July 22, 2003 Tommy Lee on Howard Stern radio show - July 23, 2003 Tune in Wednesday morning at 8:15 am and catch Tommy on Howard Stern's radio show! Check your local radio stations to find out which one airs Howard. Tommy Lee gives the artist's perspective for Buymusic.com from USA Today: With the record labels at war with online song swappers, PC users who wanted to go straight and do the right thing had no inexpensive, easy-to-use way to buy songs legitimately -- until today. Online retailer Buy.com, which sells computers, books, gadgets, CDs and DVDs, adds downloads to its mix today. BuyMusic.com will stock 350,000 songs for as little as 79 cents each, though most sell for 99 cents or $1.19. All can be transferred to portables or burned to CDs. Apple's iTunes Music Store, which has been open since April, proved there's money to be made in online music, even in competition with free, proliferating pirate swap services. About 6.5 million songs have been sold, but only to the Macintosh (news - web sites) world, which represents about 3% of total computer users. Others giants, including AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon and Wal-Mart, have eyed Apple's success and promised similar services for Windows users this year. BuyMusic.com is first out of the gate. ''By the time students are back in their dorm rooms, there will be many legitimate choices,'' says Ted Cohen of EMI (home of Norah Jones and Janet Jackson). Says Buy.com founder Scott Blum: ''In the computer industry, a month is a huge amount of time, and we're going to take advantage of it.'' He says he's prepared to sell 1 million songs a day. ''I expect to do 200 million to 300 million downloads in the first year.'' Buy.com kicks off with a $40 million ad campaign (1,900 TV spots in the next two weeks) and the introduction today of the ''world's largest billboard'' -- 150 feet high, 60 feet wide -- in Times Square with a near-naked rocker Tommy Lee, who is the service's spokesman. Before Apple, industry-backed music services charged monthly fees. Though the services don't release figures, analysts say they've drawn fewer than 300,000 subscribers because of fees and restrictive rules -- some songs are unplayable if you don't renew your subscription, and you pay extra to burn tunes to CD or move them to portables. BuyMusic's songs are fully portable, but there's a catch: None can be moved to Apple's iPod, which has 50% of the digital music player market, though they do work with players from Creative Labs, Rio, Lyra and others. ''If you don't support Windows, you cut off 97% of the market,'' Blum says. ''The iPod is the best little product I've ever seen, but it's like building the best car in the world, yet it doesn't use everyone's gas.'' The Windows version of iPod isn't compatible with iTunes or BuyMusic. Despite the flurry of action in the paid-download arena, Cohen says he doesn't think a la carte singles are the only answer to the record industry's blues. ''It's not a one-size-fits-all thing,'' he says. ''ITunes is great for getting a specific song, but it's not a Border's-type experience for browsing. If I look up Bob Dylan, I don't get as much information about him as I would at Rhapsody.'' The Rhapsody service, rated highly by observers and reviewers for its depth of artist data, uses a subscription model that emphasizes unlimited listening, though it does sell tunes that can be burned to CDs. ''The reason Apple has done so well is they've advertised it really well,'' Cohen says. ''None of the other services has done a good job explaining its message.'' Jupiter Media analyst Lee Black says Apple proved that people were willing to pay for what could be found free, as long as the price was right and the rules were few. ''They unbundled it from a subscription and made it a clean process for purchasing. Apple owns the software, the operation system, and it's a nice synergistic platform,'' he says. ''It's going to be harder for the PC companies. But if Buy.com can make it easy, they should be able to attract a lot of attention.'' July 8, 2003 Tommy Lee to play Powerfest in Budapest - August 1, 2003 Tommy writes in his journal today: "Going to rock a festival in Budapest Hungary August 1st!! Gonna be sick..........Drag Racing and Music my 2 favorite things... We'll film it and upload the sickness when we return!!! As always.........Don't let yer meat loaf!" For more information about the festival: www.powerfest.com BACK TO NEWS ARCHIVE