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Music Media Businesses The Internet

Will Legal P2P Music Distribution Succeed? 260

Posted by timothy from the for-long-term-values-of-yes dept.
SnowWolf2003 writes "It looks like a couple of people are trying to find a way to distribute music legally over P2P networks. The latest is Mercora (with more information here). Also Napster 2.0 is due for release sometime next week. Can any of these Windows alternatives to Apple's iTunes compete though with the inherent restrictions built into the wma format? Note MusicMatch has just launched a windows based service with fewer restrictions equivalent to the iTunes policy. More importantly, can these P2P services lure enough people away from restriction free Kazaa to make themselves successful, where P2P networks rely on a large user base?"
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Will Legal P2P Music Distribution Succeed? More

Will Legal P2P Music Distribution Succeed?

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  • Legal P2P Won't Succeed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Luigi30 ( 656867 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:07AM (#7136938)
    It won't. As long as there is a free alternative, no matter what the chances are of getting sued, some people will use it. Why? Because they don't want to pay for that kind of stuff. Some people are too cheap to pay a dollar per song, or something like that, and want to just get loads of music, illegally or legally.

    • Re:Legal P2P Won't Succeed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by UnuMondo ( 642324 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:18AM (#7136996) Homepage

      I don't understand why this was modded down, and it was going to be my response as well. The era of paying for music is over. People are already getting used to the idea of music and movies being free through P2P services. Sure, you might get a better experience if you buy the album with its art and CD-quality sound, and seeing a film in the theatre is a much more enjoyable experience than DiVX, but these new legal services don't offer anything that P2P doesn't. Their restrictions and the idea of paying for music seem unacceptable, and they cannot compete.

      • Re:Legal P2P Won't Succeed (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I agree completely. As long as I can steal the music, why should I pay? I may not have any morals, but I have plenty of music!

        The music industry is different from the movie industry in that music videos and songs are played over the airwaves for free (except that I have to listen to and watch commercials). Then, they expect me to purchase a license to those songs. Bollocks!

        The movie industry at least gives me a little taste with trailers. If I'd like, I can go see the feature in a theatre, or wait un
      • Actually, there are a lot of things a paid service can offer that pirate P2P can't:

        Guaranteed quality
        Much better browsing
        No spoofing or hoax downloads

        legal P2P can offer those, but you're still left with:

        Download speed

        Most P2P systems don't offer very reliable download speeds. I suppose a BitTorrent system could work, but I question how well it could scale up to hundreds or thousands of different songs for each user. The number of users who are logged in at any given time who have the correct song might
        • The essesential core of the MP3-RIAA debate is the economic assumption that each buyer-seller transaction of music is an exchange of 40 to 60 minutes of recorded music for the financial equivalent of two to three hours of minimum wage work, and that this exchange will be done by the swapping of compact disks for money. It has always been assumed that the seller would be a music corporation and buyer an individual.
          This model has worked for about 60-80 years. The sale of songs for $0.99 US each is the sa
      • The era of paying for music is over.

        I agree and don't. I think the era of paying for recorded versions of songs may be coming to an end, but artists will still make money on live performances.
      • This is untrue, sure there will be people who don't won't to buy anything at all. They are called thieves. However people like me aren't jumping on the current services because they don't offer me anything I want. What I want is the right to play my music anywhere and to do anything with it in a standard format. If it's a special format, I won't deal with it and no avid music collector is either. It just puts their collection into jeopardy or so they think. I'm technically inclined enough to know there are

        • Re:Legal P2P Won't Succeed (Score:5, Informative)

          by Fweeky ( 41046 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @01:54PM (#7138075) Homepage
          This is untrue, sure there will be people who don't won't to buy anything at all. They are called thieves.

          Please stop equating copyright infringement with thieft. It dilutes the term; thieves are the scum who broke into my friend's car and took my digital camera, clothes, books, etc. Thieves are the scum who broke into another friend's house and took 20K UKP worth of stuff, including his pile of CD-R backups containing the source-code that is his job. Thieves are the scum who deprive other people of their rightful property and security.

