Super MP3 Will Feature User Tracking 391
An anonymous reader writes "Next generation super MP3 files will support four-channel audio tracks and contain what's dubbed Light Weight Digital Rights Management (LWDRM) code to track it's owner via p2p programs." We've mentioned these multi-channel, DRM-ified MP3s before.
And so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And so... (Score:2)
Re:And so... (Score:3, Insightful)
True, it's not the RIAA that's ripping the CDs, it's the pirates.
but that's not the point, the RIAA wants to distribute digital audio securely over the internet. The originals will be in this Super-MP3 format instead of on CDs.
Re:And so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And so... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And so... (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I know the Super-MP3s don't use longhorn, but if they did:
If you don't have longhorn the site that sells the songs and all computers that have bought them (and therefore need to have longhorn) will refuse to send you the file. You would be an un-trusted host.
If you do have longhorn, the file conversion tools are unsighned code. So you can't run them.
Re:And so... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And so... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Utter nonsense. Mod parent DOWN. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's possible to be interesting and wrong, just as it's possible to be boring and right!
Re:And so... (Score:2)
If you want to transfer data securely over the internet, why not use SSL or a VPN of some sort. I don't see what security has to do with the transfer of a song over the internet though....
Re:And so... (Score:5, Insightful)
if the companies wont upgrade all existing equipment to support it for 100% free then people will not use it.
I am not going to replace my audiotron, Kenwood car stereo, ipod, and other mp3 enabled devices because of a tiny improvment and added features for some rich asshats.
Same as DVD replacements coming down the line... they WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. DVD for video will be here a really long time as consumers get royally pissed when some moron engineer decides to change things every 3 months. the consumer wants to buy something and use it for 5 years or so. and they get pissy when their old stuff does not work in the new.
this new mp3 will not be accepted, ipod's native format will never get as big as mp3 and is only popular because of the ipod.
Re:And so... (Score:3, Insightful)
step 1) only sell new DVD players (they support the old format so no big deal)
step 2) start selling HD disks 3 weeks before SD disks.
step 3) reduce the features on the SD disks gradually until there are no features left but maintain the price.
step 4) when the market gets to 65% penetration of new players (about 3 -5 years from launch) dump SD disks totally.
Re:And so... (Score:4, Insightful)
How many people buy new alarm clocks just because a new feature is added?
How many people have bought HDTV even though you have been able to for years
How many people have just starting to put together home theater systems??
90% of america makes less than 100,000 a year. By the time you add up cars, house, kids there just isn't much left for electronics.
Re:And so... (Score:3, Insightful)
if you think that any org can control the gigantic China manufacturing machine that makes all the big companies look like tiny corner stores, then you live on a different planet than me.
VCD, a format that has been here for years but ignored in the USA until the influx of Cheap china DVD players... Now VCD is taking off in the USA as the format for home users. (a SVCD looks great and costs $0.03 US compared to the cheapest DVD-R at $1.80 plus has a LOWER compatability in set top p
Re:And so... (Score:5, Informative)
LD players were still made until 2002:
http://home.q03.itscom.net/nsa/PioneerLD-S
According to a test of several hundred models at DVDrhelp.com, DVD-R has a 90+% compatibility rate.
Good DVD blanks can be purchased for under $1 a piece in quanities of 25 or so.
One CAN get an HD-ready TV now, 27" for a little over $500 - from Samsung and a couple other players, some widescreen 30" HD-ready sets go for under $1000. The difference in even such a "small" set is that it is a progressive scan TV - very much reduced flickering. I find it highly amusing that geeks clutch to an interlaced TV set when I'm sure they probably wouldn't tolerate using interlaced modes on their computer monitors.
Some of the DVD players with best high-end value are in the $200 to $500 range, particularly those with a Faroudja DCDi deinterlacer and a Matsushita MPEG decoder. There are simply no equivalents that use these parts made by the Chinese names. All it takes is a side-by-side comparison to see the difference. All it takes is comparing any chinese player with any one of the higher rated models in the Secrets DVD shoot-out, many of which street or have streeted in the $200 to $400 range. These sites also have neat pictures of the kind of flaws that DVD players generate, often the cheaper the player, the more of these flaws it has.
