also created an exception that allows a company to take a
person's name for a web address if they create a work for hire. Which
means a
record company would be allowed to own your web site when you record
your
work for hire album. like i said. Sharecropping.

Although I've never met any one at a record company who "Believed in the

internet," they've all been trying to cover their asses by securing
everyone's digital rights.  Not that they know what to do with them. Go
to a
major lable owned band site. give me  dollar for everytime you see an
annoying under construction sign. I used to pester geffen( when it was a

lable) to do a better job. I was totally ignored for two years until i
got my
band name back. The Goo Goo Dolls are struggling to gain control of
their
domain name from Warner Bros., who claim they own the name because they
set
up a shitty promotional web site for the band.

Orrin Hatch, songwriter and Republican senator from Utah seems to be the
only
person in Washington with a progressive view of copyright law.  One
lobbyist
says that's there's no one in the House with a similar view and that
"this
would have never happened if Sonny Bono was still alive."


By the way, which bill do you think the recording industry used for this

amendment?

The Record Company Redefinition Act? No.
The Music Copyright Act? No.
The Work for Hire Authorship Act? No.

How about the Satellite Home Viewing Act of 1999?

Stealing our copyright reversions in the dead of night while no one was
looking and with no hearings held is piracy.


It's piracy when the RIAA lobbies to change the bankruptcy law to make
it
more difficult for musicians to declare bankruptcy. Some musicians have
declared bankruptcy to free themselves from truly evil contracts.

TLC declared bankruptcy after they received less than 2% of the $175
million
earned by their CD sales. That was about 40 times less than the profit
that
was divided among their management, production and record companies.

Toni Braxton also declared bankruptcy in 1998. She sold $188 million
worth of
CDs, but she was broke because of a terrible recording contract that
paid her
less than 35 cents per album.

Bankruptcy can be an artist's only defense against a truly horrible deal
and
the RIAA wants to take it away.

IV.
Artists want to believe that we can make lots of money if we're
successful.
But there are hundreds of stories about artists in their 60s and 70s who
are
broke because they never made a dime from their hit records.

And real success is still a long shot for a new artist today. Of the
32,000
new releases each year, only 250 sell more than 10,000 copies. And less
than
30 go platinum.

The four major corporations fund the RIAA. These companies are rich and
obviously well-represented.

Recording artists and musicians don't really have the money to compete.
The
273,000 working musicians in America make about $30,000 a year. Only 15%
of
American Federation of Musicians members work steadily in music.

But the music industry is a $40 billion a year business. A third of that

revenue comes from the U.S.

The annual sales of cassettes, CDs and video are larger than the gross
national product of 80 countries. Americans have more CD players, radios
and
VCRS than we have bathtubs.

Story after story gets told or artists, some of them in their 60s and
70s,
some of them authors of huge successful songs that we all enjoy, use and

sign, living in total poverty, never having been paid anything. Not even

having access to a union or to basic health care.  Artists who have
generated
billions of dollars to an industry die broke and uncared for.

And they're not actors or participators. They're the rightful owner,
orginator and performers of original compositions.

This is piracy.


V TECHNOLOGY IS NOT PIRACY
This opinion is one i really havent formed yet, so as i speak about
napster
now please understand that im not totally informed. I will be the first
in
line to file a class action suit to protect my copyrights if Napster  or
even
the far more advanced Gnutella doesnt work with us to protect us. Im on
Lars
Ulrichs side in other words, and i feel really badly for him that he
doesnt
know how to condense his case down to a soundbite that sounds more
reasonable
than the one i saw today.
i also think metallica is being given too much grief. Its anti artist
for one
thing. an artist speaks up and ana rtist gets squashed.
Sharecropping.  Dont get above your station kid.
It's not piracy when kids swap music over the internet using Napster or
Gnutella or Freenet or iMesh or beaming their CDs into a My.MP3.com or
MyPlay.com music locker. Its piracy when those guys that run those
companies
make side deals with the cartel lawyers and label heads  so that they
can be
"the labels friend"  and not the artists.

Recording artists have essentially been giving their music away for free

under the old system, so new technology that exposes our music to a
larger
audience can only be a good thing. Why arent these companies working
with us
to create some peace?

There were 1 billion music downloads last year, but  music sales are up.

Where's the evidence that downloads hurt business? Downloads are
creating
more demand.