          They are not people who get unauthorised copies of software or media -- they aren't depriving the owners of anything, much of the time not even potential sales.

          Piracy is a similarly poor choice of term -- pirates are scum who murder, terrorise and steal from ships and the like. Equating them with people who copy and distribute media is like calling litterbugs rapists.
      • ... they cut the price exactly in half.

        A dollar a song is absurd. I really *COULD* record the song off the radio for free, and with a really good radio it would sound approximately as good as a 128kbps MP3. Would I somehow be outside my rights to do that?

        For 50 cents, though, I could get a 16-track album for 8 bucks. That's reasonable, and convenient.

    • Re:Legal P2P Won't Succeed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:59AM (#7137200)
      You're right. I'm too "cheap" to pay a dollar a song to download.

      I've got two copies of John Hartford's "Aereo Plain" here. That's right, I've purchased it. Twice. It appears I'm not simply cheap. There must be more to it.

      There are 16 songs on the album. I payed ten bucks for the vinyl. Ya know, that stuff that's quite a bit more expensive to manufacture and distribute than CDs? For that ten bucks I got a large, "officially licensed" physical object. With cover art, liner notes and because it's an actual object I've been able to enhance it's value, both monetarily and to myself as a keepsake, by having the entire band autograph the disc itself. I can help preserve the disc by taping it (or making a digital file of it) and playing that, as a right guarunteed me by law.

      I also have the CD. Rather smaller, so the cover art is less impressive. In at least one respect I'm thus getting less for my money, but they've at least made up for it with moderately extended liner notes and really nifty painted disc.The disc itself is actually pressed, not burned. I could have the entire band autograph this as well if John hadn't just died a while ago.

      This too I can preserve as a master and make a digital file of to listen to if I wish. Legally. Play that file on any computer or portable player I wish to as well.

      $14.99 at Amazon. I've now spent twentyfive bucks on this album. I'm not cheap.

      A buck a song would be sixteen bucks ( and remember this was originally an LP. Some CDs have more songs than that) for which I would get. . . some crappy rip of a propriatary file format that restricts what I can even do with it and where I can play it. Maybe I can't even burn it. If I can it's a CD-R, not a pressing.

      Didn't we just have a story on the shitty lifespan of burned discs?

      I'm not cheap, but yeah, I'm too "cheap" to pay a buck a song for a DRMed crappy download.

      About a quarter a song seems right. Five bucks an album.

      Oddly enough, since I'm not "cheap," if I really like it I'll end up wanting to buy a professionally pressed and packaged CD (a REAL CD) for ten bucks later on.

      Go figure.

      KFG

    • Re:Legal P2P Won't Succeed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JayBlalock ( 635935 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @11:59AM (#7137498)
      Gotta disagree. We live in a world where Capitalism is burned into people's brains. Someone produces something of value, you *should* pay for it. If a band produces good music, traditional social programming tells us, they should be rewarded for it.

      There is also a measure of self-interest in that. If I enjoy Band X's music, I am going to naturally want MORE of their music. If no money is reaching them, they won't be able to continue making music, and *I* lose out. One need only watch 'Amadeus' to understand that principle. (how much richer would our musical history be if the Emperor hadn't stiffed Mozart?)

      The rampant piracy isn't caused by people being evil, immoral cheapskates - it's caused by consumer perceptions of value being greatly reduced. Most people know - on some level or another - that CD prices are wildly inflated. That the record labels use radio and advertising to trick people into buying CDs that aren't very good. That the RIAA does everything they can to NOT pass money onto the artists. Outside of those who've been completely deluded by RIAA propaganda into believing Fair Use rights don't exist, most people are at least vaguely aware of this.