Frankly to say that a $30 player is as good as a $5000 Denon is silly, I can see MPEG decoding flaws in my sister's $50 player on a 15 year old 19" TV with an RF input that don't show up on my Pioneer or Panasonic DVD players on a 27" screen or XGA projector fed with a component video source. That DVD player uses the same ESS decoding MPEG chip as most of the cheap Chinese players.
Secrets DVD player shoot-out 2004 [hometheaterhifi.com]
Secrets DVD player shoot-out 2002-2003 [hometheaterhifi.com]
Test materials for the benchmarks [hometheaterhifi.com]
The trend against new formats is growing (Score:5, Insightful)
1. People want vinyl records. They see it as a format from simpler times. They hate CDs for any number of reasons and vinyl lets them just listen to music.
2. People buy CDs, copy them and sell them back. For those that rip they use MP3 and they don't care about quality. They hate any compressed format other than MP3 because it's one extra choice they don't want to think about.
3. The only people that are happy with digital music are the ones that have an iPod because they see it has being their whole collection in a little box. People who listen to music on their computer jukebox, or any of the competing portable players complain about the experience for any number of reasons.
4. The people who do know about DRM or any new formats have sworn to never use them.
Overall from what I see, the trend is to actively resist any kind of format that requires too much decision making, too much restriction, or which makes too much extra work. This negative wave has extended back against CDs and no one wants the majority of them because they have no physical character. I think from here on out, all new consumer audio and video formats are going to have a huge problem with adoption. The effort to adopt them is well past the acceptable limit of consumers. Need we mention DVD-A or SACD?
Re:The trend against new formats is growing (Score:3, Insightful)
How surprising. Almost as surprising as the fact that the industry is doing everything they can to keep the DRM-issue out of the public. People like owning things, owning them for real, just admit it. It's not that hard?
Subversion is the keyword here. Not to be a zealous troll, but the only way this thing can be put to work, is trough subversion.
What does that tell you about the basics of this technology?
Re:"Just listen to music"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I own more than 25,000 of 'em and I love the sleeve artwork, too. One of these days I'll frame a few of my favorites.
It pains me to admit that you're right on with your comment about LPs not being for just listening to the music. Yes, they still tend to sound better than CDs, but if the highest of fidelity was the only thing guiding my choice of musi
Re:And so... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only hope is if the consumer electronics **industry** rebels against the RIAA MPAA - no one cares about music lovers
Consumers don't have that power
1) Work to sew contempt and spread distrust between consumer electronics firms and owners of content (of course many have merged - e.g. Sony but many smaller manufacturers have not). Always ask at electronics stores if the equipment is compatible, tell horror stories. If you and your friends are buying gear get them to ask them same questions.
2) Try to turn music distributors against the RIAA Always ask at the cash if your DVD can be played on your laptop on the plane or if CD tracks can be put transformed and use on your iPod - if they don't know or say no then say: "Oh, hmm damn I like browsing your shelves with the airconditiong and all but these [DVD's||CD's] are so inconvenient". When in a music store add loudly: "Actually on second thought I won't purchase the CD from your store I will look for it at Apple or another online service. Cool to see this place is still going strong!! We used to come here all the time back music stores were the best place to get music. Anyway, sorry these new fangled CD's are way less convenient than the online services". Then toss the pile (of say 5 CD's This works best in a loud voice with a large line behind you - and if you have a friend who will do almost the same thing 2-3 hours later. 10-15 people doing this can make music stores shudder!! One store in our town even put up a sign saying: "Our CDs are not copy protected". They left it up for almost a week.
3). Always return CD's that don't allow playing on your equipment.
