In 1988, three young guys in New York City — an acting student, a magazine researcher, and a software producer — were so happy to see the end of the 1980s, they held a funeral for the decade. They painted their faces blue and led a procession through Central Park; they burned a Rambo doll and a piece of the Berlin Wall. Although they couldn’t have known it, Chris Wink, Phil Stanton, and Matt Goldman had launched what would grow into an entertainment juggernaut. Since opening in New York City’s Astor Place Theatre in 1991, the Blue Man Group has played in 12 cities across the globe. More than 17 million people have seen its shows, and today, tickets go for $43 to $132. Goldman, the onetime computer geek turned impresario, tells the Blue Man Group’s unlikely story.

The Blue Man character is about universal human truths. When we got bald and blue for the first time, we knew instantly that we were on to something really special. It’s not like we sat down and came up with a business plan and followed it from Point A to Point B to Point C.

We played P.S. 122, La MaMa, all these hip, arty venues before we opened at the Astor Place Theatre. So some in the downtown art crowd thought we were selling out. But the work didn’t change. In the beginning, the house was half empty, and we were undercapitalized. We’d show up at the theater expecting a padlock on the door. I set up my office — a telephone, pen, and pad — directly opposite the box office. When I saw someone leave the box office without a ticket, I’d run out and start chatting him or her up. I wasn’t going to let him or her walk away without buying a ticket.

We made all the props ourselves. We found PVC pipe on Canal Street and turned it into musical instruments. But the Jell-O in the show cost $880 a show to make. So our producers said, “Lose the Jell-O.” Phil and Chris were working at the time for Jean-Claude Nédélec, who co-owns Glorious Food, the catering company. We told him our sad story, and he said, “We’ll make the Jell-O.” For three years, Chris and I would take a cab to the Upper East Side to pick up giant Jell-O molds and never paid a cent for it.

We went from six to eight shows a week and did 1,285 consecutive shows. We were sold out eight weeks in advance, but our producer got panicky at the thought of one of us getting sick, so we had one understudy. We never canceled a show. But then Phil cut his hand, and Chris Bowen, our extra, got bald and blue for the first time. It was fine. He’s now our senior performing director.

We realized that if we wanted to grow, we’d have to replicate ourselves. We cast three Blue Men, opened in Boston, and assumed it would go well. But there was no script, no musical score. It was a case study of the wrong way to grow. We realized we had to articulate our vision, so we locked ourselves in a room and spent several days writing the Blue Man manual.

The Blue Man is part innocent, hero, scientist, shaman, group member, and trickster. He doesn’t speak, but he communicates with vaudevillian slapstick humor. He drums and catches gumballs in his mouth that are filled with paint, which he spits onto a canvas to make art. It’s interactive, with music, lights, and lots of colorful liquids that get sprayed on the stage and into the audience.

The whole show is about connecting with the audience — to get to that heightened gestalt when someone scores a goal at a soccer game. That “AHHH!” There’s no intellect involved at all, just chemical secretions through one’s brain and body.

Three is the smallest unit where you can have an outsider; two guys win the third over, or the third guy wins the two guys in. It can go either way, and that tension makes for good theater. It also makes for good business partners — it takes the ego out of it. To this day, we’ve never made a decision based on the majority. All decisions are consensus. It takes longer, but we find if you keep talking things through, you reach a better choice.

We decided to open in Chicago. Before the show, we realized we had no idea how much money we needed. We called the general manager of the Boston show, who is now our CFO, and she did the numbers. To make payroll, we had to open three days early and do two shows a day. We figured, no one is going to know that the whole set could fall apart. They’ll just think, Oh, the Blue Men; they’re crazy. From Chicago we moved on to Las Vegas and later Orlando.

Vegas was a gamble. The theater had twelve hundred seats. We did 10 shows a week, but for the first six months, the theater was half empty. Lots of companies had come to us, wanting to do Blue Man ads. We turned them all down. But when Intel asked for the fourth time, we said, “Let’s talk.”

