EMI Promises Downloadable Music 305
SataiCam writes "The Economist has an article up referring to EMI's plans to implement digital music downloading starting on December 1 through a whole host of 'distributors'. They claim it will allow users to get music in 'the formats they are demanding' (ogg?), to burn copies of songs, and download them to other devices. Here's the press release from EMI."
Download all you want! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Download all you want! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Download all you want! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Download all you want! (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't this how the word is spread about these things? How do you think MP3 became popular? Grassroots promotion, one person at a time, is how we can popularise ogg vorbis and other goodness like mozilla.
I feel better knowing that I have shown many IE users the light. Everyone should do the same in a non-zealotry manner.
My e-mail to the EMI VP (contact info above): (Score:3, Insightful)
I am very excited about this service and will be examining it in detail when it becomes available.
But I have one question for you: Will the music be offered in Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) format? This would be highly desirable (as opposed to MP3, windows media, etc) for both me and you because there are no royalties at all for the format (it would save EMI money) and the sound quality is clearly superior per file size to that of the other format I mentioned, so it would save EMI more money on internet bandwidth while providing a higher quality product to the customer.
Will this be available in the Musicnet service?
Lastly, I must congratulate EMI for these ambitious plans. It is refreshing to see that a music distribution company is actually giving customers what they want instead of producing crippled CDs, a la BMG, Universal, etc. I have stopped buying their products because they treat their customers like theives.
Thank you for your time,
- (my name)
Ontario, Canada
Re:Download all you want! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Download all you want! (Score:2)
Re:Download all you want! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Download all you want! (Score:3, Funny)
Download it.
Open the encrypted file.
Sheet music comes out your printer.
You must purchase their ePiano to play it.
my experience with emi (Score:4, Insightful)
they also understood that convincing their management to give up any restrictions is not going to be easy. i would say though, that emi is the most forward looking label out there. they're probably gonna take quite a few missteps on their way, and us slashdotters are gonna beat them over the head for it. but they're actually working on it, and not trying just to fuck us over (well, not all of them). maybe one day, they'll actually find the right balance (wow, late night optimism. who woulda thunk it?)
my favorite quote: "sometimes i think 'fuck it, why don't we just give it all for free, download all you want'".
Re: And this is on topic because... (Score:3, Funny)
well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:well (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:well (Score:2)
By the way, why didn't they just come out and say what format it would be in instead of being vague? The omission only makes their statement sound like a half truth.
Re:well (Score:2)
Re:well (Score:3, Informative)
However, CDs copied to the Media Player using the highest quality setting are pretty darned good - I can't discern any difference in quality.
If they provide say 192kb/s WMA files, I'd be inclined to buying music if I could really use it for all my personal uses; burn to CD, copy to my work and home PCs. And of course if, I could actually find something interesting to buy! (I find most of the 'run of the mill music' being published these days more annoying than anything).
The price must be right though, considerably less than for real CDs. Even though I don't really know where to put my 400+ CD collection anymore, I still like getting the physical product. E.g., I have a very nice collection of Pet Shop Boys, Faithless, Depeche Mode and a few other favourite artists; there's something to be said about the physical product...
Re:well (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, CDs cost (materially) !
Re:well (Score:3, Interesting)
However, here's the catch: it's gotta be subscription, not pay-per-download, and it's gotta be unrestricted usage. Gone are the days when I would pay $16.95 for a shitty cd. The key thing for me (and I think most other people) about p2p or emusic is being able to explore a much bigger world of music without having to risk paying for something I don't like.
If they try to pass *anything* else off as competition for p2p, they're delusional.
Re:well (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Buy all their music in my collection that is not as yet paid for, and
2. Stop sharing it -- since there is now a cost-effective and convenient way for anyone to get it for themselves.
This is contingent on the following:
1. No DRM in the files, ideally OGG or MP3 files.
2. High-quality recordings (i.e. 128-bit is quite marginal, I'm hoping for 256-bit or at least an option to choose bitrate).
3. Reasonable cost. $5 per song is too much, $1 per song would be awesome.
I don't want to get into the whole you're-a-pirate-no-I'm-not argument, but I do believe there's a balance between producers of content and consumers, and this balance is created not so much by the free market as by a matter of conscious choice in society. It is not theft for the people -- you and I -- to decide we no longer wish to offer the same terms to copyright holders that we once did. It made sense at one time, but as the average individual increasingly gains the ability to copy data, the cost to us as a society in giving absolute protection to copyright holders increases dramatically. This is true not only in enforcement issues, but in the simple ability of millions of people to enjoy from and build on copyrighted works.
This doesn't mean we don't pay the piper anymore, but it does mean the balance has forever changed. Pretending the old rules still make sense just doesn't fly anymore. EMI seems to be making the first concrete move toward acknowledging that reality, and if the details work out, I say kudos to them, and I'll be their best customer.
