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The industry gets upset when anyone calls this a “tax” so I’ll use the “voluntary license” term, even though tax is much more accurate. A true voluntary license wouldn’t require everyone having a certain provider to opt-in, but that’s exactly what this plan would require. In fact, as the slides indicate, eventually it would basically require all ISPs to “opt-in” forcing all of their members to “opt-in.” Suddenly, everyone has to pay. That’s not a voluntary license. It’s a tax. However, even if we step back and pretend it’s really a voluntary license, and even if we grant the premise… Read more »

I’m about to save the music industry from shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars for consultants and research reports, by revealing the marketing secret behind the five-year-long surge in illegal online swapping of songs: People like to get things for free that would otherwise cost them money. And they won’t stop taking them for free just because there’s a convenient legal alternative, if that alternative requires opening their wallets. Stunned by my unique powers of insight? You shouldn’t be, yet this obvious lesson seems lost in the squabbling among record labels, quasi-legal peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and start-up companies hoping… Read more »

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Up until that point, my interview with two-fifths of Temecula, California’s Finch was going rather smoothly. That is, of course, until I mentioned the “E” word. Suddenly, I struck a nerve. “We’re not ‘emo’,” says guitarist Randy Strohmeyer wearily. “People can call us whatever they want to help them identify with the music because when it comes down to it, it’s just the music anyway.” He pauses for a moment, before adding: “But if you ask us, we don’t really care. We don’t call ourselves anything besides a rock band because our… Read more »

Prince wants his music back. Just a month before he releases the first DVD from his New Power Generation Music Club, the club has sent its paid members a list of album rarities Prince would like returned in his continuing struggle to guard against bootlegging and to control his own sonic real estate. In an e-mail sent Wednesday to the NPGMC, fans were asked to “Help the cause!” and look for “anything with a WB logo that was unofficially released during Prince’s tenure at that label.” Among the suggested discs to send in, according to a list provided by the… Read more »

After seven years of performing, writing songs and recording, identical twins Evan and Jaron Lowenstein are finally enjoying the success of a major radio hit, “Crazy for this Girl,” on Sony/Columbia Records. Born and raised in Atlanta, the brothers were destined for sports careers – they traveled the country as semi-pro baseball players – until Evan decided to drop everything for music after hearing Elvis Costello’s “Allison.” He talked it over with Jaron, and the two decided to pursue writing music and becoming rock stars. But simultaneous actions weren’t a new thing for these twins. Together they thought up the… Read more »