Courtney Love's big Sacramento adventure

Henley and Love said successful artists should not be made to pay for the risks labels take on untested bands, and that recording companies should show more restraint before inking a band to a record deal.

"If they would sign less artists, I think everyone would be better off," Henley said. "Record companies are letting their arrogance get in the way of good business sense."

For Love, this was just the latest round in her ongoing battle with the recording industry. Peeved at lack of promotion and attention her label, DGC, gave to her band Hole's last album, "Celebrity Skin," Love refused to produce any more albums for the label. What exactly Love's "label" is provides a trenchant insight into the current state of the music industry. DGC is an offshoot of Geffen Records, now controlled by a company called the Universal Music Group, which is itself a subsidiary of the giant Vivendi Universal conglomerate, which among other things is the biggest record distributor in the world.

The label responded with a lawsuit, charging Love with breach of contract. She responded with a wide-ranging suit of her own, which among other things tried to overturn the labels' exemption from the state's seven-year personal-service law. A judge has already dismissed that part of her suit, however. Several other lines of attack are still being litigated. (Love and Henley are also trying to get the U.S. Congress to make the seven-year limit a federal law.)

Her suit is being closely watched by artists and the industry. It will be surprising if she prevails, but it does have the potential to fundamentally change the way the recording industry works.

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"Let's kill all the lawyers/Kill 'em tonight," Henley sang in a recent reunion song with the Eagles; but of course he, like many other artists, has been keeping teams of attorneys busy in recent years. Indeed, Murray said it was the increasingly litigious nature of the record industry that prompted him to call the hearings: "When I was in the music business, artists and record companies never sued each other," he said. "[It] just didn't happen. They threatened to, they yelled and screamed, they made demands, but rarely did they actually sue each other. Over the past few years, you've seen many more lawsuits on both sides."

But when asked about Love's lawsuit, Murray tried to change the subject. As he moderated the press conference before Wednesday's hearing, Murray stepped in when someone from the industry was asked to talk about what potential effect Love's lawsuit may have on the industry.

"Frankly, we're not trying to focus on any particular artist or any particular lawsuit," Murray said. When pressed about the deteriorating relationships between artists and their labels, Murray said, "I didn't say that they had deteriorating relationships, I said they were more willing to sue."

Instead, Murray wanted to focus on the particular provision of the state contract law at issue. But it's unclear what impact a change in the law might have. Most major labels have offices outside of California, where there are no seven-year laws; many in the industry assume that, if the Legislature repeals the law, labels will simply offer contracts out of their New York offices.

"We want California to be both artist friendly, and company friendly," Murray said. The line, of course, is a fine one. While artists appeal to the Legislature for remedies, the state is somewhat beholden to the entertainment industry, which has blossomed over the last decade into the largest in the state.

"What this really comes down to is control and respect," Love said. "I've made more for Universal than 'Titanic.' And are they even nice to me? No. They're rude!"

She also saved some harsh words for the Legislature, which passed the record industry's exemption in 1987. "You guys got snookered," she said. "I don't care what the RIAA tells you today, they lied to you." (The RIAA is the Record Industry Association of America, which has launched an offensive against Henley's and Love's campaigns.)

The remaining causes of action in Love's suit attack the way record-industry royalties and accounting systems are structured. Her suit also seeks to prohibit labels from selling acts to other labels without the artist's consent, a frequent occurrence as the record industry continues to consolidate. Love really wants a full-scale restructuring of how the industry works, including a push for a more active recording-artists union. "We don't have anything like [the Screen Actors Guild]," Love told the committee.

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