The Ballad Of MP3.com (From the Archives)

WWW, 2001/2001 (From the Archives) - MP3.com, the biggest collection of music from independent online artists. Not anymore, though. In what seems to be a final and perhaps lethal strike against the online artist community, VIVENDI UNIVERSAL destroyed around three terabytes of music before selling the MP3.com domain to CNET.com. This is the story, the ballad, of MP3.com as told by one of the pioneers in the online artist community.

VIVENDI wasn't the original owner of MP3.com, but they took the website over just after they sucked the original owners empty. A look at the complete story reveals the true intend of the musical industrial complex and the way they try to achieve their goal.

Let's start at the beginning.

In about 1998, 1999, there was a sort of "golden age" of MP3. The format looked very promising because it had created a whole new generation of artists. Sites such as MP3.com began to make it possible for artists to receive a royalty over their downloads. If someone listened to or downloaded your music, you would get a few cents. Other programs were created to have your music heard and get some royalty payment.

All these things were very good for the Artist and the Listener. I could see that I was approaching a situation in which this could totally provide me with my daily bread. The listener could listen to music without having to buy it first; I would have direct response to my releases.

In this same time, the MP3 format was also used in a different way. People would start to record their records and rip the CD's, put everything in MP3 format on their computer and use software to exchange music with others. One of the first pieces of software that enabled people to do that, was called "Napster", perhaps some of you remember the name.

Until this time, I'm still talking about '98, '99, the music industry wasn't really around on the Internet. They were still sitting in their ivory towers, selling people the stuff they want people to buy, telling artists to play what they want artists to play, you know, the usual things dictators and criminals do. The music industry was totally unaware of the revolution that took place in Cyberspace.

But right under their nose, a whole new generation of artists was formed. Artists independent from the main music industrial complex, building up an audience. And they were becoming more and more popular. Download charts at MP3.com revealed the immense popularity of many new artists. Their names were often above some better-known names.

Then, a hard noise came out of a Hollywood villa. The residence from a member of a band called Metallica, to be precise. The hard noise wasn't a new tune, but a complaint. It had come to the attention of this particular individual, that people were actually sharing Metallica music over the Internet, through Napster.

The musician complained that he would lose income as a result of the music sharing that was going on through the Napster software. I'm not a heavy Metal fan, but a bitter Metallica listener told I, that this particular band started out by having people share their music through tape sharing. And I still wonder, why an artist who can live a good life, would complain over people liking his music enough to share it with others.

Because, through the action of this artist, and many other of course, the online Artist community was being attacked, as I will expose later on. So one can safely say that this Metallica member did not have the interest of the online artist in mind.

The music industry woke up from their sleep, their little nap, and they began their take on Napster. Backed by a multi-million dollar well of money, the lawsuits began.

All in the name of saving the Artist Community, the rhetoric and the propaganda began to spread over the mainstream media. The people were warned, that there would soon be no more new music available when people would massively continue to share music with each other. No, they didn't have the online artist in mind indeed. Or perhaps they did but didn't want you to know they did. Because even if the musical industrial complex would go broke because of file sharing, the new music would have been provided by the online artists! In the Netherlands, where I live, there was a campaign where famous artists were being shown with their mouths sown together, like they were torture victims. People obviously had to feel sorry for the rich and famous, eerrr, the artists. Artists who didn't even own their own music anymore and many time have big debts to the record companies than own the rights to their music.

But, as we always see with propaganda, the words and the actions are two different things.

Napster could not resist the flood of lawsuits that were filed against them and eventually they were taken over by the musical industrial complex.

And one can argue over the legality of such programs as Napster. One can say that it's not right to share music like that.

But what about MP3.com and other legal MP3 sites, where the online artist community releases music and communicates with the audience?

Obviously, they are different then the file sharing programs as Napster.

But not for the Musical Industrial Complex!

The guys at Universal were working overtime to find a way to accuse MP3.com of "something illegal".

Completely in the current spirit of globalization and privatization, they themselves were taken over by a company called Vivendi and their orders were to go after the online Artists now. Can't have independents, don't we?

But there was a problem. MP3.com was not like Napster. People were actually offering their own music there, and making quite a name for them. This is the kind of competition you never hear the Musical Industrial Complex complain about, but I think that it is a major reason why they are losing CD sales too. There are many Online Artists who make music of professional quality, especially in the electronic genres. Some are better than the so-called signed artists.

Here it didn't help to pull a Rock Star out of his Villa to complain about loss of money.

Here some people were actually well aware of how artists are treated by this musical industrial complex.

MP3.com looked like a fortress, which could not be taken by the corporate vampires. But there was one weak point, an option for registered MP3.com visitors to "beam" their CD's.

In short, someone could put a CD in his drive, click on the mouse and MP3.com would recognize that CD. You could then go to your work, and log on to the MP3.com website with your own password, and you could listen to the CD without actually having it physically with you. MP3.com had MP3 files of that CD which you could listen to.

MP3.com called this program: Beam It.

I never saw the use of it, but I could also see how it could be abused. I would borrow your CD's, beam them in a few minutes, then you take your CD's back and I could start to download from MP3.com.

Unfortunately, the lawyers at Vivendi also saw this and they started to beam complaints to the judges. Again, they posed as the victims were in fact they were the pirates themselves.

To make a long story short, they provided the Online Artists with a speed-course in Globalization and the vampirism that comes with it.