They said, “We want to get across that Intel is innovative, intelligent, and fun.” We liked that but said, “The ad agency is going to do lame storyboards.” So they gave us signing-off approval. Then we said, “The music is going to be really bad,” and they said, “You can make the music!”

That was in 2000. It was one of the biggest ad buys at the time: The ads were shown at the Grammy Awards, the basketball playoffs, the World Series. Every month, a new one aired. We went from 10 shows a week at 50 percent capacity to 14 shows at 100 percent.

Then we went international. Germany is the second-biggest entertainment market in the world for theater, so we started there. It felt appropriate, because when we did the funeral for the ’80s, we burned the Berlin Wall, and then it actually came down. So we felt personally responsible. We’ve had shows in Amsterdam and London. Today, we’re in Stuttgart and Tokyo.

We have about 70 Blue Men on the payroll. They’re hard to find. A lot of them trained in theater or are good drummers. We have a casting director and hold national auditions. Our Blue Men train in New York before we ship them out to our shows in other cities.

If you invent your own instrument, you’re automatically one of the top three musicians in the world on that instrument. We have made up more than 30 instruments, like the tubulum, the drumulum, and the piano smasher. I can barely hold my own musically, and yet I get to be a rock star. We made several albums; one was nominated for a Grammy.

We created a school in New York with an arts-based curriculum. It’s called the Blue Man Creativity Center. We have 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds. Next year is our first kindergarten. We’re growing a grade a year. This year, we had 200 applications for 30 spaces.

Some people think that when we get bald and blue that we’re just hiding behind a mask. But we think it’s the opposite. When you get blue, you’re left with just the purest, most vulnerable humanity. And so, about halfway through the show, people start to go, “Whoa, I’m the Blue Man.” And once you get there, you wonder, Are there actually three different characters, or is it three aspects of one personality, so together they’re one character? Those are exactly the questions we want people to be asking.

[via Inc Magainze] by Matt Goldman

From my experiences as a sex columnist, it just never seems to amaze me of all the healthful reasons for having a plentiful sex life. The most recent Durex Global Sex Survey shows that there are unfortunately a number of countries that could use a little more effort in this arena. One of the most notable is the United States, which is quite frankly having a lot less sex than just about everyone in the world, and when they do finally get around to it, less than half are satisfied with their experiences.

Okay folks, this is serious. Sex is a very important, fundamental part of life. It is both healthy and even green in many ways. So to help me get my point across, I am going to explain 15 glorious reasons why we should be doing a little less stressing, eating, and watching TV, and a whole lot more frolicking under the sheets!

1.Stress Reliever- Stress is a leading cause of sickness, yet most people are practically bathing in it daily. Sickness leads to doctors, prescription medicines, countless miles spent driving/flying to specialists, none of which are particularly the most pleasant or green scenarios for anyone. This is especially important to take heed during the difficult economic situation we are facing at the moment. We need to take a break from all this stress and allow the body to unwind. Sex is one of the best ways to do this, and it is just not the act that is stress-free, but the wonderful afterglow which can sometimes last for hours!

2.Heart Health- According to a study at Queens University in Belfast, men who practice sex at least three times a week can cut their risk of heart attack and stroke by a lean and mean 50 percent. That’s is a lot of guys!

3.Healthy, Drug-Free Baby Delivery- Some pregnant women tend to shy away from sex as the weeks get down to that big day. However, truth be told, healthy sex throughout a pregnancy has been shown to sometimes help aid in a speedier labor and delivery. This can sometimes be just the boost a woman needs to tolerate a natural, drug-free birth.

4.Cure the Common Cold- I bet you didn’t know that sex was actually a natural immunity booster for the common cold. Wilkes University in Pennsylvania has reported that having sex a minimum of once or twice a week can boost the immune system by up to 30 percent. Imagine what three or four times per week might do for you!