Demanding? (Score:2)
Re:Demanding? (Score:2)
my hopes aren't too high... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:my hopes aren't too high... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:my hopes aren't too high... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Allowing," my ass. I can do that right now, with a CD I've purchased once - and it's perfectly legal. What you're talking about is requiring me to buy multiple licenses in order to retain the same functionality that I already have - and it's bullshit.
Re:my hopes aren't too high... (Score:2)
Re:my hopes aren't too high... (Score:2)
As long as the companies distribute the players/decoders of their "secure" formats in a reasonable manner and for all major platforms, then I won't come down too hard on them.
It had to happen. (Score:4, Insightful)
If they had thought about all of this five years ago, of course, they could have realized a lot more profit. But, I'm sure that they will throw money at it until they are competitive.
The real question is, will they be able to guilt everybody into not pirating their music...
Re:It had to happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question is, will they be able to guilt everybody into not pirating their music...
Yes. Most people don't pirate music. Only a very small percent (perhaps 1% of the population) pirate enough music to fill an entire CD. Most people have a few mp3's that they got when trying napster and thats it.
A perfect example of how much people care less about piratibility than portability (or convenience) is the apple iPod, it's trivial to pirate using it, yet I have never seen a single person who bothered to do so. Setting reasonable (copyright+fair use) restrictions on what you can do with the music you own pisses no one off. Making it so you pay the same amount for a "digital" file that plays on a single device as you do for a CD pisses lots of people off.
I would be less impressed by their arguments if they didn't use them every other time a new media distribution method came avoidable. They are in the business of hurting the consumer, in exchange for the consumer letting themselves be hurt they enrich the public domain. It's a pretty simple model and I only worry about it when arbitrary people get called pirates.
Re:It had to happen. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a high school, but youth compose a large enough chunk of the general population to push that figure to 25-30% by themselves.
Just because the music industry does stupid and outrageous things, that doesn't mean that you have to use wildly inaccurate numbers to justify your claims.
Re:It had to happen. (Score:2, Flamebait)
The parent poster does not use any hard evidence to support his assertion, but in terms of probability, his "wildly inaccurate" assertion of 1% is much more tenable than your much-inflated assertion of 25-30%. Next time, take a few moments to think before posting.
CrAzy?!?! (Score:2)
What planet are YOU living on? What's your source? Where is the link to you source for that little statistic?
Instead of making shit up, load up Kazaa and look at how many files are being shared. It's not all Chicken Pot Pie recipes. There is a big problem that needs a big fix. But whatever the fix is, it better involve letting people put their music where they want, when they want, or my wallet shall remain closed.
Re:It had to happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people don't buy music. Most people think napster was a web site called "napster.com" where you could just download whatever new-fangled mp3 music files you wanted. They heard about it on NPR.
The 1% of the public that is pirating music used to be part of the 5% of the public that buys much new music at all (12-24 year olds). It's the music industry's own fault for marketing an overpriced product to a group with little spending money and a low value of their own time.
exactly!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Anybody whose business model depends on people not being able to copy a file across the internet doesn't deserve to be making millions. Anybody whose business model depends on making it impossible and/or illegal to copy a file over the internet should have their corporate charter revoked. I mean, seriously, come on. Sucks for them and all, their empire will come crumbling down, or will at least change so they can't make the millions they've been making for decades, but isn't it time for them to stop their whining and learn how to live on salaries more consistent with the amount of labor that they do, like the rest of us? I have no problem with people making millions, but when their business model no longer makes them millions, why should the rest of us agree to suffer for it?
Re:exactly!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Jeez, do you see the horse-drawn car makers bitching to the car manufacturers? Progress is progress, and I'll be damned if I am going to go along with halting progress just so a few media companies can make a few bucks.
In other news... (Score:2)
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
As is the music industry's long-standing tradition of royally screwing customers and the music industry's long-standing tradition of royally screwing artists.
Ogg? No. (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunantly, ogg isn't going to be the choice. The companies that ELI has signed this agreement with (Alliance, Ecast, FullAudio, Liquid Audio, Listen.com, Musicnet, Pressplay, Roxio, and Streamwaves) are all based around mp3s.
-Kaos
Re:Ogg? No. (Score:2)
Re:Ogg? No. MP3? No. DRM? Yes! (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately your score 5 post gives the misleading impression that they will be using MP3. If you read the press release you'll see: "capability to burn a limited number of personal copies". That means it's your standard DRM with the oh-so generous capability to put a couple of them on disk, and to import them into DRM-compliant portable devices a limited number of times.
It seems the "the formats they are demanding" means Windows media format DRM, though I can't say for sure.
-
EMI's revolutionary software (Score:5, Funny)
Re:EMI's revolutionary software (Score:3, Interesting)
That would be a good business model -- effectively getting customers to pay for advertising (free samples in the form of MP3s), while losing nothing -- the MP3s are already out there; this would be attractive for *reliability* (if they did it right).
It would be especially good for back catalog items, if only they'd realise how much filetrading revolves around finding old, obscure, out of print titles.
