BANDS ATTACK MP3.com dotmusic.com MP3.com has angered its musicians by publishing their earnings online and in public. Unsigned artists, who have been earning money from the site through CD sales and the "Payback for Playback" promotion, now find their incomes printed alongside song titles on their MP3.com home pages. MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson, defending the system in his regular column, wrote that "...putting out into the open how much an artist is earning removes the veil of secrecy. It shouldn't be a classified number what musicians bring home." But bands, who are hoping the company will change its mind or at least offer them some control over the announcements, have put together a petition hundreds of names long. One bulletin board posting even explains how bands can adjust the code of their pages to make the function less visible. The most militant protest of all comes from dance act Monocle (www.mp3.com/monocle) who printed up the salaries of MP3.com bosses, taken from official government archives. Michael Robertson's reported income was nearly $300,000, plus $4,000 to lease a car. Even compared with easy listening pianist Ernesto Cortazar, by far MP3.com's highest-earning performer with $32, 268.04 in sales, Robertson is doing well. Most users receive only pennies. These apparent inequities are causing division between the unsigned acts who depend on MP3.com. "It looks great on pages of artists who made more than $14,000...", says MP3.com user Loek, but on the page of artists who are still frantically working on their newest album, like us, it looks incredibly embarrassing." Following ongoing discussions with the RIAA and a new agreement with performing rights organisation BMI, it looks as though MP3.com is marketing itself more to the music industry than the musicians themselves. But without the support of independent artists who are its lifeblood, can MP3.com remain a success? comment on this article e-mail this to a friend start a discussion [about i-drive] writing index dotmusic index Problems? Questions? Suggestions? Contact me: mail@tobyslater.com back to top back to home page

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