Morissette says recording industry 'not working'
Thanks to Jorge Rafael Ortiz Gijón

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Representing the "Artist's Perspective" at the Plug.In conference Monday in New York, Alanis Morissette decried the waning use of the Internet as a distribution channel for uncommercial talent and called on artists to rally for legislation that will make music accessible to the largest possible audiences. The current major-label system is "not working," Morissette said, because record companies are owned by conglomerates increasingly focused only on quarterly results. In her opinion, such companies as MP3.com and Napster "once offered a link between artists and audiences and was a way for less-established artists to have a forum to reach those who will be touched by their art." Now, she said, those same companies have been "litigated, vilified and ultimately consolidated to the point where these opportunities (don't exist)." Pointing to Napster's relationship with Bertelsmann and the acquisition of MP3.com and Emusic by Vivendi Universal, Morissette said that the Internet has become "a bottleneck for creativity," because the media conglomerates are attempting to apply traditional, profit-oriented business models to the new medium.