EMIster? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ogg (Score:2, Interesting)
FLAC downloads? Not if you're on dialup. (Score:2)
Re:Ogg (Score:2)
Re:Ogg (Score:2, Interesting)
the public demands OGG! (Score:3, Funny)
In summary, of course EMI is release the music in OGG format, why does the poster even need to ask! DUH.
The Brits will get this (Score:2)
I think that you mean snogging parties.
Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
MP3 download is not a hit for eMusic (Score:5, Informative)
"Dear EMusic Subscriber,
I'd like to offer a personal apology for some of our recent communication with you and other EMusic customers. Over the past several weeks, we have implemented some new tools in an effort to identify subscribers that are using EMusic in ways it was not intended. It's important for us to do this to ensure the long-term viability of EMusic -- so we can continue to offer our service to you and the rest of our 70,000 loyal subscribers.
Many EMusic subscribers recently received a letter outlining unusual activity in their accounts. After personally reading through every email sent to us in response, it's clear to me that we need to rethink our approach. While we need to identify customers who are not using the service as intended, we do not want to do this at the expense of passionate EMusic users.
I want to be as clear as possible about what we consider abusive activity and how we will manage this going forward. Although EMusic is an "unlimited" service, there have to be some restrictions on this policy.
EMusic is similar to a buffet advertised as "all you can eat." For the restaurant to be successful, it has to have reasonable limitations that apply to people that stay too long, eat more than their fair share -- or waste food. The service is indeed unlimited for the vast majority of the restaurant's customers whose actions never draw attention. The restaurant reserves the right to deny service to any customer.
EMusic was designed to be an interactive service for personal use and enjoyment. Our intent is to allow our subscribers unlimited access to an amount of music that they can reasonably use. We did not design the service for people who want to download music simply to collect it or to fill up their hard drives. This would be not be responsible for us as a business or provide incentive for our label partners to make their music available.
Obviously, the definition of "reasonable" varies by user and many of the responses I have read are simply requesting some definition. Based on our current analysis of typical subscriber behavior, we believe that downloading more than 2,000 tracks in a 30-day period is not reasonable for personal use. Using a 12-track album as the average, this represents more than 165 albums and over 10,000 minutes of music. Less than 1% our subscribers ever approach these levels.
If, for any reason, you do not find this explanation satisfactory, please use the following link: http://help.emusic.com/cu/index.cgi to cancel your
account. We'll immediately end your subscription - even if you are still in your commitment period - and provide you a refund for the current month.
Again, I apologize for any inconvenience or frustration we may have caused. I can assure you that our team is extremely passionate about continuing to provide you with the best MP3 subscription service possible.
Best regards,
Steve Grady
General Manager, EMusic.com"
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/23396 [dslreports.com]
Re:MP3 download is not a hit for eMusic (Score:2)
Re:MP3 download is not a hit for eMusic (Score:2)
They are correct that they need to have limitations -- but rather than acknowledging their misleading advertising, they're blaming the users who took them at their word.
The New Business World (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Valued Customers,
We are pleased to announce our new tiered service plans, specially designed to suit your specific needs. Now there is a plan for everyone! You may choose from:
$9.99 Unlimited - The basic unlimited. There are limits and they're pretty damned low. No one will ever want this ( we just put it here so that our ads can scream "$9.99 UNLIMITED ! ")
$19.99 More Unlimited Plan - still limited. Just not as limited as the Unlimited Plan.
$29.99 Super Unlimited Plan - more unlimited than the More Unlimited Plan but less unlimited than the Ultra Unlimited Plan.
$49.99 Ultra Unlimited Plan - this one is really, well, unlimited. OK, not really.
$99.99 Mega Unlimited - Awesome! Really, really unlimited (on Tuesday nights only from 8:00 p.m. to midnight).
$299.99 Ultra Supermega Supreme Unlimited. - Totally unlimited. Some restrictions apply. See contract for details. Offer void where people eat toast and in the state of Tennessee. Available only to new customers. Who live in Pittsburgh. On 4th Avenue. In a red house. With blue trim.
$122,999,999.99 The Totally Ultra Supermega Supreme Buy the Damned Company Unlimited Plan. The most unlimited of all the unlimited plans. You can truly use all you want! Almost.
Note: All plans are subject to cancellation if we feel like it.
Re:MP3 download is not a hit for eMusic (Score:3, Insightful)
So it's reasonable to assume that people who are downloading over 180 hours of music a month are probably sharing their accounts, or something. Or just abusing the service. Downloading more music than a single person can conceivably listen to in a month is abusive. But anyway, why don't they just say "Download all the music you want, up to 10000 minutes of music a month!" instead of saying "unlimited". There will always be some who leach and seek to abuse the system - but no need to be dishonest, just state the limitations and expectations up front.
Haven't we heard this before? (Score:5, Insightful)
Another article about EMI (Score:3, Informative)
The product and the category we're delivering is the one they're looking for.
I swear these guys must read
-N
Wishlist: (Score:5, Interesting)
2) If the selection is limited to only MP3s, I would want to have the option of downloading files at bitrates higher than simply 128kbs like Emusic currently only offers. Ideally I would have the option of getting any bitrate I want between 128kbs and 320kbs.
