S&R Freeloader

Taste My Wine

Think It Over

When It Rains

Take Off All Your Clothes

Antibiotic

Teach Your Soul to Bend

Thrill Me - Sweetly

The Stuff

Don't Stop

Get the Funk Out

Do it Again

Stayed for the Funk

Barin' Mah Bonz

Take A Picture

Win You Over

My Interpretation

Upon the official launch of Stock and Roll all music and videos from the S&R label will be available for free to anyone who wants to download them, without any type of restrictions or fees. In fact, you do not even have to become a registered user.

Stock and Roll has found a way to give the music away for free, while still protecting the artists and providing them with alternative streams of income. As there is no legal way to end the free servers such as Kazaa, and as the public had demonstrated their desire for free music, Stock and Roll will only sign Artists who understand the value of “giving away” music. This philosophy stems from a desire to help the artists, not frustration about the technological advances of the internet.

The current music industry has a single goal -- to sell the music. Although this is of course a goal of many musicians, their more important calling is to gain a loyal following of fans. The Grateful Dead proved that giving the music away was the best way to ensure long-term fan loyalty; we have adopted this model to create loyal fans and to address the concerns of the digital age. And because you have demanded it.

Recent advances in technology have provided the consumer with free music downloads, and frankly the consumer is delighted. Napster, the first and most infamous peer to peer file swapping server -- which at its peak was one of the most popular web sites on earth -- has changed the face of digital music.

Typically, these "free downloads" are not authorized by the artist and are therefore illegal. Although the industry has been successful in some of it's legal battles against these companies (i.e. Napster), there are legal stumbling blocks remaining. To date there are approximately 175 other peer to peer servers which perform substantially the same service as Napster provided.

A major legal stumbling block to preventing the transfer of copyrighted material is the legal theory of “fair use.” Fair use is a doctrine which states that “if the technology (server) provides a legitimate use (i.e. swapping a non-infringing file) that does not violate or infringe a copyright it must be allowed.” Another more complicated legal issue is that many of these peer to peer servers do not run on a central server as did Napster. The lack of a central server means that there is no way to identify or block a particular/restricted file swap. With these and other legal battles facing the industry, it may be a long time before they are able to stop all 175. At this time we must also point out that the industry also has one legal battle that it could not possible win. The industry could never actually enforce a judgment against a fileswapping server if it were located in a jurisdiction that does not adhere to copyright standards as adopted by the world community.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the record companies have claimed that offering music for free reduces overall sales. However, even the industry's own data has proven that offering free music did not in any way reduce album sales. In fact sales of CDs actually rose during the Napster days.

The record companies have also attempted to secure the music prior to sale by creating the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI). The first initiative or secure code, which took a year and countless millions to develop, was defeated within one hour of its release. The new "copy proof" CD's can easily be foiled with a felt tipped pen. As the music industry futilely struggles to maintain their current business model, Stock and Roll will offer a new more equitable alternative to both the artist and the fan.

Based on the Napster statistics (60 million users, trading 3 billion files per month) and the current 92 million Kazaa users, with over 350 million registered users for these services worldwide, the consumer has spoken -- and they want free music. Stock and Roll is the only digital music business model that gives the consumer exactly what they want while still protecting the artist. By embracing the consumer's desire for free music Stock and Roll will offer the fan a more attractive alternative: "artist authorized" and therefore free and legal music.

Further, by offering free music downloads, Stock and Roll can gain instant notoriety and worldwide press upon launch. Stock and Roll will quickly gain a large base of loyal users (former Napster users), who will actively return to watch the broadcast and search our sight -- as we are the only site to offer what they are seeking -- free and legal copies of the music. More importantly owning shares in the bands gives the consumer an incentive to buy into the music instead of stealing it.