Why aren't record companies embracing this great opportunity? Why aren't
they
trying to talk to the kids passing compilations around to learn what
they
like? Why is the RIAA suing the companies who are stimulating this new
demand? What's the point of going after people swapping cruddy-sounding
MP3s?
  .....cash....! Cash they have no intention of passing onto us the
writers of
thier profits.
At this point the 'record collector" geniuses who use napster dont have
the
coolest most arcane selection anyway unless your into techno. hardly any
pre
1982 rem fans, no sixties punk, even the ALLAN PARSONS PROJECT was
underrepresented when i tried to find some napster buddies. For the most
part
it was college boy rawk without a lot of imagination. maybe thats the
demographic that cares and in that case, My Bloody Valentine or Bert
Jansch
isnt going to get screwed just yet. theres still time to negotiate.

VI. DESTROYING TRADITIONAL ACCESS
Somewhere along the way, record companies figured out that it's a lot
more
profitable to control the distribution system than it is to nurture
artists.
And since the companies didn't have any real competition, artists had no

other place to go.

Record companies controlled the promotion and marketing; only they had
the
ability to get lots of radio play and records into all the big chain
store.
That power put them above both artists and the audience. They own the
plantation.

Being the gatekeeper was the most profitable place to be, but now we're
in a
world  half without gates. The internet allows artists to communicate
directly with their audiences; we don't have to depend solely on an
inefficient system where the record company promotes our records to
radio,
press or retail and then sits back and hopes fans find out about our
music.

Record companies don't understand the intimacy between artists and their

fans. They put records on the radio and buy some advertising and hope
for the
best.
Digital distribution gives everyone worldwide, instant access to music.

And filters are replacing gatekeepers.

In a world where we can get anything we want whenever we want it, how
does a
company create value? By filtering. In a world without friction, the
only
friction people value is editing.

A company that sorts through and edits all these options provides the
friction that makes sense of these choices. A filter is valuable when it

understands the needs of both artists and the public. New Companies
should be
conduits between musicians and their fans.

Right now the only way you can get music is by shelling out 17 bucks. In
a
world where music costs a nickel, an artist can "sell" 100 million
copies
instead of just a million.

The present system keeps artists from finding an audience because it has
too
many artificial scarcities:

Limited radio promotion, limited bin space in stores,  a limited number
of
spots on the record company roster

The digital world has no scarcities. There are countless ways to reach
an
audience.
Radio is no longer the only place to hear a new song. And tiny mall
record
stores aren't the only place to buy a new CD.


I'M LEAVING

Now artists have options. We don't have to work with  major labels
anymore
because the digital economy is creating new ways to distribute and
market
music. And the free ones amongst us arent going to. that means the slave

class that i represent has to find ways to get out of our deals. This
didnt
really matter before  and thats why we all stayed. I want my seven year
contract law California labour code case ,-
    (wherein Universal records sues me because i leave because my
employment
is up,
but they say  recording contract is not a personal contract - because
the
recording industry - who we have established are excellent lobbyists-
getting
as they did ,a clerk  to disallow Don Henley or Tom Petty the right to
give
thier copyrights to thier families next year- in California lobbied in
1987
to pass an amendment that nullified recording contracts as personal
contracts
- sort of.  Maybe. Kind of.  a little bit.   and again , in the dead of
night, succeeded.)
- to mean something to other artists. Thats why im willing to do it with
a
sword in my teeth.  I expect ill be ignored or ostracised following this

lawsuit. I expect that the treatment youre seeing  Lars Ulrich get now-
will
quadruple for me.  cool.   At least ill serve a purpose. Ima n a rtist
and a
good artist i think, but im not that artist that HAS TO play, and thus
has to
get fucked.
Maybe my laziness and self destructive streak will finally pay off and
serve
a community desperately in need of it.
They cant torture me like they could Lucinda Williams.

YOU FUNNY DOT COMMUNISTS. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER YOUR ANNOYING> SUCKA
VCS

I want to work with people who believe in music and art and passion. And
I'm
just the tip of the iceberg. I'm leaving the major label system and
there are
hundreds of artists who are going to follow me. There's an unbelievable
opportunity for new companies that dare to get it right.

How can anyone defend the current system when it fails to deliver music
to so
many potential fans? That only expects of itself a "5% success rate" a
year.?
The status quo gives us a boring culture. In a society of over 300
million
people, only 30 new artists a year sell a million records. By any
measure,
that's a huge failure.


