By the year 2002, you're going to see a million artists and a million labels on the Internet, and the old industry rules won't apply. People say big lawyers are going to take over the Internet. They can't find everybody. They're not gonna be able to sign everybody. People are gonna rebel and use this to rebel. Unlike many of my fellow artists, I support the sharing of music files on the Internet.

I take an outspoken role on everything I think is progressive for art. And I think this is progressive for the arts because the industry and corporations have always dominated and monopolized the outlets for art, whether it be radio, television, or even the skewing of the price factor. The dominance of record companies dominating over retail and other outlets--why should I care about that?

The Business Hurts Musicians More Than File Sharing
As someone who has been connected to hip-hop and rap music for 22 years, I've seen how difficult it has become for the majority of artists, songwriters, producers, and independent labels to get their music directly to the fans without signing with a major label and subjecting themselves to rules that are in the best interest of the label. I believe this structure has hurt the artist more than someone passing a song around free of charge has.

File sharing is the process that Napster specializes in, and you have tons and tons of situations that are going to join the process. We at Rapstation.com have Gnutella, and Gnutella does file sharing as well. So my whole thing is that the government is looking at file sharing like they can stop it, and they just can't. They're stopping one company, and I think that's shortsighted of the industry, but I don't really give credit to the industry for being too smart anyway.

Take Judge Patel (who's presiding over the Napster trial), for instance. If Patel was the key judge at the last turn of the century, we'd still be relying on horses and buggies and trains to get around. Stopping the process of file sharing is like trying to control the rain: You just can't do it.

The Internet As Radio
Artists can profit more from the Internet, but at the same time, they shouldn't have delusions of grandeur of creating their art for the standard industry price. Artists usually make their art because the industry dictates the standards for the amount they should make their art for. Therefore, a lot of the artists are in the position of trying to recoup what has already been spent on their behalf. And now, as far as the Internet is concerned, it gives each artist the ability and the advantage to control every aspect of their art. We should think of the Internet as a new kind of radio; programs such as Napster, Gnutella, and the Internet in general are promotional tools that can help artists who don't have the opportunity to get their music played on mainstream radio or on MTV.

What you will see now is a third tier of the music industry that is cropping up, and a lot of people think it's a threat, but I think it's a service to the big tier. I think you have majors and independents. Now you have the Internet, which I think is almost akin to high school sports (in comparison) to college (indepedent labels) and professional (major labels). So I think there'll be a great big talent pool, but you'll have smarter musicians who have a better understanding of their terrain rather than being locked outside the musical game.

Online Advantages
It's a more open tier that doesn't exclude artists from getting to the top tier. It just gives the artists a better vision of what they're dealing with, instead of being the gullible artist that doesn't know anything and relies on the industry to let them know about things. So now you have situations where artists are putting together their own teams who are down with whatever the Internet has to offer. They know how to navigate through some of the areas that might be problematic for the majors, who think everything is problematic except for the process that they've invented or the process that they've dominated. The bottom line is that the major industries can't host a million artists and a million labels. There's not enough room for them. It's not feasible. With the Internet, it's possible. Digital distribution is now looked at as a parallel-sized industry to the offline industry--the offline industry that is run by lawyers and accountants, who--of course--are going to view it as being a parasitic industry. In a way, it is. But then so did the train industry when they looked at airplanes coming out; they tried to fight tooth and nail to keep them out the game.

I think the copyright laws that were created in the last century are definitely going to have to go through a revision period. And what applied last century doesn't apply in this century. But I think copyright will be reformed to mean a whole other thing. I think the Internet might be more like a situation where BMI or ASCAP increases the performance situation and almost ignores the mechanical royalties. But the question remains: Will the corporations that dominate concede to sharing the musical marketplace? We'll see. Until then, we will slowly see formations of new rules and regulations that will eventually support many more artists than the record companies of yesterday. The Internet has created a new planet for musicians to explore, and I'm with that.

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