4). China is a horrific communist regime but thankfully they don't respect IPR laws. Encourage the Chinese consumer electronics industry that does not cooperate with US content makers. If
5). If buying a computer always ask at the store if it runs Linux. If they haven't and they won't let you test a knoppix disk and watch the boot up messages. Leave the knoppix disk in the store (in a small paper CD case with the URL to the site on it) and say: "you guys should test your systems for linux, I am (or my brother my girlfriend is) a computer science major and the machine *HAS* to dula boot and run linux. It's 2004! this is crazy!" (unlike the record store don't be loud though say it sort of sympathetic in a confused voice
Vive la revolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if you really wanted to "mix" things up... Imagine if everyone in North America where to register themselves as a corporation, you'd pay less tax AND have more rights (the ones that the big corporations have, that you the citizen dont have). You would be able to deduct all living expenses and only pay tax on any profit at the end of the year. Of cour
Re:But Microsoft will make it the 'standard' (Score:3, Insightful)
Please note, I am not saying that DRM is a good thing, I am just pointing out that the average consumer/computer user doesn't care. When and if the RIAA gets their wish and ends all file trading the average joe will shrug it off and go back to buying Good Charlotte cds like a reall American.
Re:And so... (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe for you, but my first online game was a P51 Mustang battle flight sim on the TRS80 in 1983. It ran with relatively little lag on a 300 baud modem and supported 2 players. My BBS friends and I would play for hours and hours.
Online piracy? Been around since geeks in colleges would run IRC servers sharing everything from music to videos to games using simple dial-up modems yet only now we're hearing about it in the mainstream.
Nah, the BBS was the birthplace of modern warez distribution. The first time I knowingly logged into one was in 1981.
Most of the people involved weren't college age geeks, either. We were nerds back then. There was no 'chic geek' thing or nerdy IRC girls on Prozac. Except for Sherrod, but she was an IRC chiq before IRC even existed.
Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
Are there more of our privacies the corp execs want to relieve us of ?!
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
But that it just a guess based on how laws are being created.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
Rip to OGG (or MP3 if you must)
No DRM
This is what I've been doing with my existing music collection, but the problem is that so much new stuff is coming out on those damn copy-protected CDs. Yes, I know some of them rip without any apparent problems, but I'd really rather not spend money on something I'm so ethically against. And even more lately, I've gotten so disgusted with the RIAA's actions I don't want to give them any of my money, whether or not the CDs are copy-protected. Between those two factors, it's really hard to find any new music to listen to these days.
There is a little hope, though: cdbaby.com and magnatune.com sell mostly RIAA-free music, riaaradar.com tells you if a CD is RIAA-backed or not, and I've found a lot of foreign music (such as European heavy metal that I like) is not affiliated with the RIAA, and these CDs are easily available on amazon.com.
And who will use them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And who will use them? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And who will use them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all (Score:5, Informative)
Now notice I said open, not free. It is like MPEG-4, MPEG-2, AAC, MP3 and so on. Anyone many implement the standard for a fixed licensing fee ($0.10 per decoder, $0.20 per encoder) but it isn't free of charge. As a pracitcal matter they'd probably ignore not-for-profit, source-only implementations like the MPEG consoritum ignores Xvid.
But yes, it's open and controlled by SMPTE now. Your money goes to MS if you license it, but the fees are fixed, and any changes to the standard must be approved by SMPTE and will be given to all licensees as part of the license. It now is a viable alternative to MPEG-4, and it is one of the three finalists for the HD-DVD format.
Re:And who will use them? (Score:2)
Re:And who will use them? (Score:2)
You are confused friend. (Score:2)
He isn't at all putting down vorbis
It just might catch on though. (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you're right, but I'm not sure you are.
Re:And who will use them? (Score:2, Insightful)
Really, who's going to use these things if they have DRM?
Of course when they're marketed to Joe User, they're not going to count on DRM as a selling point. They're going to count on the multi-channel capabilities to sell the file format to the average user. There's no mistake that these two "features" are paired together.
What use is 5.1... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What use is 5.1... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What use is 5.1... (Score:2)
Re:What use is 5.1... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What use is 5.1... (Score:3, Interesting)
Count the ears.
