{"id":96,"date":"2004-03-11T23:47:39","date_gmt":"2004-03-11T23:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/96"},"modified":"2004-03-11T23:47:39","modified_gmt":"2004-03-11T23:47:39","slug":"george-michael-shifting-to-free-online-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/96","title":{"rendered":"George Michael shifting to free online music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Indy Channel reports that George Michael (half of the hit 80&#8217;s duo <em>Wham<\/em>) has announced that after his next album <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theindychannel.com\/entertainment\/2915717\/detail.html\">he&#8217;s quitting the music industry<\/a> \u2014 and shifting to giving away his music for free download:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been very well remunerated as they say for my talents over the years, so I really don&#8217;t need the public&#8217;s money,&#8221; said Michael. &#8220;I&#8217;d really like to have something on the Internet with charitable donation optional, where anyone can download my music for free. I&#8217;ll have my favorite charities up there and people will hopefully contribute to that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Michael said that he expects this move will lower his public profile, since few people will care about him if he&#8217;s &#8220;not making money for someone.&#8221; He also believes he will enjoy the process of making music much more, once he is not contractually bound to release albums on a pre-determined schedule.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Michael is one of many high-profile artists with a bone to pick with the music cartel, having practically <a href=\"http:\/\/entertainment.msn.com\/artist\/?artist=100258\">stopped his career<\/a> after a bitter legal battle with his label, Columbia. Hopefully the few winners from the previous system will be able to blaze a new trail that newcomers with more to lose can follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Indy Channel reports that George Michael (half of the hit 80&#8217;s duo <em>Wham<\/em>) has announced that after his next album <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theindychannel.com\/entertainment\/2915717\/detail.html\">he&#8217;s quitting the music industry<\/a> \u2014 and shifting to giving away his music for free download:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been very well remunerated as they say for my talents over the years, so I really don&#8217;t need the public&#8217;s money,&#8221; said Michael. &#8220;I&#8217;d really like to have something on the Internet with charitable donation optional, where anyone can download my music for free. I&#8217;ll have my favorite charities up there and people will hopefully contribute to that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Michael said that he expects this move will lower his public profile, since few people will care about him if he&#8217;s &#8220;not making money for someone.&#8221; He also believes he will enjoy the process of making music much more, once he is not contractually bound to release albums on a pre-determined schedule.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Michael is one of many high-profile artists with a bone to pick with the music cartel, having practically <a href=\"http:\/\/entertainment.msn.com\/artist\/?artist=100258\">stopped his career<\/a> after a bitter legal battle with his label, Columbia. Hopefully the few winners from the previous system will be able to blaze a new trail that newcomers with more to lose can follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}