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Comments: 356 +- Your Rights Online: Universal to Offer Music for Free on Tuesday August 29 2006, @09:55AM
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wild_berry writes "The BBC reports that Universal Music has signed a deal to make its music available for a free and legally-licensed download. Available from a new music site called SpiralFrog, the deal will allow users in the USA and Canada to listen to Universal's music, which Reuters' news site reveals is paid for by targeted advertising, but no details of possible community or playlist sharing features of the SpiralFrog service. Is the immunity from litigation enough to make up for having targeted advertising on each page and not being able to write the music to CD or a portable player?"
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Universal Offers iPod-Resistant Music 323 comments
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Good News ... but .... (Score:2, Insightful)
Now if only I were a fan of some of Universal's Artists [wikipedia.org].
Guess I'll have to wait and see if the big companies follow suit.
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Re:Good News ... but .... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is the story [com.com].
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Artists rejoice! (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:Artists rejoice! (Score:4, Informative)
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No, the record company gets the royalties. Then they deduct the costs of marketing, distribution, and making the album. Then the artist gets paid.
A distribution model paid by advertising will not generate revenue for the artists AFAIK. But, the record companies would probably still charge the overhead involved in this. For the same reason that the record companies still charge breakage and distribution fees for tracks distributed ove
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"No, artists are supposed to recieve a royalty every time there song is played on the radio, jukebox or DJ, but you can imagine how often the lables are forgotten to be paid for the above, and how often the artists are forgotten even when the labels are paid."
I'm guessing you're talking about Europe? Here in the USA, licenses for airplay go through a couple of artists' societies called ASCAP and BMI. They are run by and for artists and the labels see none of the airplay licensing money.
Here's how B [bmi.com]
"The big companies"? (Score:5, Informative)
Universal Music, the world's largest music company, has agreed to back a new venture that will allow consumers to download songs for free and instead rely on advertising for its revenues.
This is a big deal.
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Re:"The big companies"? (Score:4, Interesting)
But then I guess that's a win-win situation. People can now, finally, get something for nothing AND stick it to the music companies by not having to see/watch ads to get the product.
The only question is, and the article is short on this matter, will people be able to take the song and put it in any format they want for THEIR use?
This article [redherring.com] does say that DRM will be incorporated into the songs to try and prevent sharing of the music but that still doesn't answer the question. The article also talks about how the ads might be inserted but nothing definite.
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Re:"The big companies"? (Score:5, Funny)
I cant wait for Elton Johns new single : "Lucy in the sky with diamonds from Jarad"........ [jared.com]
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2slabz (RebelRock/Universal) 3 Doors Down (Republic/Universal) 10 Years 98 Degrees* Aaliyah (Blackground/Universal) Acroma Afroman Akon Ali & Gipp Ashley Parker Angel (Blackground/Universal) The Bangkok 5 (Execution Style/Universal) David Banner Baby AKA Birdman (Cash Money/Universal) Baby Bash Bee Gees Big Tuck Big Tymers (Cash Money/Uni
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Here's a more complete list [universalmusicgroup.com] of Universal Music's artists.
Re:Good News ... but .... (Score:5, Funny)
And Elton John is arguably one of the most popular recording artists ever.
Man, what do you listen to? Barry Manilow?
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Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Free music *check*: ads *check*: crappy artists *check*:
If it looks like a duck.... then yeah. its not too much different than radio.
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Enough ads! (Score:3, Interesting)
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And the money the "useless ad people" give to slashdot and other sites in exchange for page space, what does that go towards, spoons?
Chew on this: the "subscription only" model is the elite and priveleged track. Ad-sponsored sites allow anyone with web access, even from a public terminal, to be "empowered." Think of all of Negroponte's poor, starving 100-dollar laptop children; don't they de
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Not being able to copy the music? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not being able to copy the music? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Is it enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ads are only a minor issue, I have seen ads all my life I know how to ignore them.
The proponets of free content will whine... but this way the record company gets what they want (money) and the consumer gets free (of cost) music.
Nothing ever has been truely free, if you aren't buying (or stealing) something someone else is paying to put it in your hands for there own reasons. That is the way the world has worked for a long time.
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Leave it to Slashdotters to criticize FREE music (Score:3, Insightful)
"Horrors! I won't sit thru ADS to get free music!"
"It's encumbered with DRM! Help, I'm being repressed!"
"Bah -- the artist selection sucks!"
Ever heard the saying, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth"?
