In Thursday's Wall Street Journal there is a story that says
Islandlife/Rykodisc are going to be begin selling MP3's over the web.
Sender: idm-owner@hyperreal.org
Precedence: bulk
"...200 tracks...the likes of Frank Zappa, Morphine, and others...and
sell them for 99 cents over GoodNoise's website.
"...Rykodisc worried that ignoring mp3 would simply encourage more piracy
of its catalog. By sanctioning use of the technology, the label can
derive revenue and royalties from per-track Web sites.
"'Every minute someone downloads a pirated mp3 track and doesn't
compensate the artist, that's another person who's gotten the idea that
they can geit it for free,'...says Lars Murray, Rykodisc's director of
new media.
"...The 200 tracks it initally plans to sell in mp3 represent only about
3% of its total catalog. Some of these songs--nearly a quarter of them
are by the late Mr. Zappa--are older tracks that aren't likely to be the
hottest sellers in record stores. But Mr. Murray said Rykodisc hopes to
deveolp cross-promotions between its online and bricks-and-mortar
retailers that complement, rather than undercut, CD sales.
"'Digital distribution is the future, and we've got to get on top of it
because it's not waiting for us,' he said."
Phil Downey