Beastie Boys to Offer Three Unreleased Tracks for Digital Download Exclusively on LAUNCH.com Using Windows Media Technology

Business Wire, May 26, 1999

Strategic investors include Intel, GE Capital, NBC, Allen & Co., Island Trading, Phoenix Partners, SOFTBANK Ventures, Arts Alliance, Avalon Technologies and Chiel Jedang.

About Windows Media Technology

Windows Media Technology 4.0 provides content providers, solution providers and software developers with the industry's best audio and video quality, a flexible content rights management system, and improved electronic-commerce solutions.

Windows Media Technologies, including Windows Media Player and Windows Media Services, is available now for free download at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/ (connect time charge may apply).

About Beastie Boys

Having been an influential force in pop culture since the early 1980s, Beastie Boys were arguably the first musical entity to establish a significant presence on the Internet. The band distributed browser software on its 1995 "Quadraphonic" arena tour, which also featured on-site Internet access terminals.

Simultaneously, www.beastieboys.com was being widely regarded as the pinnacle of artist-operated sites. More recently, Beastie Boys posted exclusive MP3 files of live performances for download on their redesigned site throughout the course of their 1998 "In the Round" North American tour.

Beastie Boys' philanthropic efforts can be traced back to the 1994 founding of the Milarepa Fund, a human rights and awareness organization originally funded by proceeds from the band's royalties.

In 1996, Beastie Boys and Milarepa staged the first Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The two-day affair drew some 100,000 concertgoers, making it the single largest charity concert to take place on U.S. soil since 1985's Live Aid.

Subsequent Tibetan Freedom Concerts in New York and Washington, D.C., have scored attendance in the hundreds of thousands, while Beastie Boys continue to donate portions of their own concert proceeds to local charities worldwide. The 1998 North American "Hello Nasty" tour, for example, resulted in donations totaling approximately half a million dollars.

For this particular promotion, Beastie Boys have chosen two organizations whose services are offering both immediate and long-term support for this war-torn region, on international as well as grassroots community-oriented levels.

CARE has utilized an extraordinary international network to respond to the refugee crisis by providing medical and basic support throughout the region, including the management of several major refugee camps, and immediate care for newly arriving refugees.

MADRE Inc. is working with a network of community-based women's organizations in Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslavia that have been working together since the early 1990s. These groups support women and their families who are surviving the trauma of war and violence with an extensive program of social services.

About Capitol Records

Capitol Records was formed in 1942. It has been the home to some of the most esteemed names in the history of recorded music including Johnny Mercer, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Band, Pink Floyd and Tina Turner.