For me, cost isn't the issue. (Score:2, Insightful)
I want to be able to play the music that I purchase on whatever device I choose. Period.
If I can't do that, then I won't participate in the service.
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I suspect I'll leap on board this, it might even inspire me to go get the odd CD. I'm with you though, as soon as they expect money, I expect freedom.
Re:For me, cost isn't the issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
They produce the music so they can make a profit. I'm sure it would be great if everyone worked for free, but they don't.
The produce it knowing that they can sell it with certain conditions attached. Then they sell it with those conditions attached. Then people start to claim their "freedom" is being violated, and that they have the right to unilaterally violate those conditions.
Sure, music companies "should" just "trust" people not to give it away to everyone, really, they can't.
So what should they do? Just not make music for profit? Or, you accept that the artist "deserves" a cut proportional to listeners, but that the "record companies" take "too much". Do you know how difficult, and what a crapshoot it is, to promote an artist?
I'm not trying to troll. What should an artist and record company do?
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Re:For me, cost isn't the issue. (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is what they should do
1) make all art copyrights last 7 years.
2) release all music
The drug companies dont seem to have a problem making billions of dollars on 7 year expiring patents.
This is a short term solution. Ideally, we would live in a world where we dont need to preserve artificial scarcity but we will probably have to wait for nano forges for that. Humans expressing themselves through art will not end because no one pays for it. Not to claim art, but these comments here are proof of that. No one is paying me to write on this fourm and yet I do it anyways. An artist needs to create as a slashdot poster needs to comment.
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Re:For me, cost isn't the issue. (Score:4, Informative)
Well, that isn't quite as it should be. Distribution is much more important than you make it out to be. Your favorite artist -- how did you hear about him/her? There is TONS of crap out there. How do you find the diamonds? You do not have the time to sift through all the garbage. And I think you're wrong about production -- if you can't draw a return from copyright, you can't capture any value off the production, only the easily copiable performance.
Artists would make money from concerts and sponsorships, as well as via commissions for new works. If Britney Spears promised to release a new album free to the world as soon as her fans had placed a minimum of $15 million into escrow, millions of teenage girls would put anywhere from $0.10 to $10 into the fund, the world would get more Spears (yeehaw...) and Spears would get $15 million.
I'm familiar with that idea, but sorry, but that's extremely wishful thinking. Most of them don't have their own money. Mommy will buy them a CD, but she won't make a contribution for them to that fund. Plus, I can imagine the geek reaction: "artist extorts money to produce next CD". I would point out it only works for artists that have *already* separated themselves from the chaff, but you anticipated that:
She'd have no distribution costs (sites would gladly trade bandwidth for eyeballs, not to mention the P2P channels), so the only thing she'd have to take out is production costs, which wouldn't be *nearly* as high as now.
What? Why would this affect production costs?
And she could proceed to trot around the nation doing concerts, just like she does now, and keep more of those profits too. Artists who are not Spears, or as popular as Spears, need to get popular by being good in concert and/or good in marketing, and/or willing to sign deals with the lesser devils that would replace the greater devils of today's industry. Variety would increase, live concerts would abound... what a wonderful world it would be.
Er, no. Wishful thinking is not an argument.
Look, there's a lot of stuff about copyright I don't like either, and I'm not really as pro-IP as I might have come off. But the consequencees of removing these rights is not insigificant, and anyone wanting to remove them should be aware of the costs.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"The incremental damage done to a record company (since that's the focus of the article) is quite correctly thought of as insignificant by the individual performing the copying."
What do you mean by "quite correctly" ? The only head of a record company I've known ran an indie label with ten employees. At around the start of the P2P explosion he was paying himself about $25K a year. When people started sharing his music in lieu of buying, he had to lay off of his friends.
Naturally, that was his probl
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Trust me when I say I am no fan of the RIAA's tactics regarding their customers, but at some point they need to make money. If you're willing to buy a DRM-free CD that is rippable, burnable and whatnot and don't mind paying $9.99(on sale)-$13.99
Says Who? (Score:2)
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The submitter, wild_berry, who, surprise surprise, is yet another Slashdot submitter who fails to understand the articles cited in his own submission. Neither of the articles cited contain any mention of such a restriction.
Re:Says Who? (Score:4, Informative)
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Not Bad, but not a Music source (Score:5, Insightful)
Which isn't a bad idea, acutally...