Maybe each fan will spend less money, but maybe each artist will have a
better chance of making a living.
maybe our culture will get more interesting than the one currently owned
by
time warner media.
  Im not crazy.
  ask yourself, are any of you somehow connected to Time Warner media? I
think
theres alot of yes es to that and id have to say that in that case
president
Mckinley truly failed to bust any trusts. maybe we can remedy that now.

Artists will make that compromise if it means we can connect with
hundreds of
millions of fans instead of the hundreds of thousands that we have now.
Especially if we lose all the crap that goes with success under the
current
system. Im willing , right now to leave half these trappings , fuck it
-all
these trappings at the door to have a pure artist expierience, they
cossett
us with trappings to shut us up. That way when we say "sharecropper"!
you can
point to my free suit and say "shut up popstar"
here take my prada pants. fuck it. Let us do our real jobs. And thos eof
us
addicted to celebrity because we have nothing else to give will fade
away.
And those of us addicted to celebrity because it was there will find a
better
purer way to live.

Since I've basically been giving my music away for free under the old
system,
I'm not afraid of wireless, MP3 files or any of the other threats to my
copyrights. Anything that makes my music more available to  more people
is
great.

MP3 files sound cruddy, but a well-made album sounds great.
And i dont care what anyone says about digital recordings. At this point
they
are good for dance music, but try listening to a warm guitar tone on
them.
They suck for what i do.

record companies are terrified of anything that challenges their control
of
distribution. This is the business that insisted that CD's be sold in
incredibly wasteful 6x12 long boxes just because no one thought you
could
change the bins in a record store.

Let's not call the major labels "labels." Let's call them by their real
names: they are the distributors. They're the only distributors and they

exist because of scarcity.

Artists pay 95% of whatever we make to gatekeepers because we used to
need
gatekeepers to get our music heard.

Because they have a system that, when they decide to spend enough money,
all
of it recoupable, all of it owed by me, they can occasionally shove
things
through this system depending on a lot of arbitrary factors.


The corporate filtering system, which is the system that brought you (in
my
humble opinion) a piece of crap like "Mambo Number 5" and didn't let
your
hear the brilliant Cat Power record or the amazing new Sleater Kinney
record,
obviously doesn't have good taste anyway. But we've never paid major
label/distributors for their good taste. They've never been Yahoo and
provided filter service.

There were a lot of factors that made a distributor decide to push a
recording through the system:

How powerful is management?

Who owes whom a favor?

What independent promoter's cousin is the drummer?

What part of the fiscal year is the company putting out the record?

Is the royalty rate for the artist so obscenely bad that it's almost
100%
profit instead of just 95% and that if the record sells, it's literally
a
steal?

How much bin space is left over this year?

Was the record already a hit in Europe so there's corporate pressure to
make
it work?

Will the band screw up its live career to play free shows for radio
stations?

Does the artist's song sound enough like someone else that radio will
play it
because it fits the sound of the month?

Did the artist get the song on a film soundtrack so that the movie
studio
will pay for the video?
These factors affect the decisions that go into the system. Not public
taste.

All these things are becoming eradicated now. They are gone or on their
way
out. We don't need the gatekeepers any more. We just don't need them.

And if they aren't going to do for me what I can do for myself with my
19-year-old  webmistress on my own website, then they need to get the
hell
out of my way.
Which is allow millions of people to get my music for nothing if they
want
and hopefully they'll be kind enough to leave a tip if they like it.

I still need the old stuff. I still need a producer in the creation of a

recording, I still need to get on the radio (which costs a lot of
money), I
still need bin space for hardware CDs, I still need to provide an
opportunity
for people without computers to buy the hardware that I make. I still
need a
lot of this stuff but I can get these things from a joint venture with a

company that serves as a conduit and KNOWS ITS PLACE.
SERVING THE ARTIST AND SERVING THE PUBLIC> THATS ITS PLACE>
EQUITY FOR ARTISTS
A new company that gives artists true equity in their work can take over
the
world, kick ass and make a lot of money.

We're inspired by how people get paid in the new economy. Many visual
artists
and software and hardware designers have real ownership of their work.

I have a 14 year old niece. She used to want to be a rock star. Before
that
she wanted to be an actress. As of 6 months ago, what do you think she
wants
to be when she grows up? What's the glamorous, emancipating career of
choice?
Of course, she wants to be a web designer. its such a glamourous
business!

