It's 2003, you're Ricky Martin, and Sony Music has just dropped you like yesterday's Gin Blossoms. But you can always pull a Prince and sell albums on the Internet under your own name, right? Not if you signed Sony's new standard artist contract, which gives the label exclusive Web-address rights to artists' names. Performers' proper nouns have sparked a new Internet gold rush -- and some acts have begun feuding with their labels over land claims. Until Sony began grabbing URL rights (a practice that's not standard in the industry), Web names often just went to whoever got there first; the Goo Goo Dolls even set up their own site (www.googoodolls.org) to compete with the Warner Bros. site (googoodolls.com), according to the Los Angeles Times. A Sony spokesperson said the company doesn't comment on artist contracts, but Ice-T, who sells merchandise at mcicet.com, recently advised artists at an industry convention to tell labels to "eat a bowl of dicks" rather than sign away URLs. So if Ice has mcicet.com, who owns icet.com? "Icet is some kind of intercontinental-phaser murder shit," says Ice. Actually, it's registered to Sverrir Geirmundsson, who lives in Iceland.

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