      People know music should be FAR cheaper. Most people (not your hardened l33t d00d w4r3zRz) feel at least a vauge twinge of conscience when they download music they really like without paying for it. (as opposed to 'trying out' bands in search of good stuff) And most would be willing to pay if A)the price was more in line with their current perception of its value, and B)they knew the money was going to support artists and not bloated mega-corps.

      (I've been chatting with the guy who runs Magnatunes, he says the purchasing response to his site has been great.)

      I got bored one day and worked out a model of how the RIAA could offer unlimited-download licenses for $20 per month (using the existing P2P services as the point of purchase), and still increase their profits greatly. It sounds completely counter-intuitive, that they could profit by allowing people unlimited downloads for the price of one CD, but it all worked out. I was estimating billions more in profits in the US alone. (and secondary benefits spread all around that benefitted *every*) And contrary to your overly slanted take on the situation, I firmly believe that if you told someone "For $20 a month, you can legally download all the music you want, paying the labels and artists," most people of sufficient means WOULD take up that offer.

      Music doesn't want to be FREE. It just wants to be a lot CHEAPER.

    • Maybe you are right. P2P networks are like a radio stations in the past that took requests. They deliver what listeners want much more effectively that today's radio, which palys the same 40 songs ad nauseum. Radio and MTV dropped the ball, Napster picked it up.

      Maybe, however, one or two paid P2P networks will be viable like satelite radio if they can guarantee that there are no viruses or spyware. (Kazaa is a cesspool of both.) To get any customers, they will also have to abandon placing any restriction

  • pointless (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:07AM (#7136939)
    no one will pay. DRM will drive us away. people want freedom, not cheapness.

  • in other words,.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smd4985 ( 203677 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:11AM (#7136964) Homepage
    will people pay for something they can get for free (with no loss of quality between paid and free)? the answer is clearly YES. people do it all the time - bottled water, software, open source software, etc. most people like to support the creators of content they buy, and they also like to get perks that comes with purchasing the goods (i.e. customer support, piece of mind, etc.)

    so the RIAA - if you build it, they will come. let p2p be and stop suing your customers.

    • Re:in other words,.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dirk ( 87083 ) <dirk@one.net> on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:29AM (#7137058) Homepage
      The reason people pay for these things is that there is a perceived quality difference (whether there truly is depends on what you look at). If you ask people who drink bottled water, they think they are getting better quality water with a better taste than they can get from the tap (even though they aren't getting better quality, they think they are). Most people will take free software over pay software any day (see the number of people who pirate MS software), but they don't know enough about software to do this. They know they need MS Office, they have no clue that OpenOffice is almost as good and free. I think the legal P2P system will enjoy a huge popularity at first, and then slowly decline as people figure out that they can still get the stuff for free. Apple's iTunes, had something similar. At first they were doing gangbuster business, as people flocked to it, and now they are doing a much smaller amount of business (but still decent) as people are going back to P2P. At the same time, Kazaa didn't get hurt at all by iTunes.

      • Strength of iTunes (Score:5, Insightful)

        by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear@p[ ]ell.net ['acb' in gap]> on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:48AM (#7137158) Homepage
        You get no reliable library on P2P because that's not the way it's designed. If you want rare, obscure, or reliable stuff, you need things like iTMS or MMS. If you want popular, current, modern stuff, then P2P is fine.

        So if for $1 per song I can access all of Nat King Cole or Frank Sinatra (from master even), that is just *impossible* on P2P because no one on P2P has access, likes, or owns those songs, than Apple can make mucho money.

        It's because the two systems operate on different premises:

        iTMS: Reliable access, fixed content, diverse nature
        P2P: Free, whatever is popular

        There is *always* a chance to find Nat on P2P, but the chances are much higher you'll find Brittany Spears, Garth Brooks, or Backstreet Boys, just because of the demographic of users and the number of copies available in the first place.
        • You have a point, but what you say is offset by sheer volume.