5.Healthiest Diet Plan You’ll Ever Have- Today’s diet plans involve special dinners and drinks in wasteful packaging, over the counter pills, medical procedures… hold the phone folks! Just one 30-minute roll in the hay will burn off a minimum of 200 calories. Some positions can burn as much as 700 calories, it just depends on how wild of a monkey dance you want to get down with.

6.Simple Energy Booster- Sex in the morning can often boost your energy level, but relationship expert, Scott Haltzman claims that the testosterone secreted in a man’s seed can actually be absorbed by women and give them even more of a pick-me-up. Now I am not forgetting about the importance of safe sex, but if you are in a safe relationship that will allow such practice, this is just one more reason to get freaky before you start each day.

7.Natural Mood Improvement- Sex can improve on a bad mood almost as much as a handful of chocolates can. Perhaps this is one of our main attractions to the post-argument make-up romp. The tactile stimulation in sex and sensual massage has a way of easing all those tense nerves which can stay indefinitely unless you make a conscious effort to rid yourself of their devious nature.

8.Skip the Aspirin, Prescribe Sex Instead- The simple act of sex can releases enough oxytocin in the body to reduce the necessity or frequent use of some prescribed pain relievers for arthritis, headaches, and even menstrual cramps. Please, can we do it tonight honey? I’ve got a headache!

9.Reduce Depression- Depression and sex can be a catch 20/20 because depression causes a lack of a libido, which reduces the desire to have sex. But if a person can get past that mental block, sex has been shown to boost their entire outlook on life by making them feel better about themselves and the world around them. They just have to get past that initial blah factor and allow themselves to be open to the idea of sex again!

10.Regulate Menstrual Cycles- Some women use the pill to regulate their menstrual cycle. Without it, their periods are just all over the place. However, research at Columbia and Stanford University has suggested that regular bouts of sex can help regulate a woman’s cycle when they engage in it at least one or more times per week. The more the better!

11.Better communication with Your Partner- I know… sometimes men can be a real bear to communicate with. We can’t sit still, we don’t know what to say. Well, throw him in the sack for a good romp, and I guarantee he will be more receptive to a heart-to-heart. Sex has a way of bringing a couple closer to each other not only physically, but also mentally. It can help drop those barriers which have been holding you back from expressing yourselves to each other.

12.Have Sex Now, so You Can Continue to Have it Later- Just as the old saying goes, use it or lose it, the same goes for sex unfortunately. All the healthful and green benefits of sex we have discussed so far, are all dependent on you keeping your bodies testosterone production in good practice. It’s just like riding a bicycle, some say. Yeah, but have you ever got on a bicycle after not riding for several years. I bet it wasn’t quite the same experience!

13.A Better Nights Rest- Sex releases endorphines, which enable the body to engage in a deeper more restful sleep. A long nights sleep has long been connected to better overall health. Are you beginning to see just how much sex and your overall health interconnect here?

14.Sex Slows the Aging Process- A healthy sex life may in fact help slow the aging process just enough to help us be less reliant on prescription drugs and other medical procedures later in life.

15.Reduce Disease of Sexual Organs- Regular orgasms for men have been shown to reduce the chance of prostate cancer. On the same token, the increased blood flow to the pelvic region for women has been shown to help keep their oven and all its parts in good working order too!

See… sex is good for you and for the environment too! So drop whatever you are doing and… But before you get up to that, take a brief moment to let us know what other green and healthful reasons I might be missing. Let’s see if we can get this list up to 50!

[via Treehugger via ABC News: Five reasons to have sex tonight] by Eric Leech

The most sacred of American annual rites is upon us: sitting through an over-hyped football game to see cutting-edge TV ads that occasionally rival feature films for production value and creativity.

But this year it isn’t just about television — the spotlight’s online.

Some of America’s biggest brands are experimenting with viral ads, user generated ads, online remixes and web-only versions that are too-hot-for-TV.

“The broad ‘digital swing’ this year is striking,” said Tim Lefkowicz, president of Collective Intellect, an online marketing company based in Boulder, Colorado.

