(Editor's note: This is the first in a weekly look back at the most important moments in music's digital revolution. Each Wednesday, SonicNet will turn back the clock to trace the development of music in cyberspace.)

Staff Writer Chris Nelson reports:

In the digital music revolution's battle over MP3s, it was the shot heard 'round the Internet.

One year ago this week, Public Enemy's outspoken rap star Chuck D began in earnest his career as a front-line commander in the downloadable revolution with one simple, yet groundbreaking, move.

His first salvo was to post five MP3 tracks from Bring the Noise 2000, an album he claimed Def Jam Records refused to release, on the official Public Enemy website (www.public-enemy.com). The rapper was among the first high-profile artists to use the downloadable, near-CD-quality MP3 format as a vehicle to get out his music.

Soon thereafter, Def Jam parent company PolyGram forced the band to remove the cuts without an explanation. The move prompted Chuck D (born Carlton Ridenhour) to brand the label "weasels" in a missive to fans posted on the website Dec. 2, 1998, and helped focus attention on the rift between artists and labels over MP3s.

"The execs, lawyers and accountants who lately have made most of the money in the music biz, are now running scared from the technology that evens out the creative field and makes artists harder to pimp," he wrote.

Def Jam and PolyGram refused to comment at the time, but ties between the label and the band were severed in the following weeks.

Public Enemy went on to release their next album, There's a Poison Goin' On, in MP3 format through the Internet label Atomic Pop before sending CDs to stores.

Chuck D has since become one of the foremost proponents of artists empowering themselves through the Internet.