Suddenly there was a Kosovar benefit CD being put together by Epic, with Sony guaranteeing CARE, OXFAM and Doctors Without Borders a cool $1 million. Executive Vice President David Massey says he couldn't put an exact date on the origins of the project, but his "three or four weeks ago" means that the project was started at same time that Pearl Jam had brought up the subject with the label. Pearl Jam went back to Act Now and Zeigeist and gave them the good news and the bad news. There was a new $1 million commitment from the label. But the band's song would not be available on the MP3 site.

Unfortunately, this was a "but" that evaporated a deal worth $250,000 to CARE. With the $1 million donation, however, Sony had managed an effective end-run past the Pearl Jam download plan.

Sony gives a good impression of not having known what was going on. Epic's Massey, for his part, says he didn't know specifically about the Emusic deal. "I remember that they were thinking about different opportunities out there," he says blandly.

Normally, when record companies produce benefit albums, all profits are parceled out on the back end -- meaning the label produces the album, distributes it, collects the receipts, figures out how much money the project cleared and then steers the profits to the right place. In the case of the Epic benefit album -- dubbed "No Boundaries" -- Sony is donating the $1 million up front. Even Massey admits that is "very unusual."

Furthermore, Pearl Jam's "Last Kiss" is the lynchpin of the record, he acknowledges, even if he didn't see it that way in the beginning. The cover song was sent out to fan-club members and found by a few radio programmers, who spun the track. Now the song is getting serious radio play and will no doubt draw more attention to the record than any of the other live cuts or remixes by Alanis Morissette or Korn. "[For Pearl Jam] I think that the single and album will be the most effective way of raising the most money, which is what this is all about," Massey says.

CARE, of course, is thrilled regardless. Act Now, Zeitgeist and Emusic are collectively putting out a more low-key benefit record, mostly populated by medium- to low-profile indie bands like Superchunk, Guided By Voices and Creeper Lagoon. Emusic is donating $50,000 to CARE. Werbach and Kurland are still excited with their smaller project and didn't want to say anything about getting snubbed by Sony. "We're happy that real dollars are actually getting to the front lines," says a diplomatic Werbach.

It's hard to say what really happened inside Sony, but it looks a lot like the label put down $1 million to keep Pearl Jam from releasing an MP3 track. Massey insists that's not the case -- the $1 million was to show everyone how serious the label was about getting funding to the organizations immediately. Still, if that's the case, why didn't the label allow Emusic to release the song a few weeks early and let them donate the $250,000?

***

On the flip side of the Pearl Jam-Sony deal, the Beastie Boys were able to clean up for Kosovar refugees by donating three tracks for digital download. But even this magnanimous act, which could raise up to $2 million for four different aid organizations, looks a bit funny. Actually, it's not so funny -- it just looks like marketing masquerading as altruism. But don't blame the Beastie Boys: They're the ones who've figured out how to turn three songs into two mil, and how to get a major label, Capitol, to allow a multi-platinum artist to experiment with digital media.

The songs, formatted with the just-released Windows Media 4.0, are part of a charity effort that will benefit four different organizations working with Kosovo refugees. Even though downloads are free, the backers of Launch, the site where the songs are available, will donate $1 for each to CARE and MADRE for the first million downloads. Microsoft will match donations to UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders.

The Beasties deal is a minor coup along a trail of recent victories for Microsoft, which debuted Windows Media 4.0 last month and is barreling along to catch up with the dominant MP3 and Real Audio formats. Although some major artists, like Tom Petty and David Bowie, have released MP3 files, most of the record labels, like Sony above, are terrified of the software because it doesn't prevent copying. Even Capitol politely asked the Beastie Boys to remove from their Web site live songs recorded on their last tour and posted as MP3s. "There was a casual discussion and we asked them to take the files down while we were sorting out the issues of downloadable technology," says Capitol Executive Vice President Liz Heller.

Still, MP3 is hugely popular, even though hardly any major acts have released label-sanctioned songs. The goal then, for several companies all working on creating the standard for digital downloads, is to convince MP3 users to switch over to their players. Most of the devices offer the same near-CD quality of music, but Microsoft's new player adds a feature that the record companies love: It prevents copying. (Sony gave the Microsoft technology its endorsement last month when it announced a series of summer promotional singles on Windows Media 4.0.) Now, part of Microsoft's job is to make listeners start using its player instead of the Real Audio player or the MP3 player that's already sitting on their desktop. Launch, which wants to act as a gateway to help consumers find new music, is likewise trying to drive music consumers to its site. Apparently both of them felt that spending $2 million on three Beastie Boys tracks was a great way to start.

Of course, no one -- including the Beasties, who turned down an interview request -- really wants to talk about why the band is implicitly supporting a digital format that panders to the record industry. Launch certainly isn't complaining. CEO Dave Goldberg sees the songs as a way to spread the word about Kosovo, Windows Media 4.0 and Launch.

"We think it's a very reasonable marketing expense," he says. "We probably would have paid this much for those songs, but [the benefit] is even better."

Goldberg is talking about branding Launch, of course, and branding is what it's all about on the Internet. "The branding of the player is what's happening now because the rhetoric is still technical," says Mark Hardie, a senior analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. "When technology emerges and you're trying to push consumers to change their behavior you shout and scream about the techno features and you try to convince the consumers that it's better than what they've been doing. But in the long run, music is about the music experience -- it's not about the technical experience."

Meanwhile, the music experience predictably has little to do with the decisions that the majors are making. They're still looking for a system that will be compliant with their own Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), which will establish copy-protected guidelines for digital media -- and guarantee that the majors will keep getting paid as music providers. Right now, Windows Media 4.0 looks like it will be compliant with SDMI. Oddly enough, it took Kosovar refugees and a $2 million carrot for Capitol records to even toy with digital downloads. "It helped make the decision feel right," says Capitol's Heller. "There a lot of SDMI issues circulating and we're all trying to figure out what we will do. But in this case, why would we not?"
salon.com | June 9, 1999

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