Although you could make a good argument for 2.1ch (the ".1" to give the bass "feel" of a live performance), having more than two channels really only makes a difference for content designed for more than a single listener at a time.
For watching a movie, something people usually do (at home, anyway) in small groups, you want good sound quality for a wide area of the room. At least the width of a typical sofa, and the depth of
Re:What use is 5.1... (Score:2)
MP3 cannot be changed. Get it? If they want to make a new super-awesome audiophile-and-RIAA-friendly format, they're going to have to name it something else.
DVD-A, SACD, Audio tracks for video... (Score:3, Informative)
What use is 5.1 if CDs (most anyway) only have 2 channels?
... are a few uses I can think of off the top of my head. DVD-A and SACD are both hi-fidelity audio formats, and just because it's an MP3 doesn't mean that it has to be used for music. It could be used for an audio track for a movie file.
Count me in! (Score:5, Funny)
Man, I'd better start saving up for a new Super MP3 player...
Re:Count me in! (Score:2)
Re:Count me in! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Count me in! (Score:2)
Discaimer: I wrote GNU/Shoes. . .
Remember other attempts? (Score:3, Insightful)
Alternatives to standard MP3 (Score:5, Interesting)
This one will not be widely used by consumers if it has a light-weight tracking mechanism embedded in it. We'll simply use one of the others. Not to mention, there will always be players (and converters) that disable the tracking and convert to a more well-accepted format.
But maybe it's a step in the right direction. We'll see what becomes of it. My guess...absolutely nothing.
And? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
That's strange, I didn't know it also had a channel that sounded like it was coming from the upstairs neighbors...
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
"640kB? Hell, that's more than anyone will ever need".
Limits suck. Crazy high limits suck less, but still do. Silly low limits suck majorly.
a 4-track format falls in the "silly low" category in my book. a 255-track one doesn't.
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
Riiiiight... (Score:5, Insightful)
How long is it going to take to have a converter that transforms Super-MP3s into normal MP3s, with the DRM stripped?
How long until someone incorporates this into, say, xmms or lame, so that the conversion is actually totally transparent to the user?
Gentlemen... start your compilers!
Re:Riiiiight... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Riiiiight... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok... (Score:5, Insightful)
MP3Pro (Score:4, Funny)
what is (Score:3, Insightful)
Cut them off at the pass. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cut them off at the pass. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cut them off at the pass. (Score:4, Informative)
Why repeat ourselves??
just give up already (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:just give up already (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead, they keep repeating their same old tricks. Hard to copy media isn't anything new, that's one of the major reasons they moved from casettes to CDs, because no one could easily copy them. They're just trying to extend that old trick to digital media, and it's failing badly.
Thus reveals problem #2 with these groups. They are NOT used to people competing with them, yet alone their own customers. That is why you see people look so dumbfounded when people aren't content to just sit back and accept what is fed to them. (For example, that RIAA guy who muttered "un-fucking-believeable" when he saw that some "random college idiot" had dared to break their CSS cash cow.)
Rather than see their customers quietly put up with the record companies and the movie companies putting out some horribly self-serving content like they have so many times before, they're seeing us turn on them and use every bit of our skills to bypass and ignore their self-serving bits. You can see this in a few dozen ways:
1. Our own audio and video format that lack DRM to contest their digital versions of disposable dvds. (OGG and XviD/OGM)
2. P2P, which is a direct result of them trying to put out 1 or 2 good songs on a CD and force us to buy them. (iTunes store is the ultimate end result of this, and they're trying to kill that too by forcing Apple to bundle songs.)
3. Distributed and Encrypted P2P like Gnutella and WASTE, to fight them trying to make the very act of sharing content online illegal. (I consider attacks on P2P to be more of an attack on indy music and artists who don't mind their content being shared. Who would buy Metalijoke when there are 50 other small bands better than them who'd love to just be heard?)
4. Distributed projects in countries that haven't yet been "DMCA-afied", to fight them trying to destroy fair use.
Of course, they're doing their damnest to try and make the very act of even discussing their tricks illegal.