3) Clearly defined download limits. Recently an Emusic user was banned for downloading 200 albums in 3 days as an "unlimited" subscriber. No hard cap was set in the TOS agreement, and if I were hypothetically using a service like this, I would want to be very clear on just how "unlimited" my downloading abilities were.
4) Most importantly, I want to be able to formatshift, burn, mix, freely trade, and put the music files on any device I wish. I will never use a service that imposed DRM restrictions on my fair use rights, due to both principle and practicality.
Re:Wishlist: (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, if what you really want is to download music for free, just say so. Trying to claim that your "free trading" is fair use just dilutes the message of those who are defending things that are fair use, such as format shifting and such.
Re:Wishlist: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wishlist: (Score:2)
Re:Wishlist: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ha? (Score:5, Insightful)
I could care less (Score:2, Insightful)
It needs music to be free. Bold statement for such a short rant, but yes that's exactly what needs to happen. One or two HUGE sites like MP3.com that host in the range of 50% of the album for free and the remainder could cost a buck to offset bandwith fees. It would have charts with top 100 in each genre of music.
Well what about small bands that would need a fanbase before people would attend their events? How about every band selling DVDs of their concerts? If you like a band and can't find it in your area you just purchase the DVD of the 4hour concert on that huge music site. And thus there is your solution.
No record companies. Bands get CDs printed which you can order if you would like a product that will last a heck of a long time. The bands all of their revenue through concerts, events, advertisements and the sale of DVDs. And... all their music is freely tradeable over the net.
So, back to the point of this post. Will p2p work? No. Not unless MS has its way and imbeds a method to watch our every move and control ALL content on your PC will p2p ever work. Most people are good natured but when they have an opportunity to steal something and a 99.999% probably that they will not get caught, they will steal it in most instances.
Long story short. This wont work. The record industry has to realize just like the oil companies that their domination and even existance in the world is limited from hereonout.
Mr. Coward
I think you know how I feel about all this... (Score:5, Funny)
Tina Turner
Are they fscking serious? How about Ms. R0$3n comes over my house, makes me a sandwich, _______ me and then I give her $19.99? Sound good?
Ogg (Score:5, Insightful)
Ogg.. no chance. (Score:2, Troll)
The chance that ogg will ever be seriously adapted is about zero.
- The argument for OGG is that some MP3 patent/process is owned by somebody.
- In this way, the ogg campaign is similar to the days of 'burn all
.gifs.'
- Anti-gif campaigning went, essentially nowhere. Basically, Compuserve didn't go after anybody of import and PNG continues to be a marginally used format.
- PNG is marginally used, despite being superior to
.GIF, technically. The thing is, OGG is INFERIOR to even MP3, and certainly to WMA, etc, at least according to the OGG FAQ.
- a path away from GIF entrenchment was relatively easy to do--just give everybody a new browser that supports both. The problem is that it's much harder to consider this for audio files considering how many mp3 (hardware) players are already in the field--it may not be technically ideal, but Mp3 is here to stay unless there is a compelling reason to switch.
- Compelling reasons include:
- technical superiority (WMA has this, but even it can barely make a dent in mp3's market hold)
- mandates from hardware companies / ip holders - ie something that better considers DRM.
I can see no compelling reason why OGG will ever gain any significant market share.Re:Ogg.. no chance. (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you're not talking about quality-by-bitrate, in which case the only argument for MP3s superiority is that it is widespread (devices, decoders, etc). If that's all it takes to qualify for superiority then let's just support Microsoft, McDonalds and Dodge Neons (those things suck ass) all the way!
Re:Ogg.. no chance, or is there? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't be a nerd and steal, when you can be a geek and use Open Source.
Re:Ogg.. no chance. (Score:2, Informative)
4: Don't know when you read the OGG faq, because it certainly doesn't say that these days. Furthermore, I have seen no evidence to indicate that ogg is worse than wma (except in the case of some classical music at low bitrates), or any evidence it is worse than any mp3, ever.
5. hardware support is coming, according to (some) manufacturers.
As for compelling reasons, there are a few ogg vorbis may succeed:
1. Technical superiority*
2. Support already coming from hardware manufacturers, which will hopefully become default encoding parameters, which will hopefully lead to mp3 getting less use etc etc.
3. Zealots like me ranting about the greatness of the Ogg Vorbis to all and sundry, convincing them, and having them do the same (believe me, it actually does work)
yes, I am a zealot on this front. sorry.
gnoshi
*according blind tests at low bitrates have established this - conducted by ff123 who may be found on www.hydrogenaudio.org boards (hope you don't mind the mention)
Also established at higher (but not exceptionally high) bitrates by another serious listening test, but I honestly can't recall who the tester was. A tech magazine, German I believe.
Above 160/192 Kbps, Musepack is king, up until lossless.
