August 2 , 2004
Volume 5, Issue 8
Altnet Sponsors Warped Tour
From Scott Banerjee in Billboard Magazine
Last winter, Vans Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman attended the Consumer Electronics Show to learn more about setting up backstage wireless Internet connections.
The connections he made, however, were of a different type. Technology companies, eager to tap into the Warped Tour's young, tech-savvy fan base, have jumped on board as tour partners. The 10th annual roadshow kicked off in Houston with a lineup including such bands as Bad Religion, Good Charlotte, NOFX, Thursday, New Found Glory, Simple Plan, The Vandals and Taking Back Sunday.
The tour's sponsor list includes DCIA Member Altnet as well as MusicNow, Apple, and Wraptor, among others. The current tour includes a digital media pavilion, where attendees can learn about formats and applications.
Digital service provider MusicNow created a tour-specific online music store and subscription service, Vans Warped Tour Digital Music Club. MusicNow also sells $10 Warped download cards at tour venues. Apple has its own iLife tent on the tour. The tent features iMacs and PowerMac G5s that allow fans to experiment with music and video creation.
Lyman also embraced relationships with companies that promote peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading of music.
Digital content distributor Altnet has provided an infrastructure to sell live performance videos from the tour. Fans can access the videos on the Warped tour Web site or through P2P software programs such as Kazaa and Grokster offered by DCIA Members.
"The independent artists are looking to promote themselves," Lyman says. "A lot of our kids have a greater loyalty to the Warped artists, and these P2P relationships allow fans to support the artists and buy their music."
Lee Jaffe, President of Altnet, worked out licensing parameters with more than a dozen independent labels with acts on the tour - including Epitaph, Vagrant, and Artemis. Altnet allows users three free video downloads before it starts charging.
"We're experimenting, and selling video is the new thing," Jaffe says. "Every time we reach out to independent record labels to distribute their work, they say, 'Yes, this is what we want, we want the ability to market to (our) audience.' It's important to connect them directly to their fan base."
Wraptor, the tour's newest partner, is distributing demo versions of its software, WraptorLab, which allows artists to promote, distribute, and sell their music online. "This is a way of leveling the playing field for indie artists trying to get into digital distribution," says Benjamin Osgood, president/CEO of Wraptor parent Free Radical Networks. "They can proactively promote themselves rather than wait for an iTunes to get behind them."
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Now is the time to make your voice heard in opposition to the terribly misguided IICA bill (S 2560), which would make VCRs, TiVos, iPods, Web-based software programs, and P2P applications illegal; rollback the Betamax Doctrine that has benefited a generation of citizens and inspired a panoply of wonderful technology innovations; and unleash an unprecedented new storm of wasteful and destructive litigation.
Click The Vote's John Parres invites you to help redistribute Tom Barger's two-hour QuickTime movie (250 mb) of the IICA Senate hearing webcast during which four-out-of-five private sector witnesses voice their opposition to this dangerous measure, only to be told that the Senate Judiciary Committee intends to proceed with it anyway.
Our immediate objective is to enable the public to share resources and ensure that this important hearing is seen and heard by as many people as possible.
DCIA Members INTENT MediaWorks and RazorPop, along with Deviant Art, DMusic, Downhill Battle, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Culture, Gnutella, LimeWire, New Yorkers For Fair Use, Professor Lawrence Lessig, Public Knowledge, and Save The iPod, are now promoting the availability of this file - "P2P The INDUCE Hearing" - and encouraging people to download it and place a saved copy in their shared folders to be made available via P2P. Please join them.
We also urge you to support P2PCongress.org, John Parres' new initiative to promote education about additional pending and future legislation of interest to the distributed computing industry, through the sharing of audio and video of Congressional hearings and events. It will be a non-partisan site - a kind of P2P C-Span.
Please let John know (johnparres@gmail.com) of your willingness to participate.
I'd also like to congratulate DCIA Best Practices leader Elaine Reiss for very effectively leading the Consumer Disclosures Working Group, and for the superior work product developed with excellent contributions from a diverse group of leading P2P software developers and distributors - a week ahead of schedule.
