UCSC Review Winter 1995

'Net rebels shake up music industry

A little more than a year after devising a way to post music on the Internet, two UCSC students have been hailed in major national and international media as upstart inventors who are changing the face of the multibillion-dollar recording industry.

Rob Lord and Jeff Patterson, seniors majoring in computer science, didn't intend to create the next paradigm of music distribution when they began tinkering with music-compression programs in late 1993. But when they uploaded a song by Patterson's band, the Ugly Mugs, to the Internet and the e-mail came flooding in from as far away as Turkey, they knew they were onto something big. They dubbed it IUMA--the Internet Underground Music Archive.

IUMA is the world's first on-line music distribution service. Any band can post its music on the archive, along with photos, biographies, addresses, and other information. All Lord and Patterson require is a CD or tape of the music and, for bands itching for a speedy posting, a small donation. With an estimated 20 million Internet users, the opportunity for exposure is incredible. Lord says that on one of their busiest days users tapped into the archive 140,000 times.

"We're taking control of the music industry away from these monolithic recording companies and empowering individual artists," Lord says. "We are offering a direct line between musicians and their audiences."

Of the 400 or so bands posted on the archive so far, the range is broad--from day-old garage bands to industry icons like Madonna. "This is a level playing field," Patterson explains. "The labels who ask us to post their artists look at this as advertising, but a lot of the independent bands are looking at this as their big chance for exposure. When people browse through IUMA, these bands can get an audience even if they've never released an album."

Right now anyone tapped into IUMA can download songs for free. As the archive grows, Lord and Patterson envision a model in which bands post one or two sample songs for free and offer full albums for purchase.

Their precocious business acumen and vision has attracted support in a number of forms--including a recent sponsorship by Silicon Graphics Industries to the tune of $100,000 in computing equipment, a new electronic magazine coproduced by former Rolling Stone editor Michael Goldberg, as well as the launching of IUMA UK this past December.

IUMA has even received serious attention from major record labels. While some are obstinately ignoring Lord and Patterson, others, like Geffen and Warner, seem to realize that these two are designing the blueprint for the next generation of music distribution--and it's better to join in than get left behind.

Anyone with access to the World Wide Web can hear what IUMA has to offer using this address: http://www.iuma.com.

--Barbara McKenna