Rockbites: Courtney Love puts Napster in perspective

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June 2000 • Rockbites Alternative Daily

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Courtney Love puts Napster in perspective
19 June 2000

On 16 May Courtney Love, front woman for American grunge pop band Hole, defined and then attacked the greed of the record industry at the Digital Hollywood conference in New York city. Love argued that it is the major labels, their mouthpiece the Recording Industry Association of America, and the US Congress that are stealing in significant ways from artists—not Napster or Gnutella or the fans who use such file trading software.
    “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... 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... 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...
    “The 273,000 working musicians in America make [on average] about US$30,000 [euro 33,500] a year. Only 15 percent of American Federation of Musicians members work steadily in music... But the music industry is a US$40 billion-a-year business.”
    “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... There were a billion music downloads last year, but music sales are up. Where’s the evidence that downloads hurt business? Downloads are creating more demand... No one really prefers a cruddy-sounding Napster MP3 file to the real thing... ”
    “You funny dot-communists. Get your shit together, you 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.”
    While there’s no tape of her talk available from Digital Hollywood, she’s now posted the text on the band’s official Web site. | Love's Digital Hollywood speech | | Digital Hollywood | | discography | | sample from Celebrity Skin | | top of page |

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