When you people do business with artists, you have to take a different
view
of things. We want to be treated with the respect that now goes to web
designers. Were not dockers wearing intel workers from Portland who know
how
to "manage our stress". We dont understand or want to understand
corporate
culture. I feel this obscene gold rush greedgreedgreed vibe that bothers
me
alot when i talk to dot com people about all this,  you guys cant hustle

artists that well.  at least slick a and r guys know the buzzwords. dont
try
to compete with them. I just laugh at you when you do!
maybe you could a year ago when anything dotcom sounded smarter than the
rest
of us, but the scam has been uncovered, The celebrity for sale business
is
about to  crash i hope ,an dthe idea of a sucker vc gifting some company
with
four floors just because they can "do" "chats" with "Christina" once or
twice
is ridiculous, i did a chat today....twice..... big damm deal. 200 bucks
for
the software and some elbow grease and good back end coder. wow. thats
not
worth 150 million bucks.

i mean yeah sure it is if youd like to give it to me.

TIPPING/MUSIC AS A SERVICE
I know my place. I'm a waiter. I'm in the service industry.

I live on tips. Occasionally, I'm going to get stiffed but that's OK. If
I
work hard and I'm doing good work, I believe that the people who enjoy
it are
going to want to come directly to me and get my music because it sounds
better since it's mastered and packaged by me personally. I'm providing
an
honest, real experience. Period.

When people buy the bootleg t-shirt in the concert parking lot and not
the
more expensive t-shirt inside the venue, it isn't to save money. The
t-shirt
in the parking lot is cheap and badly made but it's easier to buy. The
bootleggers have a better distribution system. There's no waiting in
line and
it only takes 2 minutes to buy one.

I know that if I can provide my own t-shirt that I designed, that I made
and
provide it as quickly or quick than the bootleggers, people who've
enjoyed
the experience I've provided will be happy to shell out a little more
money
to cover my costs.
ESECIALLY IF THEY UNDERSTAND THIS CONTEXT.  AND ARENT BEING SHOVELED A
LOAD
OF SHIT ABOUT "UPPITY" ARTISTS.
It's exactly the same with recorded music. The real thing to fear from
Napster is their simple and excellent distribution system. No one really

prefers a cruddy-sounding Napster MP3 file to the real thing, but it's
really
easy to get an MP3 file and in the middle of Kansas you may never see my

record because major distribution is really bad if your record's not in
the
charts this week or even that it takes a couple of weeks to restock the
one
copy they usually keep on hand.

I also know how many times I heard a song on the radio that I loved only
to
buy the record and have the album be a piece of crap.
if your afraid of your own filler then i bet your afraid of napster.
Im afraid of napster because i think the major label cartel will get to
them
before i do.

I've made 3 records. I like them all. I haven't made filler and they're
all
committed pieces of work. I'm not scared of you previewing my record. If
you
like it enough to have it be a part of your life, I know you'll come to
me to
get it as long as I show you how to get to me and as long as you know
that
it's out.

Most people don't go into restaurants and stiff waiters, but record
labels
represent the restaurant that forces the waiters to live on and
sometimes
pool their tips. and fight for even a bi of thier tips.

Music is a service to its consumers, not a product. I live on tips.
Giving
music away for free is what artists have been doing naturally all their
lives.


NEW MODELS
Record companies stand between artists and their fans.  We signed
terrible
deals with them because they controlled our access to the public.

But in a world of total connectivity, record companies lose that
control.
With unlimited bin space and intelligent search engines, fans will have
no
trouble finding the music they know they want. they have to know they
want it
and that needs to be a marketing business thattakes a fee.

If a record company has a reason to exist, it has to bring an artist's
music
to more fans and it has to deliver more and better music to the
audience.

You bring me more audience or a better relationship with my audience or
get
the fuck out of my way. Next time I release a record, I'll be able to go

directly to my fans and let them hear it before anyone else.

We'll still have to use radio and traditional CD distribution. Record
stores
aren't going away any time soon and radio is still the most important
part of
record promotion.


Major labels are freaking out because they have no control in this new
world.
Artists can sell CD's directly to their fans.  We can make direct deals
with
thousands of other websites  and promote our music to millions of people
that
old record companies never touch.

We're about to have lots of new ways to sell our music: downloads,
hardware
bundles, memory sticks, live webcasts, and lots of other things that
aren't
even invented yet.

CONTENT PROVIDERS
But there's something you guys have to figure out.

  Here's my open letter to Steve Case:

Avatars don't talk back!!! But what are you going to do with real live
artists?

Artists aren't like you. We got through a creative process that's
demented
and crazy. There's a lot of soul-searching and turning ourselves
inside-out
and all kinds of gross stuff that ends up on Behind the Music.


a lot of people who haven't been around artists very much get really
weird
when we sit down to lunch. So I want to give you some advice.