          When Napster was at its pinnacle, I could hop on and find almost ANYTHING. Rare, live bootlegs, to un-released (pre-release) albums, to really old, out-of-print albums.

          S
          • So essentially you need some critical mass of stuff online... somehow convince all the people with all the content to all use the network and pay to upload stuff you can get.

            Because if you look at it that way, Apple is paying the upload bandwidth and hosting costs that P2P forces the users to deal with.
        • P2P: Free, whatever is popular

          I have to disagree with you here, I am into some rather obscure music and I quite often find it on Kazaa. When I wanted to burn a CD of an album that I bought on cassette about 10 years ago, I searched Kazaa for "Odd Squad". I found the entire album, plus some other tracks where they were just featured artists.

          P2P has a fair bit of unpopular content as well.

          LK
          • So the analogy to books would be:
            Bookstore, information for sale
            Internet, information for free

            There are certainly some things you can find on the internet you won't find in a library, and vice versa. The same applies to P2P (internet) as opposed to music stores (book stores)
      • If you ask people who drink bottled water, they think they are getting better quality water with a better taste than they can get from the tap (even though they aren't getting better quality, they think they are).

        Offtopic, but you're off your rocker here. Maybe you live in New York City or some such place, where the tap water is actually decent, but it's not like that everywhere. Try the tap water in San Angelo, Texas, which has a nice rainbow oilslick sheen on top and tastes like petroleum. Or Iowa City

        • Re:in other words,.... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by bj8rn ( 583532 )
          I'd say the grandparent post is right. Buying a CD (or a vinyl) is analogous to buying bottled water, tap water is like music downloaded from Kazaa or whatever. All those different flavours of the tap water are the analogies of different media formats (wma, mp3, ogg vorbis). And though tap water and bottled water taste differently, it doesn't change the fact that they both are H2O on the inside...

          /insightless

          • I don't think you understand. In Iowa City, 2 months of the year, they sent out warnings that pregnant women, and children shouldn't drink the tap water.

            Iowa City's tap water usually has a brown tint, and is always barely beneath the government's warning for iron percentages.

      • If you ask people who drink bottled water, they think they are getting better quality water with a better taste than they can get from the tap (even though they aren't getting better quality, they think they are).

        In Minneapolis, the tap water comes from the Mississippi river, and in a hot dry summer, the water suffers from the lowered river level. It smells clearly of an algae smell, tastes bad and suffers from increased turbidity. And then there's the chlorine, flouride and other year-round "features

      • If you ask people who drink bottled water, they think they are getting better quality water with a better taste than they can get from the tap (even though they aren't getting better quality, they think they are).

        While you may in a general sense be correct, I'll point out this interesting little fact: when I was still back in school, "tap" water (e.g., city processed water) would give me absolutely killer headaches. (Took a couple years to finally make the association.) Oddly enough, heavily filtered wate

      • In much of the deep southeast, tapwater has a high mineral content that gives it a faint sulfurous odor. Throughout the midwest and southwest, the water is very hard and has a definite earthy flavor. The tapwater in these places is certainly very high quality due to public health standards. But it is water that stinks and tastes like dirt even when run through a cheap faucet filter. For these people, bottled water is definitely higher quality in a definitely perceptible manner.

        Regarding pay-to-download
    • people do it all the time - bottled water



      Funny, the local bottled water company here, has unfettered access to their spring and that is where I get their water, for free. Same water, just free.

  • A terrible idea for independent bands andmusicians (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:14AM (#7136976) Homepage
    The idea of using P2P for the legal distribution of music is plain stupid.

    The cost to serve a four megabyte MP3 file is pennies. If I'm a musical artist, I'm more than happy to swallow that cost if I'm getting fifty cents or a dollar per song.

    If I'm selling my own music over the Internet, I want people to come to my site and eat up my bandwidth. If I can establish some loyalty, and make my site a repeat destination for my fans, they're likely to check back regularly and see what new MP3's I've created.

