[Pop] Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder enter the 21st Century

From Timesonline.co.uk :

By Adam Sherwin, Media Reporter

VAN MORRISON, one of the music world’s most mercurial figures, finally enters the digital era with the launch of his first website.

The site, vanmorrison.co.uk, offers audio clips of Morrison’s songs from his album Magic Time, which will be released next month. The website store will open with CD sales but expand to include downloads from a catalogue of hits that began 40 years ago with Baby Please Don’t Go.

Morrison, 59, is one of the last “heritage” (Heritage? Ugh.– Ed.) rock acts to allow his music to be distributed over the internet. The Rolling Stones have signed up to downloading, and the arrival online of the Beatles’ back catalogue is expected this year.

Like many performers with a valuable archive of hits, Morrison took legal action to protect his name from “cyber-squatters”. He won the rights to the domain name vanmorrison.com after taking a case against an unofficial site to the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Switzerland.

The official Morrison site is the result of a new deal signed with Polydor, part of the Universal Music empire. He has also agreed with Apple’s iTunes store to sell an e-single of Celtic New Year weeks before it is released in retail stores.

Older stars whose biggest hitmaking days may be behind them are using their websites to maintain contact with fans. Stevie Wonder placed a new song, a collaboration with Prince and En Vogue called So What the Fuss, exclusively on his website. The response was so positive that it is racing up the United States charts.

Morrison was persuaded that an online store would meet demand from his large international audience. The songwriter had turned his back on the machinations of the record industry, complaining: “I found myself in a business that was primarily catering to juveniles.”

Fans are used to his unpredictable performances: he has occasionally left the stage after just one hour if the mood was not right. “People think that I am eccentric and difficult but I have never been comfortable working live,” he has said. “If I am not feeling good I cannot turn it on.”

Madonna and Elton John are other big artists who have held back their music from the internet. Lawyers raised concerns that the web would be flooded with illegal and often poor-quality copies of songs released on MP3 files.