Learn to speak our language. Talk about songs and melody and hooks and
art
and beauty and soul. Not  sleazy record guy crap where your in a
cashmere
sweater murmering that the perfest deal really IS perfect courtney.
YUCK. but
honestly hire honestly comitted people. Were in a "new economy" right?
You
can afford to do that.



But don't talk to me about "content."

I get really freaked out when I meet someone and they start telling me
that I
should record 34 songs in the next 6 months so we have enough content
for my
site. Defining artistic expression as content is anathema to me.


What the hell is content? Nobody buys content. Real people pay money for

music because it means something to them. A great song is not just
something
to take up space on a website next to stock market quotes and baseball
scores.

A company like DEN tried to build a site with artist-free content and
I'm not
sorry to see it fail. The DEN shows look like art if you're not paying
attention, but they forgot to hire anyone to be creative. So they ended
up
with a lot of content nobody wants to see because they thought they
could
avoid dealing with defiant and moody personalities.Because they were
arrogant
 aND BECAUSE THEY WERE CONFORMISTS> artists have to deal with business
people and business people have to deal with artists. we hate each
other.
lets create companies of  mediators.

Every single artist who makes records believes and hopes that they give
you
something that will transform your life. If you're really just
interested in
data mining or selling banner ads, stick with those MOR "artistes"
willing to
call themselves content providers.

I don't know if an artist can last by meeting the current public taste,
the
taste from the last quarterly report. I don't think you can last by
following
demographics and carefully meeting expectations. I don't know many
lasting
works of art that are condescending or deliberately stupid or were
created as
content.

Don't tell me I'm a brand. I'm famous and people recognize me, but I
can't
look in the mirror and see my brand identity.

Keep talking about brands and you know what you'll get? Bad clothes. Bad

hair. Bad books. Bad movies. And bad records. and bankrupt businesses,
Rides
that were fun for a year with no employee loyalty but everyone got rich
fucking you. whow antsthat?
t THE ANSWER IS
PURITY> WE CAN AFFORD IT<LETS GO FIND IT AGAIN WHILE WE CAN<
I also feel filthy trying to call my music a product. It's not a thing
that I
test market like toothpaste or a new car. Music is personal and
mysterious.

Being  "content providers" is prostitution work that devalues our art
and
doesn't satisfy our spirits.

Artistic expression has to be provocative. The problem with artists and
the
internet: once their art is reduced to content they may never have the
opportunity to retrieve their souls.

When you form your business for creative people,with creative people,
come at
us with some thought. Everybody's process is different. And remember
that
it's art. We're not craftspeople





SPONSORSHIPS
I don't know what a good sponsorship would be for me or for other
artists I
respect. People bring up sponsorships a lot as a way for artists to get
our
music paid for up front and for us to earn a fee.

I've dealt with large corporations for long enough to know that any
alliance
where I'm an owned service is going to be doomed.

When I agreed to allow a large cola company to promote a live show, I
couldn't have been more miserable. They screwed up every single thing
imaginable. The venue was empty but sold out. There were thousands of
people
outside who wanted to be there, trying to get tickets. And there were
the
empty seats the company had purchased for a lump sum and failed to
market
because they were clueless about music

It was really dumb. You had to buy the cola. You had to dial a number.
You
had to press a bunch of buttons. You had to do all this crap that nobody

wanted to do. Why not just bring a can to the door?

On top of all this, I felt embarrassed to be an advertising agent for a
product that I'd never let my daughter use. Plus they were a
condescending
bunch of little guys. They treated me like i was an ungreatful little
bitch
who should be groveling for the expierience to play for thier damm soda.

I ended up playing without my shirt on and ordering a six pack of the
rival
cola onstage.also lots of unwholesome cursing and nudity occured. This
way I
know, no matter how tempting the cash was, they'd never do business with
me
again.

If you want some little obedient slave/content provider, then fine. But
I
think most musicians don't want to be responsible for your cleancut,
wholesome, all-american, sugar corrosive cancer-causing, all white
people, no
women allowed sodapop images.

Nor on the converse do we want to be responsible for your vice-inducing,

liver-rotting, child labor law violating, all white people, no women
allowed
booze images.

So as a defiant moody artist worth my salt, we've got to think of
something
else.
Tampax maybe.
MONEY
As a user, I love Napster it carries some risk. I hear idealistic
business
people talk about how people that are musicians would be musicians no
matter
what and that we're already doing it for free,  so what about copyright?