    If my music gets sold by P2P networks, I've lost the ability to make my home page the primary source of purchases for my music. Sure, I'll save a few pennies in bandwidth fees for each user who downloads from P2P...but chances are I'll paying the P2P companies much more than that for administration.

    No, if you're a musician, you want people to rely on your website for all downloads of your music. And you'll be thrilled to pay any bandwidth fees that are incurred by people purchasing music, as those fees are trivial.

    • Disagree.

      If someone would build in a tracking system (not by user, before you go nuts, by songs and discs), the system could automatically recommend free samples of upcoming artists who chose to participate in such a promotion.

      For instance, I listen to a relatively unknown band named Porcupine Tree, who sound a little bit Prog and a little bit Hard Rock, with some great harmonies and things mixed in. If a service were to suggest them to you after you downloaded the right amount of music in the right composition and then give you a free sample, Porcupine Tree's fan base might have just increased by one. Then, you might download some more of their music (which you pay for), browse around their website, or maybe you hate the stuff and never listen again. But you've listened once, and that's what matters.

      This is the type of music distribution that P2P needs. Incentives and Exposure for the artists. A working P2P model would incorporate the consumer's neophobia into give-aways and freebies designed to help out the music service (people will be downloading more music) and up-and-coming bands.

    • Re:A terrible idea for independent bands andmusici (Score:4, Interesting)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:32AM (#7137079)
      Make an "album." Give two cuts away on your website under an open license as a demo. Kind of like a brouchure. Encourage people to pass them around as much as they'd like, however they'd like.

      You're not putting them into the public domain. You retain your authorship rights. Just allow free distribution for noncommercial use.

      If they like them people will find your website no matter how they came by the cuts. Google is a wonder and a mystery.

      Sell 'em the rest of the album at five bucks a pop. This way you avoid the whole micropayment nonsense and it's worth dealing with your own merchant account (assuming you can get one for web sales, of course).

      If your stuff is any good it will drive people to you just as surely as airplay drives people into the record stores; and since you're giving stuff away for free and not charging extortionate rates for a download file people will be less inclined to "cheat" the good guy.

      Then don't sweat the people who cheat. They aren't your customers anyway. A dime you'll never see in the first place isn't a dime lost. Isn't that part of what we're trying to convince the RIAA of in the first place?

      A penny saved is a penny earned. Unless you're being penny wise and pound foolish.

      KFG
    • If I'm selling my own music over the Internet, I want people to come to my site and eat up my bandwidth.


      If I'm buying music over the Internet, I do not want to deal with any number of different web site interfaces and payment methods in order to do so. A common system with high speed, known reliability and familiar interface would be a good selling point and encourage to buy.
    • There's a very simple solution. Route *all* money coming in through ASCAP rather than the RIAA. ASCAP divvies the money up among the artists (probably based on a statistical model of file distribution), and sends a chunk to the RIAA so they'll sit down and shut up.
    • Hi... A bit off topic but 4 mb costing pennies is a bit too expensive don't you think? Most places give you more bandwidth then that. You should be able to get 3 gigs for a dollar at the least.

  • Why does it have to be P2P? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Odin_Tiger ( 585113 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:16AM (#7136984) Journal
    I use EMusic.com. It's reasonably priced, and download rates are awesome. If a similar service were offered for more mainstream music, I'm sure it would succeed, especially when you take out the P2P problem of just hoping somebody with a good connection and a low queue and has the song you want just happens to be connected at the same times you are.

  • Regulating P2P (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thedillybar ( 677116 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:16AM (#7136986)
    How are you going to regulate P2P? Sure, the RIAA can develop software that corresponds with them (e-mail, whatever). This server can provide a key for a given P2P server after the software logs in, kind of like Kerberos I guess. BUT, this isn't going to work very well with peers running the servers...after all, none of the P2P servers can really be trusted by the RIAA.

