The statement was included with the company's request for a preliminary
injunction, which would forbid Napster from allowing copyrighted material
to pass through its portals for the duration of the copyright infringement
suit brought by the RIAA.
"In my view, Napster is not designed to promote or share the music of
unknown or lesser artists," Robertson said, attacking Napster's position
that its primary purpose is to allow lesser-known bands to get their music
heard. "The only way to find a song on Napster is to enter the name of the
song and/or artist that the user wants to find. By definition, unknown
artists cannot be found, at least not in any meaningful way."
MP3.com had been in the same boat as Napster — weighed down by numerous
copyright infringement lawsuits filed by major record labels — and the
company announced in recent weeks that it had reached joint court
settlements and distribution agreements with industry megaliths Warner
Music Group and BMG Entertainment.
Representatives of MP3.com did not return calls for comment.
'New Radio'
But Chuck D, who holds file-sharing to be the "new radio," said the
MP3.com CEO is playing for the wrong team. RIAA, the rapper holds, is
trying to maintain its traditional control over music distribution,
disguised as a battle to protect artists' copyrights.
"It's real funny because the majors, at the end of the day, they just
want to be in the same position that they've always been in," Chuck D
said. "A lot of the record companies own the copyrights from the last
century. It's easy to look at a scapegoat excuse — 'Oh yeah, we're looking
out for artists.' … It's never been about the music over the last couple
of years; it's about figuring out ways that they can squeeze the consumer
dollar."
RIAA spokesperson Amy Weiss said it's not just record labels that own
copyrights. Therefore, she said, the fight isn't only about labels losing
money. "There's also a lot of copyrights owned by the songwriters and some
artists, too," she said. "We at the recording industry don't pretend to
represent artists — we represent record companies — but we're all in this
together. Piracy on the Internet is serious, and if everybody's music is
going to be stolen, and nobody gets paid for this, we all lose."
But Chuck D questions the recording industry's projections of loss
because of Napster and other forms of unauthorized digital distribution.
"When you're dealing with the airwaves and the free world, you can't
talk about what you don't have or what you shoulda had," he said.
"Eminem's sh-- has been pirated and
bootlegged, and he still sold 3.3 million copies for [Dr.] Dre's
label, so, how could you just talk about, 'Well, he could have sold 5.3
million?' "
"It's like the fat king who sits on the f---in' throne and talks about
how he could have ate 80 chickens ... and the rest of the motherf---ers is
bringing him chickens from the f---in' town and starving themselves."
Chuck D has a few music Web sites of his own — the hip-hop site
rapstation.com, net radio site bringthenoise.com and his legendary group's
publicenemy.com. The rapper said the success of those sites has sent the
group — known for its anti-establishment social critique in tunes such as
"Fight the Power" (RealAudio
excerpt) and "41:19" (RealAudio
excerpt) — on eight tours.
Competition In Cutthroat Industry
Chuck D said he would not have been able to compete in a cutthroat
recording industry, which he said backs only a few artists with big money
and squelches the rest.
"I basically just couldn't survive in it," Chuck D said. "It would be
easier for me to count from one dollar up instead of being in a vacuum of
having to compete with a lot of other artists and needing at least a
million dollars behind your art for the chance of being looked at and
accepted."
Weiss said the RIAA accepts the Internet as a powerful promotional tool
and welcomes new bands whose careers are brought up by Internet exposure —
but Napster, she said, is not in the business of helping new artists.
"Chuck D has the luxury of being a well-known artist, and you can go on
Napster and find his stuff," Weiss said. "There are a number of sites
where you can find new music, but that's certainly not the case with
Napster."
The rapper said the RIAA — as well as hard-rockers Metallica, fellow hip-hop icon Dr. Dre and
Robertson — are approaching the digital-music revolution with the wrong
tactic. He said they're trying to force new technologies to conform to an
antiquated music-distribution system, rather than aligning themselves with
the new.
"This is beyond any of your control," the rapper said he would tell
Napster's attackers. "This is purely a situation where the public has
gotten even with the industry, and you have to figure out how you can
still serve the public and still be part of the industry. But it's not
gonna happen in a 20th-century way. Those days are over. In a 21st-century
situation, you might have to jump in the pool with everybody else. All the
VIP sections are closed."
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