Music Industry Turning a Deaf Ear to Consumers?

* Executives from the major music conglomerates spoke proudly of having college students expelled for distributing MP3s [“A Musical Free-for-All on the Net,” Column One, Feb. 8]. Simultaneously, the majors and IBM announced a 1,000-user six-month trial of a complex new technology for delivering secure digital music.

Once again, the majors miss the point.

Digital technology will radically change the music business in favor of both consumers and artists.

Many independent record labels understand this. Many independents, including ours, distribute full-length MP3s for free. Consumers download them, more people hear the music and attend concerts and shows by the artists.

If we want people to buy, however, we as a record label and Internet publisher now have to actually add value, which apparently frightens the majors.

A creative company can add value by gathering and promoting exceptional music that is otherwise hard to find (our approach), by providing unlimited freedom to musicians to make their music available, or by offering rich content online and in packaging and collateral materials.

We did not need a multimillion-dollar six-month trial focused on only a thousand people to determine this. We only needed the input of customers and artists.

At the same time, I would like to encourage the majors to continue harassing college students, wasting millions on small experiments and otherwise spending their time acting like the dinosaurs that they are.

Every day, they create more customers for the rest of us.

RICHARD MOCKLER

CEO, RockBoss International Ltd.

Seattle

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* Sony Music, a record company, sells mini-disc recorders on the premise that you “can copy all your CDs to mini-disc.”

They sell blank cassette tapes with a picture of a compact disc on the wrapper labeled “for compact disc recording.” So now the Recording Industry Assn. of America is all upset when a new standard is created.

Instead of embracing MP3 and offering music for sale online, they have encouraged piracy by pressuring record companies not to sell music over the Internet in any format.

So a kid doesn’t want to pay $17.98 to find out he only wants to hear one song on the artist’s new CD. The record company doesn’t want to sell him the one song because there’s no money in that. What is the alternative? Wait for everyone to find out that the CD sucks so bad that it winds up in the 99-cent bin at the used CD store or download the tune from the Internet? Where is the RIAA solution?

MATT FELLOWS

Van Nuys

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* I found your article on MP3 technology informative, especially the easy-to-follow instructions for downloading the player and finding music sites. The music industry should be pleased, I guess.

DAVE LEHMICKE

Hermosa Beach