Some familiar faces like General Motors and FedEX have decided to punt this year, but NBC has nearly sold out its Super Bowl XLIII ad inventory at up to $3 million for a 30-second spot. It’s worth it: Viewership always reaches stratospheric levels for the game, approaching 100 million people in the U.S. alone and about a billion worldwide.

It’s a challenge and an opportunity, and every year the bar is raised. This may be the year that geeky cred plays a big part in pushing the envelope.

“In years past only smaller, more tech-savvy companies relied heavily on digital methods, in large part due to the high cost of a Super Bowl second, but also because they understood the values and habits of its core consumer better,” said Lefkowicz.

This year, brands as big as Miller, Doritos, PepsiCo and Hyundai Motors are running ads with a major online component.

Doritos is experimenting online this year with an ad consisting entirely of user generated content. “Crash the Super Bowl” had people submit their own ads and vote on the which one should appear in the official spot.

The winner gets an additional $1 million if the ad makes it to the number one spot on USA Today’s Ad Meter. The online gallery of submissions includes a man chasing a bag of chips around the floor after teasing a cat with a laser pointer, and a guy who discovers the power of “The Crunch” where a woman loses her clothes and a policeman turns into a monkey.

Tony Hawk is rich and chief executive of his own company, but that doesn’t mean he’s changed all that much from the skateboarding kid with a junk food diet. In fact, it’s something he says makes him a better C.E.O.

For Hawk, it’s always been about being true to one’s self, or at least his constituency—the skaters.

“You have to be approachable and identify with your audience,” Hawk said. “I never forgot where I came from. I still continue to skate with the kids and see what they’re up to. I still eat at McDonald’s.”

Sky High

Tony Hawk on Authenticity

Watch more interviews with Tony Hawk

Hawk has never lost touch with that audience and doesn’t want to. And that may be the key to the success of his Tony Hawk Inc., a privately held business with 30 employees working from an office park 40 miles north of San Diego.

“(I want to) actually experience it and not hire a marketing group to do it for you and then you’re out of touch and you’re relying on whatever their vision is,” Hawks said.

Hawk started skating at the age of nine and three years later he gained his first sponsor.

Two years later at 14, he turned professional and in the following two years, he was considered the best skateboarder in the world. Over the next 17 years, he won enough contests–enough to think he was set for life.

He launched a skateboarding company, Birdhouse Projects, but it struggled as pubic interest slumped. Hawk slumped, too, financially. But when skateboarding and extreme sports began to grab the spotlight, he seized the opportunity.

His defining moment could be deemed when he went to the 1999 X-Games in San Francisco and completed the first “900″ in skateboarding competition. (A 900 is a jump of two-and-one-half rotations, 360 degrees + 360 degrees + 180 degrees = 900).

“I didn’t really anticipate making (the 900) that night,” Hawk said. “I told myself that night that I was going to make that trick or get taken to the hospital.”

That kind of determination served Hawk in business, too.

“I go with my gut feeling,” Hawk said. “Is this is something that is truly connected with what I do.”

He trusts his instinct because “I do live in this world. I didn’t learn about it through videos or books. I actually did it and struggled with it.”As a businessman, Hawk now has racked up unusual success.

His video game series with Activision has sold more than 30 million copies and the newest releases are frequently among the top 10 sellers in the business. He’s done a direct-to-DVD movie, a clothing brand that’s sold at Kohl’s and last year, the Tony Hawk Big Spin roller coasters made their debut at Six Flags’ Amusement Parks.

That’s all in addition to his skateboarding business and an extreme sports tour called Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom HuckJam, which he started in 2002.

Hawk also founded the Tony Hawk Foundation, which is designed to promote and help finance public skate parks in low-income areas.

The foundation has distributed more than $2.3 million to non-profit groups building skate parks everywhere from Homer, Alaska to Needles, Calif., to Greencastle, Ind., to Livermore Falls, Maine.

[via Conde Nast Portfolio] by Phillip Lee

A joint venture between three movie studios has yet to land any sort of cable distribution deal for its original programming, but it will at least launch online, offering access to some 15,000 movies. But without a TV deal, the audience will be limited.

Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today to mourn the death of Story. As you may have heard, it’s kaput—or, at the very least, terminally ill, wracked by videogames, wikis, recaps, talkbacks, YouTube, ADD, and the rise of a multiplatform, multipolar, mashup-media culture. Hollywood, vendor of Story in its most denatured form, is most at risk: The film industry is slowly but steadily being forced to part with quaint artifacts like the “hero’s journey,” Joseph Campbell’s so-called Monomyth. (Which is just so … well … mono.) Beginnings, middles, and ends are headed for the attic, next to the box marked VCR Rewinders/Beastmaster Franchise. And Tinseltown can kick this chestnut to the curb. You may remember it from high school English:

Concocted 146 years ago by a German philologist, Freytag’s pyramid was long held aloft as the one-size-fits-all narrative template, despite the fact that it describes the tidy Aristotelian side of storytelling (Ben-Hur) far better than its frayed quantum fringes (Memento). Techniques like open-ended conclusion, audience interactivity, and nonlinear chronology “were part of the avant-garde 30 or 40 years ago,” says UCLA film school dean Robert Rosen, “but they’re taken for granted now.”

Fortunately for Western civilization, I’ve developed a new model. Allow me to introduce Brown’s Ziggurat (in 4-D!)^tm. It accounts for all the time-shredding, symmetry-defying, viewer-inclusive wackiness of New Story. To stress-test this innovative system, we revisit one of our most basic, most fundamental narratives. A classic hero’s journey. The ur-Story. I speak, obviously, of Die Hard.

In Freytag-ese, Die Hard unfolds thusly: NYC cop John McClane arrives in LA to reunite with his estranged wife, Holly (exposition), but terrorists raid her office tower, taking everyone hostage except McClane (inciting incident), who escapes unseen and starts picking off the goons (rising action). The terrorists finally realize they’re holding McClane’s wife and gain the upper hand (climax), but McClane frees the other hostages (falling action), goes toe-to-toe with the terrorist chieftain, and prevails (resolution). He celebrates by making out with his wife in the back of a limo. (Awww! And … denouement!)

A little square, no? With the snazzy Brown Ziggurat, however, Die Hard will look like this: John McClane, NYC cop, arrives in LA to reconcile with his estranged wife—but we already know all about their failing marriage from the ARG we’ve been obsessed with for the six months leading up to the movie’s release. (McClane’s potemkin Tumblr blog was especially illuminating.) With exposition rendered obsolete, we open instead on a Sprite commercial, which transitions seamlessly into furious gunplay. We don’t even see McClane in the flesh, but our handsets are buzzing with his real-time thumb-tweets: “in the air duct. smelz like dead trrist in here lol.” The film then rewinds to McClane Googling “terrorists” to read up on his adversaries. We then flash-cut to the baddies’ POV, which we’re familiar with (and sympathetic to) thanks to the addictive Xbox hit Die Hard: Hard Out There for a Terrorist. This is all part of the Action-Happening Plateau, an intensifying mass of things and stuff leading up to the Mymax^tm.

The Mymax is not a lame old Freytag climax but a hot Escher mess of narrative possibilities suggested by you, the audience. With a mere click of your handset (and a charge of 99 cents), you furnish a Youclusion^tm to your liking. This is how McClane somehow ends up defeating terrorists—and winning American Idol—with his ultrasonic melisma. McClane and Holly then celebrate by making a sex tape. (Awww!)

Voilà! The future of storytelling. Hollywood, I await my royalty checks. And you, dear reader, can thank me by providing a Youclusion for this column.

[via WIRED] by Scott Brown

In late 2006, Justin Vernon, a musician in Eau Claire, Wis., recorded nine songs while staying at his parents’ hunting cabin in northern Wisconsin after a breakup with a girlfriend and his long-time band. He used just a desktop computer with recording software, a three-piece drum set and a guitar.

