单项选择题
| The Internet is changing the way
musicians sell their work and broadening the range of music that consumers get
to hear. Says A1 Teller, former chief executive of MCA Music Group who now heads
Atomic Pop, a new company that will sell downloadable music on the web: "What
the web offers is an opportunity for the artist to go directly to the consumer."
Musicians and entrepreneurs are exploring new ways of putting the technology to
use. DJ Spooky recently featured his music on a deejay website that encouraged
users to remix his work and e-mail the new creations to Others; he’s now putting
the finishing touches on his own site. The California-based company Liquid Audio
offers free downloads of songs by groups like Hole that self-destruct (自毁) after
a few days, teasing listeners to buy the whole CD. In the physical world,
because of promotion and production costs, musicians release songs in bunches
(成组), and fans often have to wait years between CDs. Online, a number of acts,
including rockers Todd Rundgren, hip-hop stars Beastie Boys and the hard-rock
bank Greed, have been making new material available on their websites one song
at a time. Greed’s offering of a downloadable acoustic (原声的) version of song My
Own Prison Is Free; the band’s compensation comes in the form of publicity and
increased fan loyalty (忠诚). John Perry Barlow, a former lyricist (抒情诗人) for the Grateful Dead and cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the music industry is entering a new era. He sees the 20th century as a time when music was stuffed into containers -- LPs, eight-track tapes, CDs. Now that musicians can reach fans directly, there’s no need for "container markers", i. e. , record labels. "Record companies are in a death struggle with the web," says Barlow. "They’re using techniques that have been used in the war on drugs -- zero tolerance, ramping up education and enforcement and trying to use the law to preserve something that is no longer supported by public practice." Barlow argues that the copying and sharing of songs on the web will be a boon (恩惠，福利) to musicians. He cites the fact that the Grateful Dead used to allow fans to tape its live shows and became one of the most popular acts in rock. But Brook has this worry: "There’s danger to making things so accessible that you devalue your own work." The challenge for musicians will be to stay both web friendly and in control of their music. |