Authorized Bootlegs Are Back! (no Who yet)

["Brian Cady" <cadyb@home.com>]

That's the headline at a new site called RockForever.com. Here's BBC News on
the site located at:
http://www.rockforever.com

A website is offering users the sounds of classic rock - in a form which
promises to get round some of the licensing hurdles which have frustrated
many online music services.
Rockforever.com offers performances by a group of veteran rockers including
John Cafferty, Glenn Hughes and Joe Lynn Turner from Deep Purple as well as
Spencer Davis.
By using its own live recordings of famous rock tracks, the site does not
need to license the recording masters of the music from record companies -
reducing the copyright obstacles to offering music on the net.
The site has signed distribution pacts with the net music companies Liquid
Audio and MP3.com and currently offers around 50 live performances, either
streamed or for download on Liquid Audio and Realplayer software.

Catalogue

Tracks available include versions of the Spencer Davis Group's Gimme Some
Lovin', Deep Purple's Stormbringer and Smoke On The Water, and Toto's Hold
The Line.
Rockforever chief executive Charlie Schmitt told Variety magazine that
artists who are no longer fashionable but have a strong catalogue of hits
could now continue to exploit their celebrity - even if their record label
has dropped them.

There are plans for tours and TV specials

Mr Schmitt contrasted the record industry approach to its artists with other
kinds of marketing philosophy.
"If you look at the record company philosophy, it's the diametric opposite
of traditional brand marketing.
"They build a brand, but the first time the brand falters, what do you do?
"You fire the band - but there's still a whole lot of equity available in
there,'' Mr Schmitt told Variety.
Mr Schmitt, who claims that the artists on the site have 66 top 40 singles
and 24 platinum records between them, plans to have groups from the
Rockforever.com stable play between 60 and 80 live dates per year and film a
cable TV special.
Mr Schmitt also claimed that the new website would not go the way of so many
music ventures on the net.
"My philosophy has always been to build the business off of existing
revenues - we will start lean and grow it from there,'' he told Variety.

        -Brian in Atlanta
         The Who This Month!
        http://members.home.net/cadyb/who.htm
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