So, er, yah. Longer than I expected, but, quick synopsis -- basically, they're trying the same old trick because they're dinosaurs who can't think of anything new.
OGG Vorbis (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC OGG Vorbis can support upto 255 channels. Shame its not more mainstream.
As for the p2p tracking, people may not use it because of this or it may just get cracked.
Great idea! (Score:5, Funny)
Don't cry.... (Score:5, Interesting)
what about AAC? (Score:5, Informative)
Great (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as there is a way to encode them in the old way, people will do it. Duh!
This seems more like an attempy by Fraunhofer to pacify the corporates and "make up" for their follies.
If the owner who originally purchased the rights to that MP3 file publishes it online in a shared environment, the file will display the original owners digital signature, thus allowing the individuals to be immediately identified.
And what if the user purchased the rights to an Audio CD containing that track and converted it into a good old MP3?
This new trackable, un-sharable "Super MP3" may be an attempt by the Fraunhofer Institute to make amends with the disgruntled music industry.
Are they going to sue all the existing MP3 players if they don't change into the new format? Now *that* would be funny.
Bite me.
The can of worms is open, you are not going to be able to contain piracy this way. Change the way music (and media in general) is being sold - think up a new business model, the old one has been proven time and again not to work.
And guess what? Tracking users or preventive DRM is not the solution.
What are they going to do if I changed the ID of my MP3 to reflect that of someone else? How long is it going to take to crack this thing? A week? A month?
Sheesh. Won't these people ever learn? What beats me is that smart research institutes like FI are coming up with crap like this.
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but that is what they are paid to do by the music industry. RIAA management keeps telling them to come up with uncrackable DRM, and if it does get cracked, it doesn't matter to the lab, they got paid. As long as the RIAA throws money at this (and let's hope it's a very LONG time) the labs will get major bling-bling (which could be very good for long term research on
File traders are screwed this time! (Score:2, Redundant)
They are adding some bits to the file to track the original owner! Think of how serial numbers, product activation, and dongles are so uncrackable!
Oh wait...
serial numbers (think: photocopy machine, IRC .nfo files)
product activation (see: Windows XP and NAV 2004)
dongles (think: AutoCAD and the # of BBS's that had cracks the next day a version came out back when dongles were used)
Yawn. It will be cracked. And Cat, meet Bag, the brown paper one you just came out of. 12 year old k
Multi-channel? I want multi-track! (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, I would LOVE multi-track audio files. I would love to be able to press a button to disable the vocal track, or turn down the volume on the guitar track, or turn up the base track, or whatever. Basically like the tracks you see in Frequency or Amplitude on the PS2. There are many times I would love to be able to turn off the vocals, or turn UP the vocals to hear them over the rest of the music.
I would love this for TV too. I would love to be able to turn up the dialog track, or turn down the sound effects. Or my idea: turn OFF THE DAMN LAUGH TRACK.
THIS is the feature I want. Give music like this and files to store it in, and I'll be happier. Don't give me something I can't use. If you want me to swallow DRM (even LIGHT DRM) give me something that I want in exchange, not something useless.
Re:Multi-channel? I want multi-track! (Score:2)
Bemani and Freq/Amp songs are recorded quite differently than normal studio sessions.
As for TV, you can turn off the laugh track quite eas
Re:Multi-channel? I want multi-track! (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus, outside of gimmick and "neato" appeal, there's no reason to do it. Musicians make music, a sound engineer put it together to make sure it's balanced, and the musicians (and producer) sit in to make sure it sounds the way they want.
That's fine with me... (Score:2, Insightful)
4 channels? (Score:2)
Everybody has ether 1 channel (mono), 2 channels, or 5 channels. (or maybe 7 in some rare cases.) Who has 4???
Unless you're one of those people with quadraphonic surrond, but that whole idea is based around processing two channels anyway...
so... wtf?
So they'll catch people that don't know better... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, just about everyone reading this comment already knows that.
