Billboard Magazine February 26, 1994 On-Line Archive Offers Music by Kristen Lieb A pair of computer science majors at the University of California Santa Cruz think they have the answer for recording artists who wish to circumvent the traditional record-label road to stardom. Robert Lord and Jeff Patterson are the founders of the Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA), which since November has invited artists to place music, graphics, and text on the Internet, the network of networks that links computer users around the world. The Internet is already a hotbed of information about music. Of the 4,000 groups listed on Usenet, an Internet division that lists electronic bulletin boards, at least 60 are music discussion groups centering on specific genres or individual artists. There are also "mailing lists," which users commonly learn about through Usenet groups. Among them are files like the Indie List which contains record and concert reviews from 200 - 300 contributors world-wide. Lord and Patterson's IUMA goes further, allowing Internet users with the necessary equipment to listen to and save a digitized track from each participating artist. The music can be accessed by anyone with a sound card - a device that is built into most Macintosh machines and can be purchased as an add-on to other PCs - and software to decompress the digitized signal. The music can be transferred and stored on any recordable medium, such as audio tape or recordable CD. Text and graphics can be stored along with the audio on a computer disk. Alternative Distribution IUMA is "free" to the artists and label placing music on the service, according to Lord and Patterson. The two view their enterprise as a means for up-and-coming acts to find an audience among the estimated 20 million world-wide users who access the Internet. If the idea catches on, they believe IUMA can become a full-fledged alternative distribution system, offering entire albums at minimal costs to users. But their plan is not without its hurdles, including the protection and payment of copyright holders. In an attempt to sidestep the music establishment, Lord and Patterson have walked into a minefield of legal questions that are just now coming to the fore in the copyright community. Furthermore, there are limitations to the Internet. The system is notoriously difficult to navigate, and because no one is actually in charge of the network, there appears to be no effort to make it more user-friendly. And then there are technical limitations. Lord and Patterson use compression technology to digitize up to five minutes of audio for each act. Once compressed, it can take as long as 30 minutes to transfer a three minute song over phone lines, depending on the connection and the user's equipment. Still, they are optimistic. "Transfer rates for data over your telephone are going to become faster and faster," Patterson says. "Soo you'll be able to hit 'play' have the music come right out." IUMA claims to offer the highest quality of music available on the Internet. Other site have on-line music, but the audio quality is poor (sub-AM radio quality), they say, and the featured music is commonly fragments of material pirated from the radio or CDs. Lord claims that IUMA uses a compression ratio of 10:1; by comparison, MD is at 5:1 and DCC is 4:1. A higher compression ratio means more material can be stored in less space, but it can also mean loss of part of the information. Lord says his technique achieves FM-quality sound. "We can see a day when we're compressing full albums and playing them back in real-time," says Lord."By the year 2000, anyone with a sound card should be able to listen to a complete on-line [music] library." So far, 16 acts are on the system. Some are associated with small labels, other are unsigned. The text file for each act can include a contact number and information about how to purchase more material by the act. IUMA requests donation for the acts, but doesn't demand them. As for users, they typically pay a connection fee to the system carrier. The Mouse vs. The Elephant Lord says the IUMA is his way of shrinking the music world down to size and combining his two great interests - music and computers. "By the year 2000, we see the music industry really losing significance," he says." "We could be the mouse that scared the elephants," he says. "Why buy Madonna's record when we have 50 competing Madonnas for free?" But that day is years away, and without a means of collecting and distributing royalties, there probably wouldn't be 50 competing Madonnas. IUMA claims it has some novel ideas that ensure that on-line artists would receive compensation. "The artist could include a passage in the text file saying, 'If this were sold in stores, it would cost $14, and I would get $1. Just send me the $1,'" Patterson says. "Or, they could get paid on commission. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to say, 'I like everything you've done so far, so here's $10 toward your next effort.' The only thing I could compare us to is Shareware. That's a software company which says, 'If you like it, pay us for use; if you don't delete it.'" Patterson says. "People do send in money." Shareware is a source of some of the compression software used by IUMA. "We expect our service to work like a store full of free demo tapes, or a sampler CD," Patterson says. "People who like the single will contact the artist or buy the album." Michael B. Stone, an attorney who is providing free legal services to IUMA, expects the venture to become a money-making venture for participating artists and IUMA's founders. "Some artists will embrace the Internet ethic, but a far greater number will want some mechanism for being paid for the work they do," Stone says. "I think there's a way to accomodate both kinds of artists." He envisions a system in which the artist post short recordings and reviews on-line for free, but set the cost of downloading entire songs or albums. "Label people are very interested in this method of distribution," Stone says. "They're on the sidelines waiting to see how this sorts itself out." Several major labels already are using on-line services to give consumers information on new releases, tour dates, and, in some cases, the opportunity to hear music. Since last fall Warner Bros. has participated in discussion groups for a variety of its artists on the commercial on-line services America On-line and CompuServe. Geffen and DGC have been on CompuServe since Oct. 25th with information, graphics and music samples to promote their artists. (Billboard, Nov. 13, 1993) A Legal Challenge IUMA is open to all bands, but it is particularly enthusiastic about unsigned bands because they are less likely to pose a legal threat. IUMA accepts only copyrighted material, but that does not mean IUMA's transmission are authorized uses under copyright law. The question of copyright and interactive technology already is being tested in the courts. Frank Music Corp., on behalf of itself and more than 140 music publisher members of the Harry Fox Agency, filed a class-action suit Nov. 29th, 1993 in U.S. District Court in New York against CompuServe. The suit alleges that CompuServe's bulletin boards permit subscribers to upload and download music files without the consent of the copyright owners (Billboard, Dec. 11, 1993). The suit is believed to be the first involving music and interactive technology. Although the compensation issue remains unresolved, some indie labels are enthusiastic about IUMA. Clarence Dinn runs Fresh Records, a small industrial dance label in Pennsylvania. When asked what IUMA exposure had done for UDM, the label's first on-line band, Dinn says, "You've picked up on it and that tell's me something." He says he plans to put the Lords of Tekno and Talisman on-line soon. Dinn hopes that these additions will attact a crowd for the label's new "Fresh Connection" compilation. "I think IUMA is great, but it's just another avenue for music promotion and advertising," Dinn says. "The difference here is end-users judge the unscreened product." At least one sees problems with IUMA. Shalini Chatterjee, who runs San Francisco based Mitochindria Records, say her band Vinyl Devotion, has elicited more of a response from a review posted in two music groups than it has from being on IUMA. "I'm a technical writer, and I admit I had to ask someone at work to help me find and listen to my own recording," she says. (For readers familiar with the Internet, Lord says this: "IUMA is reachable through gopher, the worldwide web, and FTP at this address: sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/electronic-publication/IUMA.")