AKA
04-17-2003, 10:48 PM
Madonna Preaches to Music Pirates
By Lia Haberman
E! Online
Attention would-be song-swappers: Don't mess with Madonna.
The Grammy-winning singer has come up with a foul-mouthed message to those who defy her. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the Material One blasts when music pirates try to download unauthorized copies of her new songs from file-sharing sites.
Madonna's label, Warner Bros. Records, has flooded the Web with fake MP3 files to thwart would-be tune thieves trying to access music off her new American Life before the album's released. Life isn't due to hit stores until next Tuesday.
The decoy files have the appearance of full-length songs, and as such listeners don't know they've been had until they download and play the bogus tracks.
Madonna & Co. actually borrowed a page from the Eminem playbook. The rapper and Interscope helped pioneer the mock MP3 subterfuge last year to keep his Eminem Show off Morpheus, Gnutella, KaZaA and other file-sharing sites. However, in Em's case, the files contained actually snippets of songs looped over and over and--in a surprise for the potty-mouthed hip-hopster--no profanity.
Madonna's technologically savvy response to prerelease piracy was developed in part due to the problems that plagued her last album, Music, when unfinished segments of the title track showed up on services like Napster before the album's official launch.
Music critics were also denied review copies of Life, instead, the journalists were invited to listen to the album at the office of Madonna's publicist--a common practice in an eBay era.
Meanwhile, Warner is keeping a tight grip on Madge's earlier albums--the label's recently made her musical repertoire available to legitimate file-sharing services but with restrictions: Subscribers can only download full-length albums, not individual tracks, and fans are unable to listen to previews or conditional downloads.
But it's not all bad news for Madonnaholics. In a further bid to discourage piracy and encourage sales Madonna has made "American Life" available as an authorized digital download at $1.49 a pop on sites like PressPlay, AOL's MusicNet and Listen.com's Rhapsody. The song has reportedly sold 7,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
In an unprecedented alliance she's also offered a free full-length preview of the album on MTV.com. Fans can't download the streaming audio but can listen and decide for themselves if the 11 tracks are worth shelling out $20--with only an occasional reminder that this is a demo when the Material One cuts in and says "Hi, this is Madonna and you're listening to my new album, American Life." (The controversial title track currently ranks at number 37 on the Billboard singles charts.)
The debate surrounding the digital bait-and-switch is just the latest controversy the ever-morphing mistress of reinvention has managed to create around her current album.
Madonna had critics buzzing when details of her antiwar title track were leaked on the Internet in February. The Drudge Report labeled it "the most shocking antiwar, anti-Bush statement yet to come from the show-business industry," complete with a "mad frenzy" of bloody babies, Iraqi children and limbless victims.
Her rep, Liz Rosenberg, attempted to downplay the drama, calling the video a "thought-provoking" piece of work that portrays the "catastrophic repercussions and the horrors of war." But days before it was to debut on VH1 Madonna yanked the video claiming she didn't want to "risk offending anyone who might misinterpret the meaning of this video."
The sensitive stance didn't last long. With her album set to launch next week, Madonna's antiwar anthem had its North American debut on VH1 last night and has now gone into regular rotation on the music network.
By Lia Haberman
E! Online
Attention would-be song-swappers: Don't mess with Madonna.
The Grammy-winning singer has come up with a foul-mouthed message to those who defy her. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the Material One blasts when music pirates try to download unauthorized copies of her new songs from file-sharing sites.
Madonna's label, Warner Bros. Records, has flooded the Web with fake MP3 files to thwart would-be tune thieves trying to access music off her new American Life before the album's released. Life isn't due to hit stores until next Tuesday.
The decoy files have the appearance of full-length songs, and as such listeners don't know they've been had until they download and play the bogus tracks.
Madonna & Co. actually borrowed a page from the Eminem playbook. The rapper and Interscope helped pioneer the mock MP3 subterfuge last year to keep his Eminem Show off Morpheus, Gnutella, KaZaA and other file-sharing sites. However, in Em's case, the files contained actually snippets of songs looped over and over and--in a surprise for the potty-mouthed hip-hopster--no profanity.
Madonna's technologically savvy response to prerelease piracy was developed in part due to the problems that plagued her last album, Music, when unfinished segments of the title track showed up on services like Napster before the album's official launch.
Music critics were also denied review copies of Life, instead, the journalists were invited to listen to the album at the office of Madonna's publicist--a common practice in an eBay era.
Meanwhile, Warner is keeping a tight grip on Madge's earlier albums--the label's recently made her musical repertoire available to legitimate file-sharing services but with restrictions: Subscribers can only download full-length albums, not individual tracks, and fans are unable to listen to previews or conditional downloads.
But it's not all bad news for Madonnaholics. In a further bid to discourage piracy and encourage sales Madonna has made "American Life" available as an authorized digital download at $1.49 a pop on sites like PressPlay, AOL's MusicNet and Listen.com's Rhapsody. The song has reportedly sold 7,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
In an unprecedented alliance she's also offered a free full-length preview of the album on MTV.com. Fans can't download the streaming audio but can listen and decide for themselves if the 11 tracks are worth shelling out $20--with only an occasional reminder that this is a demo when the Material One cuts in and says "Hi, this is Madonna and you're listening to my new album, American Life." (The controversial title track currently ranks at number 37 on the Billboard singles charts.)
The debate surrounding the digital bait-and-switch is just the latest controversy the ever-morphing mistress of reinvention has managed to create around her current album.
Madonna had critics buzzing when details of her antiwar title track were leaked on the Internet in February. The Drudge Report labeled it "the most shocking antiwar, anti-Bush statement yet to come from the show-business industry," complete with a "mad frenzy" of bloody babies, Iraqi children and limbless victims.
Her rep, Liz Rosenberg, attempted to downplay the drama, calling the video a "thought-provoking" piece of work that portrays the "catastrophic repercussions and the horrors of war." But days before it was to debut on VH1 Madonna yanked the video claiming she didn't want to "risk offending anyone who might misinterpret the meaning of this video."
The sensitive stance didn't last long. With her album set to launch next week, Madonna's antiwar anthem had its North American debut on VH1 last night and has now gone into regular rotation on the music network.