Announcing... (Score:4, Interesting)
Lightweight DRM = watermark? (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Won't they be trivial to remove?
2) What will happen when the next Internet worm shares your watermarked files?
This is about as realistic as going after people whose registration keys show up at serialz sites. "Why your company was issued the 'Devil's Own' key, please pay us X kazillion billion dollars for pirated copies of Windows using your serial".
Do you see it happen? No. But you can bet that this racketering will happen. It's like some lawsuits I've been hearing about, US companies sue companies overseas for hacking their network, even though they both know "they" didn't do it, only their trojaned machines.
It'll be the same thing with RIAA vs individuals. Even if you didn't to anything, the cost to settle is cheaper than hiring a lawyer. I would never get any of these simply for the legal liability they could get me in.
Kjella
I know why they needed 4 tracks! (Score:2, Funny)
That way all RIAA approved players that support the limited DRM only plays the last two tracks while WinAmp plays them all.
Just think, RIAA in my rear channels with Metallica in the front. Woo hoo!
Use Responsibly (Score:2, Insightful)
This is like arguing against certain types of guns because the FBI can do ballistics analysis on the spent casing and wear patterns of the round in order to match the bullet lodged in the dead victim with
Re:Use Responsibly (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd imagine if guns origionally were untraceable, as far as bullet markings, and a private industry wanted to add a watermark feature that scored the bullet such that it was identifiable, people would argue against it. It was a natural property found through forensic evidence.
Aside from which, dude, it's a murder scene versus a copied MP3. Jesus, it's not even in the same league.
~Will
Re:Use Responsibly (Score:5, Insightful)
You might want to share your MP3 with your friend. This is fully legal under the Audio Home Recording Act. Then, your friend gives a copy to his friend. Then, that person uploads it on a P2P network, and suddenly people all over the world have it. The RIAA gets a copy, tracks it to you, and gets you arrested. Now you're liable for untold dollars in damages. But all you did was give a single copy to your friend, which as I said is fully legal, but you can't prove that you're not the one who uploaded it to the P2P network. So this tag has basically changed our justice system, making you guilty until proven innocent. This is wrong.
The gun analogy is silly. If you lend your gun to someone, there's still only one gun. If they commit a crime with it, the bullet can be traced to your gun, but there might be evidence to corroborate your story that you lent it to a friend. It's not possible for that friend to make millions of identical copies of the gun and pass them around the world for free. And you'd be stupid to lend your gun out like that anyway. MP3s aren't capable of killing people, even though the media cartels would like us to believe it's worse to copy music than to kill people, since copying affects their profit margin.
Re:Use Responsibly (Score:3, Interesting)
You're right about the physical CD, you can do whatever you want with that. But the music on it, you don't own, you're leasing for an infinite amount of time on their terms.
Redistributing the copyrighted work is generally a no-no, in about 90% of countries. Especially "western" ones.
That's cool, (Score:2)
Bring it on...
So just use 'standard mp3' instead (Score:3, Interesting)
If at some point we cant use old style mp3 for some unforseen reason, then we us something else entirely.
Sharing is a moving target, and all this nonsence to try to control it just causes the target to move even faster.
Be it right or wrong, its going to persist... 'The man' best get over it and move on..
The eventual decline (Score:4, Insightful)
the music industry doesn't care about people copying songs off the radio. it didn't even really get its panties in a bunch when CD-Rs first hit the market. or when mp3s hit the ftp servers. It went ballistic when anyone could download a single application and instantly find a never ending stream of perceptibility loss-less perfect digital copies.
likewise with the MPAA and DVD encryption, likewise with the new Cable Set-top standard.
They want to cut out MythTV, Tivo, splitters, H-cards, and cable descramblers. It's becoming too easy to get at the current data, so they want a change.
with the analog system working (fairly) well as is, why else would they create a new 'standard' for the digital system? It certainly isn't in the interest of the consumer.
Why doesn't Sony support the Blu-Ray with its stock rewritable feature?
Why did Disney/Circuit City/et al try to push (the bad) Divx onto the market in the first place?