MP3.com was sucked completely empty before Vivendi bought the website.

One of the first things they did was to label the artists as "clients". Shortly after that, they cut down the royalty payment with 90%. Yes, you hear this correctly. Where some of the artists had a real perspective off being able to live from their music, the fruits of their hands, by the stroke of a pen this future was made impossible. I do not know how many of you would accept an income cut of 90%. We had to, because Metallica could otherwise not have their next car.

In the meantime, they had also fired most of the people who originally set up MP3.com and hired people that would do nothing all day but answering public complaints from artists. In politics, these people are called "spin-doctors". Spin-doctors are professionals in bringing bad news as good news. A good spin-doctor can make someone rejoice over his own death penalty.

The Spin Doctors that were hired by Vivendi did their best to make the artists believe, that they were in fact clients. MP3.com would be a service provider for the artist. And when they had this in the mind of most artists, they pulled back the last ten percent of the royalty income. A contact told me how even in these times, the parking space at MP3.com's office was filled with BMW's and other expensive cars.

Then they went over to charge the artist a big sum of money every month to have more than three tracks available for free download. The website looked like one big MTV ad, Vivendi's signed artists were promoted and the independent artists difficult to find. The quality of the music by the independent artists also didn't increase. Of course not! The serious artists found different sites while the dumbed down remnant who believed the lies of the spin doctors kept on putting their tunes on MP3.com. A thing for which they had to pay a lot of money, too!

Critique could lead to deletion of the website. Sane comments on MP3.com's policy had to be written down intelligently, because the rules were tightened on the site's messageboard. A lot of things were labeled as "insults". After a while they went so far that only artists who paid a lot of money every month to have their music on the MP3.com website could freely post their messages of the MP3.com forum. Only the dumbed down remnant who bought the brainwash education by MP3.com's spin doctors were able to post. This is how they killed the critique.

All these things were so obviously wrong, that it really surprised me to see how easy it was for the musical industrial complex to brainwash the artists. It seemed like the Spin Doctors were making excessive use of a mentality that is planted in western societies. "You respect your music, don't you", they said. "Your music is worth something, so by paying us you show your self-respect". And people were buying these idiotic things. Their slavery was brought to them as a sign of self-respect. How sick can you be?

But when you think about it, it fits perfectly in the works of the musical industrial complex. When you look at the bulk of what is released, it's all about sex and drugs and gang violence. About emptiness. Vanity. Don't think! In my contacts with representants of the industry, I have come across this almost every time. One time I hear an annoyed voice saying to me: "You talk an awful lot about Babylon, don't you". The other time I find out that behind my back people whom I work with closely are being told that my lyrics have to be changed. I hear other artists telling me what they are being told by the music industry: "I want music that makes the pussy wet".

Why were MP3.com's spin doctors so obvious in their spinning and got away with it? How come they knew they were going to be successful in dumbing down the artists? Simple: because that is what they do all the time! It's the reason for their existence! They know they are successful, just look at western society. The fact that a lot of people are absolutely not aware of what is going on, too dumbed down to see they are fooled, is partly because of the works of the musical industrial complex!

For me, being an independent online artist is an essential part of my identity and also one of the premier conditions for my work. I try to spread consciousness, to wake up people for the fact that this Babylon System that you hear the Rastas speak about all the time is in fact a horrible reality. And I am very much convinced that the musical industrial complex is a part of this system. When you look at the bulk of music that is put out to take their place in the hearts and souls of the people, it's all aiding the globalists.

Anyway, I researched further and found out that Vivendi was not only specializing in sucking artists and artist-friendly websites. Like all these globalist-corporations, they are versatile criminals and I am not afraid to say so, because this is an established fact.

Judge for yourself. Dutch National Media revealed how the Vivendi Company also specialize in bringing clean water to people living in the ghetto's and slums of South Africa. Privatization, you know. So they now charge these poor people for the water. Needless to reveal, that these people cannot pay for their water bill. They don't live in a slum because they can, do they. And what happens if you don't pay your bill? Well, simple: you are being cut off.

I call that criminal. It's criminal to deprive people of their basic needs such as water. It's criminal to cut artists with 90%, no, over 100%, of their income. And now that Vivendi got what they want, they sold the remains to CNET.com and the future remains uncertain for the online artist community.

The lies and propaganda concerning this matter is unbelievable. VIVENDI claimed that they couldn't have CNET take over the contents of the website because VIVENDI did not have the ownership of the music on the website. While that ownership remark was true, it seemed no problem at the moment VIVENDI took over MP3.com from the founding owners. In what seems to be of the final spins, the Online Artists got another blow in their heads, another punishment for being independent.

A heartical request to VIVENDI by MP3.com's founder, Michael Robertson, to have the Archive.org website store the music on their server, was sent to deaf ears. All the actions and reactions made it clear that VIVENDI insisted in having the contents of the website DELETED.

VIVENDI didn't delete everything from the website, though. MP3.com had developed a unique online distribution system for the online artists. People could have music sent to their MP3 walkman, or restaurants and stores could select MP3.com music for play in their place. This system is now in the hands of the corporate vampires too.

Operation Kill Online Artist Community in full effect.

The ballad of MP3.com is a disaster for the online artists and listeners. But, as we see, it goes beyond that even. It's part of a bigger ballad, the "ballad of Babylon"!