John and all IOM posters, this was on the Dow Jones News yesterday and is still up on the WSJ Interactive website this morning. Altough it is mainly about MP3 music and its support by some musicians/artists it does mention IOM as well. Here is the item: Mel
Iomega Corp.
Dow Jones Newswires -- May 3, 1999
Public Enemy's Chuck D Leads Charge For Music Revolution
By Nancy Beiles
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Ever since the rap group Public Enemy stormed the music scene with its politically charged first album in 1987, front man Chuck D has focused on changing the way people think - about music, about race, about history.
Now, he's emerged as the leading spokesman for a high-tech revolution in music distribution.
Long a vocal proponent of technologies, like MP3, that allow Internet users to download music from their favorite artists directly off the Web, Chuck D's advocacy work took him to a New York City press conference Monday, where RealNetworks Inc. (RNWK) launched new software that allows users to store CDs on a PC hard drive, as well as download music from the Internet.
Lending his support to RealNetworks' software - called RealJukebox - Chuck D took the stage with RealNetworks executives and Dexter Holland, the lead singer of the band Offspring, to endorse the software as a means to "make revolutionary statements."
Chuck D, who ended his contract with Def Jam Records back in November and encourages fans to download Public Enemy songs off the Internet, sees the digital distribution of music as a way for consumers get more power over an industry that has long been dominated by a few major record labels. "OK, consumer, you've been ripped off the last 15 or 16 years," he said. "Now there's got to be some balance."
While it costs a record company a little more than $2 to make a CD, retail prices are often in the mid-teens. Digital distribution allows people to get the music they want either for free or a few dollars.
Industry observers have said that digital delivery will pose a serious challenge to big record companies, which have been slow to recognize the power of the Internet for music distribution. And according to Chuck D, that's for the good. "There is nothing romantic about a consumer going to a store and buying 25 CDs and spending $400," he said, adding that major record labels have orchestrated a "big CD crime," by focusing on profit at the expense of consumers.
Public Enemy has been been in the vanguard of artists that are making their music available on the Internet. The group's forthcoming album "There's A Poison Goin' On," will be released by the group's new label Atomic Pop over the Internet and most of its older work is already circulating in cyberspace. Public Enemy also released "Do You Wanna Go Our Way???," a song from its forthcoming album, to RealJukebox users Monday.
RealNetworks' software is hardly the only technology Chuck D is putting his name behind. In an interview with Dow Jones, Chuck D said he is also working with IomegaCorp. (IOM), a computer memory company, on its music technologies.
- Nancy Beiles; 201-938-5267
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