The man behind MP3.com, one of the most popular MPEG sites on the Web, has decided to go beyond reporting on the music business and become a player in the industry. Michael Robertson is offering musicians and fans a package that combines online musical distribution with CD production and sales.
By adopting an artist-friendly stance, a barrier-free entry into the music world, and a technology-centered approach, Robertson hopes that his new label – Digital Automatic Music, or DAM – will rejuvenate an atrophied music industry.
Unlike the Internet Underground Music Archive and similar sites, DAM doesn't charge bands to be listed. Any musician wanting to appear on the DAM/MP3.com site can get a free Web page, then offer free soundfiles or sell CDs.
DAM will produce, market, and ship CDs in exchange for 50 percent of a band's profits. But, unlike a regular label, DAM will claim no ownership of a group's material. Musicians are also free to pull out at any time.
Since DAM's launch two weeks ago, Robertson says he's signed up 30 bands. That's a lot compared to the number of groups on most record labels but still a far cry from Internet Underground's 1,000-group roster. The Internet Underground, however, does not press CDs or help to distribute them.
Robertson likes to compare DAM to Dell Computer.
"What Dell did for the PC, we're doing for the CD. We're doing it direct: The CDs are produced and shipped to the buyers direct. We're doing just-in-time ordering. We actually produce the CD when it's ordered."
The computer metaphor comes easily, since Robertson has a programming background. This, he claims, enables him to see past the conceptual stumbling blocks that keep the music industry's big players from joining the high-tech world. He feels that being a naif lets him do things that others haven't thought to do.
MP3.com's parent company, Zco Inc., is basically a software company, with a search engine, Filez.com; a computer-desktop theme site, Themez.com; and a site for online personal calenders, Calendarz.com. Robertson says he produced MP3.com because no one else was covering the MP3 medium.
"The focus of MP3.com is not news and editorial," he said. "However, we've had to step up and fill that role. Our long-term positioning is in the content space: building the song library, helping bands create CDs, and helping listeners find music they like. Along the way, we got suckered into doing the news angle as well."
Robertson admits that covering the industry while trying to work in it is walking something of a tightrope.
Getting results
Tim Holmes, a filmmaker, has used DAM to promote the soundtrack of 0's & 1's, a dark comedy he made about a manipulative computer-science student.
Holmes signed up the soundtrack for DAM distribution as a way to promote the film. Although he has made little money, Holmes is pleased.
"Not a lot of people know about [DAM] yet. It's kind of still in beta," Holmes says. Those who have heard the music have been intrigued, though. "Lately I've started to get requests for the film." Which is music to Holmes' ears.
"That's what I need most: exposure. I want people to see it, hear it, talk about it." Holmes happily sends out copies of the film, which benefits the musicians who worked on the soundtrack as well.
If DAM sounds too good to be true, some people in the industry will tell you it is.
Bands are naive if they think something like DAM is a shortcut to success, warns Jim Griffin. Formerly director of technology at Geffen Records, Griffin is now chairman of OneHouse, an e-commerce consulting firm that specializes in intellectual properties, like music.
"I think the odds of someone buying a record or dealing with a band they've never heard of is infinitesimally small," says Griffin. "This is sort of an incubator with very little resources for a band. They are willing to share those resources that they have, but those are relatively meager, even in the digital world."
The issue, according to Griffin, is simple: "What are you bringing to the party to help that artist?
"That's why people sign with big labels – they have the resources that are necessary. For all the criticism they might get, they do put a lot of money into the bands they sign. If you get signed by a major label, they're going to put six figures of money into you at the bare minimum, and that helps any business."
Griffin's skepticism of the DAM model doesn't stop him from admiring Robertson and his gumption.
"I think very highly of Michael Robertson," says Griffin. "I think he's a classic cartel-buster, in the sense that he doesn't really owe much to the past – or anything at all, for that matter. He thinks only about the future."
But Griffin's admiration is tempered.
"I think there's an old proverb that goes something like 'A man who pulls down a fence needs to know why it was put up in the first place.' [Robertson] doesn't understand the record-company side, because he's never worked there."
From his work on MP3.com, Robertson knows the online world, though, and his bet that MP3 would emerge as the most popular format for online music seems to be paying off. The Beastie Boys just made industry waves by posting MP3 files of some performances on the band's http://www.beastieboys.com/ Web site.
MP3.com is now getting 80,000 visitors a day, says Robertson, which is a lot of eyeballs by any standard. If his bet with DAM proves similarly popular, some as-yet-unheard-of musicians may also reap the rewards.
