A small South African team of music lovers and Internet activists is promoting a music site that it says could change the economic model for the music industry - if it succeeds.
The site, www.samp3.com, aims to promote South African music, mainly from the small independent record labels, and allows enthusiasts to download their favourite artists' tunes for free.
African Internet activist Alan Levine says it is a well known that musicians earn fairly little out of their recordings, with the bulk of the money from the sales going to support the executives and bureaucracy of the music industry.
"Musicians mainly make their money from their live appearances and a bit more from the sale of the albums," he says.
SAMP3.com has been in existence for about seven years, having started out as a newsletter containing reviews and news about South African-produced music. Artists who have signed with the smaller recording labels can have their tunes listed on the site and fans can download them for free.
"This is similar to the record singles from the early seventies," Levine says. "A fan would get a single and if he or she liked it, would buy the album."
Some of the inspiration behind SAMP3.com comes from the philosophy behind US rock band "The Grateful Dead", which allowed anyone to record and swap its music on the proviso it was not sold.
The other two members of SAMP3.com are Webmaster Brian Curren, and Stephen "Sugar" Segerman, a lawyer by training and music journalist by vocation.
Adapt or die
The music industry is battling to cope with new technology that makes it easier to record music for individual and mass use.
A spate of lawsuits has been brought by various sectors of the music industry against individuals who have been "illegally" downloading music off the Internet. There have also been suits against file sharing sites, such as Napster, that have allowed such swapping of music downloads.
"The music industry has had to cope with various technologies throughout the ages and now it has to adapt to new recording methods," Levine says.
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