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I agree, I'd definately look into using this to try out some new bands by listening to a few songs before I decide to buy their cds which I can do whatever I want with.
Now the question is, how much of my identity do I have to hand over to these people for their inevitable laptop theft so that they can target their ads, and are they going to let me listen to whole albums, or just the best songs that get heavy rotation on the radio anyway?
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My recent music purchases (30+ CDs, 5 music DVDs and several t-shirts) have been entirely due to bands I've discovered by trying the albums via BT or sample tracks on their websites. (My brother has bought hundreds of CDs the same way; I'm more picky about my music.)
The sample excerpts on Amazon etc. don't cut it - many bands who sounded interesting from samples turned out to be like most Hollywood movies: the trailer was the only good bit. I watch movies and listen to
Ads (Score:5, Insightful)
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Music used to be about expressing some emotion, a message, or telling a story. Now it's all about "we're so cool go buy our CD."
DRM encumbered? (Score:2, Interesting)
TFA doesn't say anything about whether or not the music in question is DRM-encumbered. I see no reason at all to believe that it won't be.
So while the music may be free as in beer, it'll likely only be free in the most limited sense of the word.
Thanks, but I'll pass.
Re:DRM encumbered? (Score:5, Insightful)
So while the music may be free as in beer, it'll likely only be free in the most limited sense of the word. Thanks, but I'll pass.
You don't watch TV or listen to the radio then? I do: they're free, and they're supported by adds. But it doesn't give me the option to view or listen to the program at any time I want. So sometimes I buy DVDs or CDs.
The proposed service has more freedom than radio, if we disregard DRM for the moment, so what's the big deal?
Plus, if you're one of UMG's artists, you can download your own song twice a day for a source of extra income!
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finally. (Score:5, Interesting)
I will probably go watch some ands and not hear the music (as it will probably require windows) just to show support for a company that is taking some initiative. I hope it makes them billions of dollars and all the other companies sit and wonder why they didn't think of it.
Oh damn you can bitch about anything can't you? (Score:5, Insightful)
As if you even needed immunity from litigation, or you had some intrinsic right to this music. The only people that need immunity from litigation are those breaking the law
Here's a content producer. They want to GIVE you their content for free online, in a distribution model simliar to one that most of slashdot has been having wet dreams about since Napster 1.0 was released. Shit know when you got it good and stop your bitchin lol!
If someone wants to give me something for free I'm not going to whine just because they want me to do a certain thing with it - free restricted music is better than no music at all...
Product placement (Score:3)
I am going to the corner, gonna buy some iPod bling.
Would you pardon me if it's a black 60 gigabyte t'ing
Good golly, miss Molly, sure like to ball.
When you're rockin' and a rollin' can't hear your momma call.
A good experiment - some will like it (Score:3, Interesting)
First, free music is pretty cool, especially if it is from known artists (although I have amassed TENS of fans from many countries and sold TENS of CDs and a hundred or so downloads from iTunes et. al internationally while giving away more than half my catalog on price-optional sites like iSound.com [isound.com], pureVolume.com [purevolume.com], and audiri.com [audiri.com]). Free music as incentive for something else is a model that is evolving pretty hard right now, but I bet it will stick around for a long time.
There are lots of examples where successes have occurred with ad-driven services: broadcast TV; "free", ad-driven internet provider services, tons of "free" web sites and site hosting, etc. I don't know that the average John and Jane Q. Publique will mind the ads in this case... time will tell.
A Big Record Company is trying something fairly broad with "free" music. This is a positive step - trying to redefine oneself in business is akin to survival. I think it was W.E. Deming [wikipedia.org] who said, "It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." So, perhaps this record label is trying to change for its betterment.
Congratulations. Universal Invents Radio (Score:3, Interesting)
Really nothing to see here, except for the fact that Universal now realizes that music being heard leads to music being bought.
What makes you think those are the choices? (Score:3, Insightful)
What most people will continue to do is ignore itunes and spiralfrog and simply continue downloading the music for free.
It's much older than that. (Score:4, Interesting)
For those unfamiliar with Terrestrial Radio, it's that thing with all the monopolies that is being pummeled by the more interesting stuff on Internet Radio and Satellite Radio.
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Re:Woncer what DRM they will use... (Score:5, Informative)
AAC [wikipedia.org] is NOT an Apple-only format. The Fairplay DRM [wikipedia.org] that Apple uses on their songs purchased through iTunes is Apple-only, but non-DRM AAC is available on any music player that wants it.
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