Please. It's incredibly easy not to be a musician. It's always a
struggle and
a dangerous career choice. We are motivated by passion and by money.

That's not a dirty little secret. It's a fact. Take away the incentive
for
major or minor financial reward and you dilute the pool of musicians.
I AM NOT SAYING" only pure artists will survive" like a few of the more
utopian people who discuss this, I dont want just pure artists to
survive.
where would we all be without the trash? we need the trash to cover up
our
national depression. The utopians also say that because in thier minds
"pure"
artists are all ani de franco and dont DEMAND A LOT OF MONEY. Why are
the
utopians all entertainment lawyers and major label workers anyway?
I DEMAND ALOT OF MONEY if i do a big huge worthwhile job and millions of

people like it, dont kid yourself.
In economic terms, you've taken an industry that's loathsome and
outmoded,
but that when it works creates some incentive and some efficiency even
though
absolutely no one gets paid.

We suffer as a society and a culture when we don't pay the true value of

goods and services delivered. We create a lack of production.

Less good music is recorded if we remove the incentive to create it.

Music is intellectual property with full cash and opportunity costs
required
to create, polish and record a finished product. If I invest money and
time
into my business, I should be reasonably protected from the theft of my
goods
and services. When the judgment came against MP3.com, the RIAA sought
damages
of $150,000 for each major-label "owned" musical track in MP3's
database.
Multiply by 80,000 CD's and MP3.com could owe the gatekeepers $120
billion
dollars.

Bit what about the Plimsouls? Why can't MP3.com pay each artist a fixed
amount based on the number of their downloads? Why on earth should
MP3.com
pay 120 billion dollars to 4 distribution companies who in most cases
won't
have to pay a nickel to the artists whose copyrights they've stolen
through
their system of organized theft?

  It's a ridiculous judgment. I believe if evidence had been entered
that
ultimately it's just shuffling big cash around 2 or 3 corporations, i
can
only pray that the judge in the MP3.com case would have seen the RIAA's
case
for the joke that it was.

I'd rather work out a deal with MP3.com, and force them to be
artist-friendly
instead of being laughed at and having my money hidden by a major label
as
they sell my records out the back door behind everyone's back.

How dare they behave in such a horrified manner in regards to copyright
law
when their entire industry is based on piracy?
When mister label head guy that my lawyer yelled at me not to name got
caught
last year selling millions of "cleans" out the back door. Cleans being
the
records that arent for marketing but are to be sold.
Who the fuck is this guy? he wants to save a little cash so he fucks the

artist and goes home? do they fire him? does Chuck Phillip s of teh LA
Times
say anything? No way! this guys a source! he throws awesome dinner
parties!
why fuck with the status quo? lets pick on LArs Ulrich instead because
he
brought up an interesting point!


CONCLUSION

I'm looking for people to help connect me to more fans, because I
believe
fans will leave a tip based on the enjoyment and service I provide. I'm
not
scared of them getting a preview.

It really is going to be a global village where a billion people have
access
to one artist and a billion people can leave a tip if they want to.

It's a radical democratization. Every artist has access to every fan and

every fan has access to every artist and the people who direct fans to
those
artists. People that give advice and technical value are the people we
need.
People crowding the distribution pipe and trying to ignore fans and
artists
have no value. This is a perfect system.

If you're going to start a company that deals with musicians, please do
it
because you like music. Offer some control and equity to the artists and
try
to give us some creative guidance.

If music and art and passion are important to you, there are hundreds of

artists who are ready to rewrite the rules.

In the last few years, business pulled our culture away from the idea
that
music is important and emotional and sacred. But new technology has
brought a
real opportunity for change; we can break down the old system and give
musicians real freedom and choice.

A great writer named Neal Stephenson said that America does 4 things
better
than any other country in the world:

rock music
movies
software
And high-speed pizza delivery

All of these are sacred American art forms.
Lets return to our purity and our idealism while we have this shot.





Warren Beatty once said: "The greatest gift God gives us is to enjoy the

sound of our own voice. And the second greatest gift is to get somebody
to
listen to it."

And for that I humbly thank you.
--
--->  The revolution will not be televised...it will be webcast.<---

while online visit:
  http://www.primenet.com/~drywall/
  http://www.stanridgway.com
  http://www.futureperfect.org
  http://www.alliedchemical.com
  http://www.ultramodern.org

                                                 end of transmission...