Re:Ogg.. no chance. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm a sound engineer, I _code_ audio DSP and wordlength reduction, I _analyse_ various mp3 codecs in novel ways and I have studied [airwindows.com] Ogg Vorbis and concluded that it offers the best of all mp3 encoder approaches, all at once. It has all the transient liveliness of Fraunhofer and all the tonal purity of Blade, and I've no doubt it's been improved still further since I looked.
I don't know who you are, but you're certainly no sound engineer (or audio DSP coder), and I... strongly disagree with your claim.
Musicmatch.com mentioned already? (Score:3, Informative)
format... (Score:5, Funny)
"After 1 year of research we found out that users love DRM and want nothing but DRM, so that's what we'll offer"
Oxymoron (Score:2)
"This is the next step in our plan to give consumers our music in the formats they are demanding today, and to give our distributors maximum flexibility to offer a wider range of options and a deep selection of music," said David Munns, Chairman and CEO of EMI Recorded Music North America.
MP3 is the format that is in most demand (actually used) today... keeping this in mind, the top quote doesn't rhyme with the bottom one. Of what I know, MP3 doesn't have a limit for how many copies you can make. We can assume this being yet another blow the whistle to get some attention by EMI. It seems EMI is going to use Microsoft's format.
When will they learn? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop with these horseshit schemes and drop the prices of fucking CDs already. They should slice the price of CDs in half, and then I'd start buying them again. Those greedy bastard musicians can then realize what it means to work for their money.
Re:When will they learn? (Score:3, Informative)
Sure M. Carey and JLo pull down the big $$$ and Michael-Circus-Freak-Jackson just complained about Sony ripping him off (ha, who wants to see old pointy nose grab his balls again, raise your hands), but how many don't get dough at all? Lots. Where does the money go? Into the hands of record execs.
Methinks you should kill the messenger service, not the messenger.
Going after individual file-sharers? (Score:2)
Hmmm... not sure I understand this point. How would it alienate potential customers?
I suspect the real reason why the record labels haven't gone after individuals is because it would be prohibitively expensive.
I wonder why, though, they just don't go after a few random individuals to set a precedent... or have they?
It's about time! (Score:2)
It's really nice to see that the recording industry might finally be realizing that there are reasons beyond economic ones for consumers to want an internet based service, such as the convenience of simply typing in a long-forgotten song which wouldn't be available in stores. The only things which might make this even better would be if A)all labels were doing this, creating a library for the rental, and B)enough people stopped using P2P to convince the RIAA to stop their war against it. P2P has applications beyond sharing music -- it can also be used to get a copy of something like Mandrake 9, which was impossible to download through conventional means for weeks after it came out (and with good reason -- it rocks!
how did that old saying go? (Score:5, Insightful)
over 90% of CDs sold in China is pirated
well NO SHIT considering the average chinese citizen has a YEARLY purchasing power of 3,000 US dollars. that's 250 dollars per month, and you think people will shell out 15 dollars for a CD?
Of course, similar to the US (90% of the money is controled by 10% of people), chinese economic ladder is skewed too -- so actually the average family subsides on 100-150 dollars per month usually.
hence, all the "oh my god 4.6 billion dollars lost sale" is so bullshit that you can't even begin.
interesting side note: since there are so many people there, even though the average purchasing power is only 3000 (actually comparable to many nations (for example, in africa) that's starving), it still makes china the second largest economic power in the world.
but don't ever, EVER think people there can afford "legit" music, software, and all the crap we buy while taking the disposible income for granted.
Success Depends On The Implementation (Score:5, Insightful)
But if they decide to try to limit the usage term after purchase, which I believe is the real goal of DRM and other copy protection systems, then it will fail because consumers will feel cheated by the industry.
::sigh:: It's all about the experience (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is that each person wants to control how they listen and what they hear. It's about expressing yourself through the music you play, even if it's just playing a CD track or listening to an mp3 (or ogg). You don't get more anti-freedom (totalitarian) than telling me what I must or cannot read/hear/watch/say or when I do so. Call me a "liberal" (gasp) "anti-capitalist" (the horror) consumer but when I buy books/movies/music/cableTV/satTV then I think that I have a right to read/watch/listen/touch it when, where, and how I want to.
Making it more difficult for me to enjoy new movies/music/books/whatever how and where I want to won't entice me to buy more. If a music CD/movie won't play on my computer - where I spend 80% of my waking time - or in my car (where I spend 15+ hours a week) or on my mp3 player at the gym (where I spend <.00000001% of my time) then I just won't bother with it. And neither will a zillion other people. It's not worth the trouble.
And that's the problem.
I'm going back to coding and watching V: The Original Miniseries [imdb.com] on DVD.
'the formats they are demanding' (ogg?) (Score:2)
Please explain (Score:3, Insightful)
"Counterfeiting is also growing in size and sophistication. Another report published this week by Informa Media reckons pirated music sales rose in value by 2.4% in 2001 to a worldwide total of $4.3 billion. Taiwan remains the biggest culprit: it has the capacity to press 8 billion CDs a year but has a legitimate demand for only 200m, says the report. Around 90% of CDs sold in China each year are pirated. But the problem is growing in western countries too. The heads of European record companies, meeting recently in Rome, estimated that 27% of music sold in Italy is now pirated; in southern Italy, the proportion is nearer half."
