Sponsorships

I don't know what a good sponsorship would be for me or for 
other artists I respect. People bring up sponsorships a lot 
as a way for artists to get our music paid for upfront and 
for us to earn a fee. I've dealt with large corporations for 
long enough to know that any alliance where I'm an owned 
service is going to be doomed.



When I agreed to allow a large cola company to promote a live 
show, I couldn't have been more miserable. They screwed up 
every single thing imaginable. The venue was empty but sold 
out. There were thousands of people outside who wanted to be 
there, trying to get tickets. And there were the empty seats 
the company had purchased for a lump sum and failed to market
because they were clueless about music.



It was really dumb. You had to buy the cola. You had to dial 
a number. You had to press a bunch of buttons. You had to do 
all this crap that nobody wanted to do. Why not just bring a 
can to the door?



On top of all this, I felt embarrassed to be an advertising 
agent for a product that I'd never let my daughter use. Plus 
they were a condescending bunch of little guys. They treated 
me like I was an ungrateful little bitch who should be 
groveling for the experience to play for their damn soda.



I ended up playing without my shirt on and ordering a six-pack 
of the rival cola onstage. Also lots of unwholesome cursing 
and nudity occurred. This way I knew that no matter how 
tempting the cash was, they'd never do business with me 
again.



If you want some little obedient slave content provider, then 
fine. But I think most musicians don't want to be responsible 
for your clean-cut, wholesome, all-American, sugar corrosive 
cancer-causing, all white people, no women allowed sodapop 
images.



Nor, on the converse, do we want to be responsible for your 
vice-inducing, liver-rotting, child-labor-law-violating, all 
white people, no-women-allowed booze images.



So as a defiant moody artist worth my salt, I've got to 
think of something else. Tampax, maybe.

As a user, I love Napster. It carries some risk. I hear 
idealistic business people talk about how people that are 
musicians would be musicians no matter what and that we're 
already doing it for free, so what about copyright?



Please. It's incredibly easy not to be a musician. It's 
always a struggle and a dangerous career choice. We are 
motivated by passion and by money.



That's not a dirty little secret. It's a fact. Take away 
the incentive for major or minor financial reward and you 
dilute the pool of musicians. I am not saying that only 
pure artists will survive. Like a few of the more utopian 
people who discuss this, I don't want just pure artists 
to survive.



Where would we all be without the trash? We need the trash 
to cover up our national depression. The utopians also say 
that because in their minds "pure" artists are 
all Ani DiFranco and don't demand a lot of money. Why are 
the utopians all entertainment lawyers and major label 
workers anyway? I demand a lot of money if I do a big 
huge worthwhile job and millions of people like it, don't 
kid yourself. In economic terms, you've got an industry 
that's loathsome and outmoded, but when it works it 
creates some incentive and some efficiency even though 
absolutely no one gets paid.



We suffer as a society and a culture when we don't pay the 
true value of goods and services delivered. We create a 
lack of production. Less good music is recorded if we 
remove the incentive to create it.



Music is intellectual property with full cash and 
opportunity costs required to create, polish and record 
a finished product. If I invest money and time into my 
business, I should be reasonably protected from the theft 
of my goods and services. When the judgment came against 
MP3.com, the RIAA sought damages of $150,000 for each 
major-label-"owned" musical track in MP3's database. 
Multiply by 80,000 CDs, and MP3.com could owe the 
gatekeepers $120 billion.



But what about the Plimsouls? Why can't MP3.com pay each 
artist a fixed amount based on the number of their 
downloads? Why on earth should MP3.com pay $120 billion 
to four distribution companies, who in most cases won't 
have to pay a nickel to the artists whose copyrights 
they've stolen through their system of organized theft?



It's a ridiculous judgment. I believe if evidence had been 
entered that ultimately it's just shuffling big cash around 
two or three corporations, I can only pray that the judge 
in the MP3.com case would have seen the RIAA's case for 
the joke that it was.



I'd rather work out a deal with MP3.com myself, and force 
them to be artist-friendly, instead of being laughed at 
and having my money hidden by a major label as they sell 
my records out the back door, behind everyone's back.



How dare they behave in such a horrified manner in regards 
to copyright law when their entire industry is based on 
piracy? When Mister Label Head Guy, whom my lawyer yelled 
at me not to name, got caught last year selling millions of 
"cleans" out the back door. "Cleans" being the records that 
aren't for marketing but are to be sold. Who the fuck is 
this guy? He wants to save a little cash so he fucks the 
artist and goes home? Do they fire him? Does Chuck Phillips 
of the LA Times say anything? No way! This guy's a source! 
He throws awesome dinner parties! Why fuck with the status 
quo? Let's pick on Lars Ulrich instead because he brought 
up an interesting point!

I'm looking for people to help connect me to more fans, 
because I believe fans will leave a tip based on the 
enjoyment and service I provide. I'm not scared of them 
getting a preview. It really is going to be a global 
village where a billion people have access to one artist 
and a billion people can leave a tip if they want to.



It's a radical democratization. Every artist has access 
to every fan and every fan has access to every artist, 
and the people who direct fans to those artists. People 
that give advice and technical value are the people we 
need. People crowding the distribution pipe and trying 
to ignore fans and artists have no value. This is a 
perfect system.



If you're going to start a company that deals with musicians, 
please do it because you like music. Offer some control 
and equity to the artists and try to give us some 
creative guidance. If music and art and passion are 
important to you, there are hundreds of artists who 
are ready to rewrite the rules.



In the last few years, business pulled our culture away 
from the idea that music is important and emotional and 
sacred. But new technology has brought a real opportunity 
for change; we can break down the old system and give 
musicians real freedom and choice.



A great writer named Neal Stephenson said that America 
does four things better than any other country in the 
world: rock music, movies, software and high-speed pizza 
delivery. All of these are sacred American art forms. Let's 
return to our purity and our idealism while we have this 
shot.



Warren Beatty once said: "The greatest gift God gives 
us is to enjoy the sound of our own voice. And the second 
greatest gift is to get somebody to listen to it."



And for that, I humbly thank you.