    It seems that within days (or hours), some sort of Kazaa Lite will be released that allows you to login to the P2P system without any correspondence with the RIAA. I guess they could require the servers to verify keys with the RIAA server too, and when someone running the lite version runs a server, sue them as they are now.

    The bottom line is this. They can't stop everyone from stealing music. Their goal should be to stop the majority. Based on the current RIAA business model, I really don't see this happening anytime soon (or maybe ever).

  • Inherent costs make this unattractive (Score:5, Insightful)

    by laigle ( 614390 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:17AM (#7136995)
    The question about legal P2P is this: Why should I pay money for the songs AND provide expensive upstream bandwidth to the system, AND get chewed out by my ISP/netadmin for resource use, when I can pay for the song and only use downstream to pull it off the service's computers? This could work, but the prices would have to be marked down dramatically, and the seervices would have to get ISPs to sign on and stop labelling anyone who uses their already metered upstream as a war criminal. I don't see that happening, not until upstream bandwidth becomes much cheaper.
  • Bottom line, the price on iTunes and MM are too high. To buy an entire album you almost always need to buy track by track and the total price and at $1 a pop, that works out in many cases close to or higher than a CD but with restrictions and an inferior product. Also, search for DMB on iTunes and you gets asked if you meant Dave Matters Band. Irony (or whatever it is called) not withstanding on that last point...
    • I can buy a lot of CDs from CD-Wow for 9 (I guess about $14). If each has 11 tracks, that's $11 vs $14.

      But I'd rather pay $14 for a piece of solid media that I can always resell on ebay for the extra $3, get cover artwork etc.

      The cost of providing a download is nothing like the cost of selling a CD. There's retailers margins, restocking fees, duplication costs, the lot. Downloads don't have any of these.

      I think maybe 50c per song is about reasonable.

    • Wrong! Albums are priced at $9.99 for the whole thing. And once you burn your precious iTunes to CD, there is no Digital Restrictions Management in your way. I know that it's more expensive than that Russian site people keep talking about but how likely is it that the artists actually get any money from it? As the iTunes agreement stands, the actual artists get more from iTunes than from your standard recording industry contract [negativland.com].

      I think that iTunes has struck the right balance between keeping the RIAA hap

  • Of course not! (Score:5, Informative)

    by user no. 590291 ( 590291 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:18AM (#7137000)
    People will be either willing to pay for the bandwidth of distribution, or for the content. Not both.

  • To tell you the truth... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:25AM (#7137036) Homepage
    Will Legal P2P Music Distribution Succeed?

    It's pretty much going to have to.

    The Internet is fast, it's cheap, and it's everywhere. Would the RIAA be able to make more money from trying to shut down P2P trading or from embracing the new medium (new, ha) and creating a profitable business model.

    At some point their obstinacy has to give way to bottom-line thinking, lest they let legal fees become a constant drain.

  • Ohh yes another great DRM plan (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mpcooke3 ( 306161 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:26AM (#7137043) Homepage
    "Individual songs may be burned or copied to CDs without restriction, although CDs with the same order of songs can only be burned five times to prevent pirates from churning out scores of full copies."

    Duh!

    I think this clearly shows how little marketing people understand DRM technology. As soon as something leaves a DRM system it can be copied freely. The first CD you burn can then be copied a million times using standard CD burning software!

    When will they give up with all the DRM annoyances. There are a lot of people that just want mp3 files (or ogg or whatever) and are happy to pay for it. At the moment we get more restrictions on music we download from their crappy sites than we do if we buy the damn CD.

    They are forcing people into using these dodgy p2p systems because they won't let people download music in the format they want. Ooh didums are people copying your music -People don't want DRM that's why! If they buy some music they expect to be able to play it on whatever OS or music system they choose.

    RIAA have to get a grip on reality ... [trails off into usual slashdot rant]
    • I agree with you in one sense. Yes, as soon as something leaves the DRM system it can be copied freely. What the DRM implementors are banking on, in my opinion, is that most computer users won't be able to do it.