A few months later, Mr. Vernon posted the songs on his MySpace page, hoping to get some listeners and feedback. He also printed 500 copies of a CD with those songs to sell to friends and fans and send to music bloggers for review.

He got that and much more.

Chelsea Sanders

Justin Vernon of Bon Iver performing at WIUX radio station at Indiana University at Bloomington.

Thanks to the buzz his online tracks generated on music blogs and social-networking sites, Mr. Vernon has played at numerous venues and appeared on the “Late Show With David Letterman.” He signed a record deal in October 2007, and his first album, “For Emma, Forever Ago,” sold about 87,000 copies through mid-December, with about half of those downloaded online. With a band he formed early this year, called Bon Iver, Mr. Vernon is now playing sold-out concerts across the U.S. and abroad.

“The Internet played a significant role in feeding people the music…. It’s like wildfire [how it] spreads,” Mr. Vernon, 27, said before a show earlier this year in Philadelphia, where the band performed to a boisterous crowd of about 500 in a church basement. “That propelled us right into being able to choose what kind of record label we wanted to work with.”

Mr. Vernon’s rapid success shows how small, relatively unknown artists can gain fame via the Web without the large marketing budgets and backing of a major record label. The exposure on blogs, YouTube, social-networking, marketing and other sites can allow them to nurture a following quickly and cheaply.

“It’s about consumers talking to each other and to the artist through the Web and at concerts, where the emphasis on top 40 hits” has disappeared, says marketing expert and author Seth Godin. “Now, it’s about niches.” Record labels, once responsible for making music artists famous, are being replaced by music bloggers who review albums and post YouTube videos of their favorite bands, he adds.

One of the first people to spread the word about Mr. Vernon’s songs was popular music blogger Craig “Dodge” Lile of myoldkyhome.blogspot.com. He was scanning MySpace for music and stumbled across Mr. Vernon’s profile page. Liking what he heard, he posted about it in June 2007 on his blog: “Vernon sings in a perfect falsetto over sparse folk backgrounds on a lot of tracks, but opens it a bit more naturally on this one,” referring to a song called “Skinny Love.”

In the following weeks, other music blogs and sites, including BrooklynVegan.com and Pitchforkmedia.com, gave the songs glowing reviews.

“Big pacemakers out there gave it a good review, and people sort of latched onto it,” says Kyle Frenette, Bon Iver’s manager, in Chippewa Falls, Wis.

And once artists gather a large online following, record labels often start chasing them. Indeed, by the fall of 2007, a number of record labels had reached out to Mr. Vernon. He ultimately signed up with Jagjaguwar of Bloomington, Ind., in late October.

After signing the deal, Mr. Vernon put together a band. Jagjaguwar officially released “For Emma, Forever Ago,” in February 2008, and Bon Iver has been touring almost continuously since.

A big part of Mr. Vernon’s success in the blogosphere and beyond, Mr. Frenette says, was crafting a compelling story to help fans connect to the music even more. Bon Iver’s MySpace page, Web site and CD all include the same story: a paragraph telling how Mr. Vernon wrote the songs while hibernating in the remote cabin in the woods. It outlined why Mr. Vernon’s story was different, what the name Bon Iver means (it’s a misspelling of the French term for “good winter”) and how the songs were made (using microphones and aged recording equipment).

While much of Mr. Vernon’s acclaim has come through buzz on blogs, other musicians are finding outlets and Web tools to help their music get exposure. Artists can use TuneCore.com to distribute their songs to music-retail sites, including iTunes and Amazon. Artists pay a one-time fee of 99 cents a song, plus maintenance and storage fees. At online record store CDBaby.com, owned by Disc Makers of Pennsauken, N.J., musicians can upload their music, which can then be digitized, stored and sold on the site. CDBaby keeps $4 for every CD sale and 9% for every download.

Sonicbids Corp.’s site is an online marketplace that connects musicians with promoters, booking agents and industry professionals. Using the tools on the site, bands can find live gigs and licensing opportunities by submitting a bid — including an online press kit with audio and video tracks, photos and a biography — to concert promoters and event planners who also are members of the community site. Musicians pay $5.95 to $10.95 a month or $50 to $100 a year in membership fees.