It isn't because consumers are clamoring for less control or cheaper movies.
The time is coming when content producers are going to have to realize that their profits will no longer come from format-updates (repurchasing 8-tracks as CDs, VHS classics as DVDs, etc), and will -not- come from service-style access to data. Classic TV advertising may even have to give way to pure product-placement campaigns.
Cable will realize that a move to pay-per-channel is the way to support content without advertising in our new time-shifted digital reality. Some people -will- pay $1/mo for TLC. Home Depot will still pay for product placements in Trading Spaces. Maybe the Super-station will go away - but the cable companies, and popular channels, need not.
the film industry has already shown that the theatre experience is not losing out to cheap cam copies. they've learned that feature-rich dvds or dirt-cheap dvds are preferred to the customer over hacked-together recompressed copies on filesharing networks.
The record companies will need to realize that to win with digital music requires providing the best quality, with the least hassle. They will need to realize that they must beat file-sharing on features. People will give up hunting around for a good (not mislabeled)256kbps rip of Britney's newest song - if they know they can just hit iTunes or its ilk and cough up $1.
Fair Use needs to win out. These purported 'losses' from file-sharing need to be revealed to be grossly overestimated fabrications. (A PSA from a supposed union set painter claiming that file sharing is killing the movie industry, and threatening his job - airing during it's highest grossing year of all time is particularly tactless)
DRM is the tool of the content dinosaur. If they concentrated on actual content piracy rings - where big money is being made off black-market copies, and abandoned their fruitless DRM research - their profits could be higher than ever.
But such is not the reaction of anti-competitive cabals. Being forced to -compete- is not what they do. Suing, threatening, bullying, bribing - these are the blunt instruments they wield instead of the precise tools of innovation, imagination and competition.
So in the meantime - expect every advance to carry DRM in the fine print.
Re:The eventual decline (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with many of
I'm still waiting on track divisions... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'm still waiting on track divisions... (Score:3, Interesting)
I see the possibility for fraud (Score:5, Interesting)
#2 Collect information on your enemies.
#3 Insert that information into various Super MP3 files and strip out your information.
#4 Share files on web sites or P2P file sharing networks using an alias on a system that is not yours. Like upload files from a library, college, rental system (Kinko's, CyberCafe, etc using an fake ID to get access to the system, wear a disguise too).
#5 Sit back and watch the RIAA punish your enemies for you.
Doesn't affect me (Score:3, Funny)
But hey, at least we'll be able to find out who has been distributing Jessica Simpson and Backdoor Boys MP3s and beat the hell out of them.
LK
Leaked promotional video (Score:3, Funny)
MP3s....again? (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't this the same format for which we are to pay, while .ogg files eclipse them? Let me get this straight- we're PAYING to give out personal information?
Put another notch in the bedpost for the Microsoft mindset.
Very well. (Score:3, Informative)
Why don't we just stick with Ogg Vorbis audio compression for our file trading needs?
Do the math in man hours (Score:5, Insightful)
This should lead to some good hacker hijinx (Score:3, Funny)
5.1? Who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
DVD's are another story. I'm sure the \AUDIO_TS directory could hold some 5.1 music, but I've yet to see it being used. There'd be a small market if so. Would people really buy the super whizbang 5.1 version of their favorite music that will only run on their DVD player, given that they listen to CD's in their cars, discmans, etc?
And now to the crux of the problem. Since there is no 5.1 music out unless you are ripping it straight from a movie, why does SuperMP3 matter to p2p, or anything for that matter? IMHO, it doesn't - for straight music files.
Possibly, however, it might make a difference with DVR's. In the distant future, when all TV is HD and all audio is 5.1, DVR's will perhaps encode to SuperMP3 to save space and keep the 5.1 channels. Will this matter to p2p? Only if you rip the movie out of the box and place it on the 'Net.
Regardless, SuperMP3 will probably end up being yet another case study on why DRM doesn't work.
Unless the music gets a lot better very fast... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And on top of that.. (Score:5, Funny)