This is something I don't understand. If the problem really is music sharing in the Internet, then how come counterfeiters are gaining more market? I would understand this if there was a recession and people didn't have money to buy CDs, but.. hey wait a minute, there is a recession. Now I'm on to something. Since people don't have the money and they still need their favorite music, do they have any other choice?
Atleast where I live the counterfeited CD costs about 5-8 euros. Blank CD-R costs 40 cents. If people just could download those albums for 5euros maybe they didn't buy pirated versions?
(Maybe this is my childish logic. We all know that everyone using the Internet is an evil pirate who steals from the poor artists and wants to destroy the world economics.)
The artist is important (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The artist is important (Score:2, Interesting)
wonderful new artists! (Score:5, Insightful)
I am really excited to have the opportunity to once again pay for the same songs from such wonderful people as
Billy Idol, Blondie, David Bowie, Coldplay, Joe Cocker, DC Talk, Duran Duran, Everclear, Fatboy Slim, Pink Floyd, Norah Jones, Kottonmouth Kings, Dave Koz, Lenny Kravitz, Megadeth, Kylie Minogue, Anne Murray, Tina Turner, Thalia, Keith Urban, The Vines, Cassandra Wilson and The Beach Boys
many for the third or fourth time. It is clear that the what the record labels consider piracy is the consumer not paying full price for a song on each new media. It is not enough the we pay for the CD, we have to pay for the MP3 as well, probably on each device with which we wish to play.
It is also clear from the list that EMI believes none of us have any interest in artists such as Shaggy, AALIYAH, Janet Jackson, Snoop Dogg, Meridith Brooks, Garth Brooks, or any other artists that has had a major new album in the last two years. I certainly don't want to be one of those people that damn them if they do or if they don't, but the press release gives me little hope that this is any more than a way to push old material.
Re:wonderful new artists! (Score:2)
Now I'll have to download them too?! Ah, hell...
I still think this is a good idea, damnit. (Score:2)
Make it accessible (Score:5, Informative)
Living Memory? (Score:5, Interesting)
That statement would be correct if nobody could remember way back to 1997. In those heady days of the Clinton presidency and the dot com boom, the folks at the RIAA reported a 6.5% decrease in annual sales [riaa.org]. Back then they didn't have the p2p bogeyman to blame so they laid the blame on retailers streamlining their inventories.
On the whole 'who to blame' angle, I'm amazed that nobody is talking about the role of Clearchannel's radio monopoly on decreased music sales. Before one company dictated that there would be only a handful of radio formats across most major cities, stations were more likely to expand their playlists to include local acts, independent musicians, and songs that local programming personnel liked. Now, playlists are sent down from the home office, and there is more homogeneity among playlists. What does that mean? Fewer new songs get any real airplay, thus giving the listeners of Big Radio fewer unique albums to consider buying...
Back to EMI: The description of their system has so many vague statements that I seriously doubt that this will take off (and we know that EMI never tries to mislead listeners [slashdot.org]). What listeners want is ease and freedom.
Here's what needs to happen for online music to be profitable for the labels:
1. Record companies have to realize that consumers really don't care who produces or distributes an album. When I go to a record store to by an album, I don't have to know whether it's a BMG or Sony album, I just go to the store and buy it. With these disperate online music services, each with their own catalogs, consumers are supposed to care about these things.
2. Give me the freedom to listen to my music how I want and when I want. Too many of these services offer limited ability to burn CDs or copy to mp3 players. Stop that. I bought the damn music, let me listen to it the way I want. Stop treating your customers like crooks.
It's not that hard. Record executives have a hard time realizing that the music industry is about the artists. Yes, Mr. Exec I'm sure you're a really neat guy, and I know you spend a lot of time doing important things like Bribing radio stations to play your music [salon.com] and engaging in $480,000,000 in price fixing [usatoday.com], and I can only imagine how difficult it is to threaten academic researchers [princeton.edu]. But seriously, you may be getting just a teansy bit greedy and irrational.
Man, I need some sleep...
Is this really going to work? (Score:2, Interesting)
I hope this does work out for the best, but EMI has to be extremely competetive in order to get people to pay for something that they can already get for free. There better be fast, effecient downloads, lyrics, album covers, videos, band history, download history, chat, reasonable pricing, the whole nine hundred yards.
What everyone on the planet needs is a nice fat bitch of a pipe so that we can download uncompressed, high quality audio to burn to our cds.
Oh, and it better work on linux.
Collectors Want Quality (Score:5, Interesting)
So here's a radical idea that no-one seems to have taken seriously to date, and it's one which would suit all parties: Artists, Recording industry, Publishers/Distributors and Consumers.
The advantages of owning music on CD are: Quality, Variety, and Packaging. The music is in uncompressed format, the track collection may include numbers previously unheard (leading to new discoveries), and the packaging hopefully provides reading and pictorial material on the artist(s).
