MP3, Amateur Musicians and Music Distribution

Abstract: Relatively little attention has been given to the effect of digital music on amateur musicians and music distribution. Here, I examine the revolution on the horizon-sites such as MP3.com herald the eventual bridging of the gap between artist and listener while shrinking the record companies. In this paper I examine two such sites that host independent and labeled artists alike: the larger, better-known MP3.com and the smaller, independent, non-profit Songfight. I examine how they each handle the challenges of digital music and their attraction for artists while concluding that a change in the recording industry as we know it is forthcoming.

Much of the attention on the MP3 has focused on file sharing programs such as Napster and various "peer to peer" applications, such as Morpheus or KaZaA. While such programs do pose a threat to major label copyrights and the music industry as we know it, there is another facet of the MP3 that has received relatively little attention. Digital music compression has not only allowed major label piracy, but, as one commentator put it, "off-off-off-broadway [sic] indie rock" [1] as well. Websites such as MP3.com, the Internet Underground Music Archive1, and Ampcast2 provide places for amateur musicians to publish their music without the interference of a record label, bringing the listener and the artist closer together. [2]

In bridging this gap between artists and listeners, however, certain dangers arise. While the usual issues of artists attempting to protect their songs from copyright violations, scams, and unauthorized rearrangements3 arise, others issues need to be taken into account. These include the posting of offensive material, the posting of offensively bad material, and the relative inability to promote one's music without the help of outside agents or the website that hosts it. Not only that, but the money offered to artists by such sites is hardly significant, making it difficult for such sites to completely replace record companies. In this paper, I examine two such sites-MP3.com (which is a large, broad, for-profit site) and Songfight (a smaller, independent, non-profit themed site), and compare and contrast the advantages and pitfalls of each. In comparing and contrasting the two, we can see that the ubiquity of computing has not only created new options for amateur music distribution, but that it has begun to revolutionize music distribution as well.

MP3.Com

Michael Robertson, a San Diego software programmer, started MP3.