According to Elaine, "While the Internet generally exposes users to risks associated with encountering a vast range of digital materials, none are unique to P2P file sharing. As the newest Web-based industry, however, we are proud to exemplify the highest standards. After five drafts, we have completed work on our proposed standard consumer disclosure guidelines for both pre-download and, in response to valuable suggestions from Congressional staff, operational usage of P2P software programs, and our plan for implementation."
The Consumer Disclosures Working Group's deliverable features a message box that will appear prominently on P2P software download sites and link to a standardized P2P software risks-disclosures page. This page in turn is divided into five sections describing risks, with a link to obtain more information from the FTC, as well as individual links to special features and tools that participating P2P programs provide to help users mitigate or avoid the risks. The intention of this regime is to ensure that all new users read these disclosures and understand relevant risks before downloading the software.
The next steps are to solicit feedback from appropriate officials and then make adjustments based on their comments. The DCIA will then create a demo and post it to a non-public part of its website by August 31st for more complete review and comment by interested parties.
By late September, incorporating any changes as a result of this process, a deployment schedule can be put in place for voluntary participation by P2P software developers and distributors. This has the potential to be a very worthwhile program, benefiting consumers and the distributed computing industry.
Welcome to Rap Station
Please warmly welcome Rap Station to the Content Group. We look forward to providing valuable services to this newest DCIA Member and supporting its contributions to commercial development of the distributed computing industry.
The critical and commercial success of Public Enemy has opened the doors for Chuck D to deliver his message to all segments of the population and, most recently, as spokesperson and major proponent of music on the Internet, and specifically via P2P.
Chuck D launched Rap Station in September 1999 as a multi-format Web "supersite." A home for the vast global Hip Hop community, the site boasts a TV and radio station with original programming, a slew of Hip Hop's most prominent DJs, celebrity interviews, free MP3 downloads (the first was contributed by multi-platinum rapper Coolio), social commentary, current events, and regular features dedicated to empowering rap artists with the knowledge to turn their craft into a viable living.
In a landmark move, Public Enemy became the first multi-platinum selling act to release its album via the Web before it was available in retail stores. Rap Station has partnered with some of the most exciting and innovative companies on the Web, including RealNetworks, House of Blues Digital, Launch, Tucows, Rioport, Communities.Com, New World Culture, All Earth, and DCIA Member Altnet.
Chuck D's involvement in the Internet has landed him on the cover of The Net, Wired, Bomb and Yahoo Internet Life magazines. His outspoken advocacy of the Web also been profiled in Forbes, Time, USA Today and The Industry Standard, and he was named to Upside Magazine's "Elite 100" list of Internet leaders, alongside the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Tarnia Tears It Up
Since teaming up with DCIA Member INTENT MediaWorks in May 2004, Tarnia, an unsigned musician from the UK, has demonstrated with astonishing rapidity how the P2P distribution channel can be used successfully by emerging artists.
Her music, seeded into the P2P file-sharing environment by INTENT, garnered over 107,000 hits in its first nine days. Fast-forward just two months, and Tarnia is already in negotiations with Boston-based Vertex Entertainment for a USA and Canada tour.
Her co-writer and co-producer Steve Trill is very excited about the success that file sharing has quickly brought to her. Tarnia's web design team Zen Assassins in NY has been drafted to do artwork using photos taken by UK photographer Vic Edmonston for sponsor-advertising on P2P as she expands her distribution.
"It's a wonderful thing to be able to bring all my team together whom I have entrusted for years. Finally they get to see the results and benefit from my success," proclaims Tarnia.
Tarnia has also taken on a role representing INTENT MediaWorks in Europe where she can help other artists start to achieve their own success.
"At Atlantis, Les Ottolenghi, President of INTENT MediaWorks, spoke about opportunities for musicians to distribute through P2P. Before his questions were even answered, people were getting out of their seats to hand us their business cards. It was truly amazing, and as we left the conference, we already had bands signing up with us," notes Tarnia. "The great thing is that INTENT really cares about the artists, and we are free to manage ourselves and have non-exclusive agreements."
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