Now if publishers produced a package as a downloadable CD-quality image, incorporating uncompressed music and a multimedia "sleeve" (background, photos, soundbytes, interviews, videos, printable CD cover, etc.), such that I could burn this to CD, I for one could be persuaded to part with $$ for this. OK, it might take me 6 days to d/l until I get DSL, but the time has come to consider this.
I understand CD fabs are expensive, so the industry could pass on some of the savings they make [howls of ironic laughter from the crowd], with the standard CD price redefined at around say $5. Who would balk at that? The "single" or EP format will continue to appeal, and should also be offered, at lower cost. Recordable DVD offers possibilities for larger collections, movies and so forth (though how the network may creak under the load is for another discussion).
No-one is pretending that the swapping will not continue, but collectors are prepared to pay a small premium for extra quality if the price is right.
Re:Collectors Want Quality (Score:3, Insightful)
When you amortize the cost of a CD fab over the entire production run, it's small change. Most of what you pay in a CD goes to inflated marketing, legal fees, and the associated beauracracy of a major music publishing company.
So getting rid of the CD fab cost won't make a lick of difference.
This is doomed (Score:5, Insightful)
The longer one is more insidious. Say you have the songs you purchased on your hard drive, and one day, you turn your machine on and hear a grinding noise followed by clicks. Disk failure. You then call up the nice people who sold you the music and ask for new copies, because your legally purchased music is gone, and you are well within your rights to request another copy. Remember, they give you the honor of using a license, not owning the track. If your HD dies, you still have the rights to the license. So, you ask the nice person on the phone if you can have free downloads of the entire 98Sync degrees to men collection that you just spent $800 on. Then you wait. You can just barely hear the riotous laughter through the phone that has dropeed to the floor on the other end. Then they tell you to fuck off. Luckily, in the fine print that they changed since you agreed to it, legally of course, they want the money they spent on senators put to good use, says 'we can tell you to fuck off at any time for any reason'. So you fuck off. And then you never patronise them, or any other similar service again. This will really end the industry, and they are way way to greedy to do anything else.
Lastly, a personal note. The music industry, chiefly in the guise of the RIAA has done more in the last year or two to erode our civil rights than anything else that I can think of. They killed several good, legal services, and they are not stopping. They are forcing changes to the technology that I use and love to make them more money. They have no qualms about buying power and abusing it on a whim. If you doubt it, read the legislation that they are trying to get passed (there is to much of it to link here, start at www.theregister.co.uk with a search for RIAA). By using services like this, you are only enriching the very people who are targeting you and the things you love. Don't give them more money, it will only hurt you in the long run. When they went after napster, I said that I would not buy a CD until it played out, and if napster won, I would go back to buying CDs. If they lost, I would never buy a CD again. I have not bought a CD since. My 300+ collection collects dust. I have stopped consuming music. NPR is better radio anyway. Don't buy the 'new, friendlier' record company BS, they are sharks, and you are bleeding.
-Charlie
A Digital Music User's Manifesto (Score:3, Interesting)
Dear record company CEOs!
I am proposing the following business model for your company:
I pay you the price that I am paying you now (1-3 CDs a year): about 5 bucks a month. For that price (a monthly flatrate), I want all the records that you have in your archives.
Please provide for easy download via FTP. I prefer to use wget --mirror. Bandwith doesn't matter. Your business will then depend on new, interesting releases. I would also be willing to make an agreement with you in which access to earlier records will increase over time. For example: After 1 year of membership, I will be able to retrieve all the stuff in the last two years, after 2 years four years and so on.
As long as you deliver content that is
- e.g. not accessible for me (e.g. some proprietary player as Liquid audio in the EMI example)
- e.g. not reusable (DRM shit) or
- not playable on any device that I own (CD with copy protection)
- overpriced
SCREW YOU!Could they be *hoping* for failure? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are people in general unwilling to pay for MP3 quality music?
People are used to getting access FREE OF CHARGE to any of dozens of available unrestricted mid-fi audio streams which are completely unrestricted, can be recorded with anything, can be uploaded to MP3 players or anything else. People have been using this to make compilation tapes, make tapes for friends, and "try before buying" since long before many of you were born.
Yes, this is for real, and is everyday reality not only for propellor-heads, but for the average American.
It's called FM radio. Is the quality really all that different from 128Kbps MP3 quality?
MP3 distribution is no more a threat to industry profits than FM radio is. Is there any reason why FM radio is so important a promotional tool for music that the industry will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a single song played on the radio where EVIL pirates could record it and try to get people who put the same song at a similar quality level on Internet Radio shut down or jailed?
The difference is that the record industry can control FM radio via payola and no obvious way to do the same thing via the Internet except through sites controlled by the industry. Joe Average can submit a song to an Internet Radio station for free, and if the owner likes it, he'll play it. Universal can do the same thing for the same price. The record labels are unhappy about the Joe Average part. They would have no problems with it if the Internet Radio stations played only the content they were told to play.