One U.K. site, Slicethepie Ltd.’s Slicethepie.com, allows artists to raise money to create albums, directly from fans and investors. Music fans are paid by the site to review and rate tracks uploaded by artists. The highest-rated artists are then placed in a “showcase” where people can listen to the music and invest in artists they like. When the investments reach a certain level, the artists receive the money, minus a 10% cut for Slicethepie. Artists also pay Slicethepie a royalty on the sale of every album or single for a two-year period.

“The Internet has been like the French Revolution for the music business,” says Panos Panay, founder and CEO of Sonicbids. The aristocracy “has faded” as the “cost of distribution, production and even getting connected has come down.” Now, he adds, anyone with “a niche and devoted fans can make a living.”

[via WSJ Small Business] by Shelly Banjo and Kelly K. Spors

Fast Company: Greatest Gadgets of 2008

After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.

The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003. Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. And it created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl.

Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider’s customers making music available online for others to take.

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

The RIAA said it has agreements in principle with some ISPs, but declined to say which ones. But ISPs, which are increasingly cutting content deals of their own with entertainment companies, may have more incentive to work with the music labels now than in previous years.

The new approach dispenses with one of the most contentious parts of the lawsuit strategy, which involved filing lawsuits requiring ISPs to disclose the identities of file sharers. Under the new strategy, the RIAA would forward its emails to the ISPs without demanding to know the customers’ identity.

Though the industry group is reserving the right to sue people who are particularly heavy file sharers, or who ignore repeated warnings, it expects its lawsuits to decline to a trickle. The group stopped filing mass lawsuits early this fall.

It isn’t clear that the new strategy will work or how effective the collaboration with the ISPs will be. “There isn’t any silver-bullet anti-piracy solution,” said Eric Garland, president of BigChampagne LLC, a piracy consulting company.

Mr. Garland said he likes the idea of a solution that works more with consumers. In the years since the RIAA began its mass legal action, “It has become abundantly clear that the carrot is far more important than the stick.” Indeed, many in the music industry felt the lawsuits had outlived their usefulness.

“I’d give them credit for stopping what they’ve already been doing because it’s been so destructive,” said Brian Toder, who represents a Minnesota mother involved in a high-profile file-sharing case. But his client isn’t off the hook. The RIAA said it plans to continue with outstanding lawsuits.

Over the summer, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo began brokering an agreement between the recording industry and the ISPs that would address both sides’ piracy concerns. “We wanted to end the litigation,” said Steven Cohen, Mr. Cuomo’s chief of staff. “It’s not helpful.”

As the RIAA worked to cut deals with individual ISPs, Mr. Cuomo’s office started working on a broader plan under which major ISPs would agree to work to prevent illegal file-sharing.

The RIAA believes the new strategy will reach more people, which itself is a deterrent. “Part of the issue with infringement is for people to be aware that their actions are not anonymous,” said Mitch Bainwol, the group’s chairman.

Mr. Bainwol said that while he thought the litigation had been effective in some regards, new methods were now available to the industry. “Over the course of five years, the marketplace has changed,” he said in an interview. Litigation, he said, was successful in raising the public’s awareness that file-sharing is illegal, but now he wants to try a strategy he thinks could prove more successful.

The RIAA says piracy would have been even worse without the lawsuits. Citing data from consulting firm NPD Group Inc., the industry says the percentage of Internet users who download music over the Internet has remained fairly constant, hovering around 19% over the past few years. However, the volume of music files shared over the Internet has grown steadily.

Meanwhile, music sales continue to fall. In 2003, the industry sold 656 million albums. In 2007, the number fell to 500 million CDs and digital albums, plus 844 million paid individual song downloads — hardly enough to make up the decline in album sales.

—Amol Sharma contributed to this article.

[via WSJ Online] by Sarah McBride and Ethan Smith

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