What the industry likes least is a mix of familiar label tunes with Joe Average's music, because the familiar label tunes tell the listener what genre of music can really be expected at a particular station... and what kinds of unfamiliar songs might be found.
The only new music the RIAA labels want us to hear is their own.
So through their legal sockpuppets in Congress and the CARP panel, they did their best to shut down the potential competition.
Why should there be legal harassment just because people choose to listen to it via Internet instead of via Clear Channel or companies choose to deliver it?
Does anybody actually believe that a 128K MP3 is the "perfect digital copy" that Hilary Rosen and her apologists have been whining about for years? If you do, don't waste our time by responding. First, get your hearing checked by an audiologist. If there's no problem, go to your wall, take that precious MCSE you just got after a month of hard work, burn it, go back to school for a few years and don't post about technology and public policy until you've learned something about both.
I don't find the idea of buying the real product, uncompressed CD audio tracks a-la carte or as albums for 50 cents to $1 per track online intrinsically objectionable in the least. The ability to get the single or two decent songs on a typical album without the filler would be worth it to me. Too bad they can't deliver it, and the fact that they can't really isn't their fault.
50 megabytes of download per track are a bit much for a dialup to handle, and the average Internet user is going to be using dialup for quite some time into the future as I do.
So why do I think they're hoping for failure? Because the spectacular failure of Yet Another Venue For Selling Music Industry Promotional Items in place of music to the public gives them another excuse to whine to Congress about how EVIL INTERNET USERS are determined to STEAL music from them WITHOUT PAYING.
The RIAA labels just want to get a legal strangehold on the development of any technology which has the remotest possibility of opening up avenues of competition to outsiders.
Can't be MP3, must be WMA or something like that (Score:4, Interesting)
An MP3 file is not encrypted and hasn't got any kind of copy control mechanism built-in, nor is it possible to add something like that to the format since it's just an MPEG audio stream with no header or stream descriptors or anything.
That means that there's no way EMI could prevent you from burning, uploading to any portable player or copying the tracks you download from them.
Ergo, the format is probaly going to be WMA, which does have that kind of controls built-in. But that means that it's going to be more of the same:
In other words, the same old fair-use restricting crap that we're used to from the industry. There's nothing revolutionary or new about this...
Ease of Use (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM wont work unless each piece of hardware used to play music is tagged and then submitted to their service so that the music you download can be authorized to play on those hardware. Not to mention, that all DRM will eventually, if not the day of its release, be cracked anyway. Instead of limiting consumers (temporarily) the music industry should focus on making music downloads quick and easy. Give us our choice of bit rates, easy menus for selection, the ability to mix and match songs from various albums and artists, allow quick and easy payment, and by god not only will you turn a profit, but people will purchase more music. In addition they should be able to sell more music, since personally I buy a very varied range, and some rare and difficult to find CDs can be just as easily offered online for download as the latest Pop Top 40.
I never goto the store to buy a music CD anymore, its just much easier online, but offer me a service online to download mp3s from and I would purchase much more, there is no charge for shipping, I can mix, and I can get them already in mp3 at high bit rates, which saves me the hassle. (98% of my listening to music is solely on PC). Thats just my take on it.
I can see it now (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, I didnt think everyone was demanding WMA
This is probably going to suck. (Score:4, Interesting)
1. The digital media files will most likely have SDMI or some other Digital Rights Management enforced to the hilt. I wuldn't be surprised if the masses were clamoring for WMA files, according to EMI.
2. Burning to a CD. I can't imagine any company so enthralled with releasing their catalog with copy protection is going to allow you as a consumer to record youur own CDs without first contacting them to see if it's OK. I'm thinking what Audible has (program contacts Audible to ensure you can copy this audio book to CD) is what they'd use. I can't imagine them letting consumers just burn digital audio without some catch.
Just my
Give us more contents (Score:5, Interesting)
So, what are the factors that made DVDs widely accepted and adopted? Yes, better picture and sound. Yes, a smaller, more convenient format. But to me, above all, it was better contents that made people switch to DVDs. You don't just buy or rent the movie, you have extra scenes, alternate endings, bloopers, interviews, etc. Hollywood could have put all of that on VHS as well but they didn't. They wanted us to switch to DVD and we have, based on contents. You just have to listen to any DVD movie advertisement to be convinced. The emphasis is on contents, not technical merits.
Now, why can't it be the same for music? Technical merits of digital music are well known by now. When I start seeing music companies think outside the box and provide me with an enhanced listening experience, such as 5.1 surround, lyrics, clips, mind dazzling visual effects, special editions to name just a few that quickly jump to mind, and which is only available from their service, then I'll think it's worthwhile to subscribe to it and pay to download. Until then, I want nothing of the lazy, uncreative, retarded way of thinking displayed by dinosaur companies who are trying to sell me the same old crap.
Face it guys, you dropped the ball. No amount of trying to sell me what is now free will ever change that. Sell me something else that I'll want to buy.