      Let's face it, you and I would be totally unfazed by burning to CD and re-importing to remove the DRM. But do you really think your average computer-using non-techie would even think of that? Or be able to do it without detailed instructions?

      My dad's a computer user. He's a well-educated, intellig
      • Your dad isn't planning on burning 50,000 copies of Madonna's latest album and selling them.

        The person who is planning on doing this will know how to *cough* "bypass" the DRM by using normal CD burning software.

        In fact it is so trivial to burn copies of these DRM'd tracks it hardly seems appropriate to use the word 'bypass'.

  • Comment and some questions (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sokk ( 691010 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:27AM (#7137047)
    Windows Media. I don't like it at all.

    I'd rather buy a CD. Besides actually getting something physical, it contains fewer restrictions and features better sound than it's lossy counterparts on the computer. If I were to download something, it better be compressed in Ogg Vorbis or Flac (broadband is on the rise). Why should I pay to download a song in a closed format, when I can't do with it as I want?

    I don't know what music you listen to, but I listen to music where albums often are themed or have a story -- where every song is a part of the complete. The album art is also a part of the experience - same as the quality of a pressed Compact Disc versus a home-brew one (I've heard about CD-Rs that last no longer than a year, because of the shitty quality) . I would've give that up for the one-hit wonders (tm) starred on the radio today. Never.

    Anyways; this is probably a blessing for those who actually like the one-hit wonders (tm). Because they won't have to buy the "fillers" that is so common on pop music albums today.

    When it comes to p2p networks - why should I share a 'buy2play'-file using my bandwidth? That would only earn the distributor's money in the form of having to serve less bandwidth?

    By the way. Is the MusicMatch service US only? Will the "buy2play" P2P-services be US only?

  • Micropayments Vs. P2P (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dr2tom ( 678980 )
    So far we don't have any good models of sustainable businesses that don't have ongoing revenue streams. There are going to be some great discussions on the Micropayments Vs. P2P topic at the Future of Money Summit (www.futureofmoneysummit.com) when Dr. Ron Rivest of MIT, Kurt Huang of BitPass, Todd Pearson of PayPal, and Margaret Reid of Visa tackle this topic.

  • Emusic (Score:4, Informative)

    by desenz ( 687520 ) <roypfohNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:30AM (#7137063)
    For 9.99 or 14.99 a month, I can get 2000 songs. This isn't a solution everyone, because most of what they have is indie labels. But if you're like me, into punk, techno and hip hop you should def. check it out.

    Disclaimer: Its not unlimited. 2000 songs a month and you'll get capped or terminated or something, and you won't find the latest and greatest from the RIAA.

    • Re:Emusic (Score:3, Funny)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )
      Disclaimer: Its not unlimited. 2000 songs a month and you'll get capped or terminated or something.

      Damn, don't you think that's a little severe!
    • Some readers might think that at $10 a month and 2000 songs downloaded the artists aren't seeing much of that, and they're right. But this is the beauty of Emusic, the pricing can adjust itself based on approximate usage.

      I'm not sure that this is actually how emusic shares it's revenues with labels, they may very well use aggreagates for pay outs. Let's assume or pretend that they take a monthly subscription fee and split it out over an account's monthly downloads. There have been months whne I have dow

    • Re:Emusic (Score:3, Interesting)

      by orthogonal ( 588627 )
      But if you're like me, into punk, techno and hip hop you should def. check [Emusic.com] [emusic.com] out.

      I'm not at all into punk, techno, or hip-hop. In fact, most music in those genres makes me cringe to hear it.

      But I do enjoy classical, country, and folk music, and classic jazz. In the last year I've been with emusic, I've legally downloaded about 6000 (six thousand) mp3 tracks in those genres from emusic.

      The classical music has really paid off for me: I was always wary of paying $16 for a classical CD when I was
    • Just curious, I've been thinking about giving emusic a whirl, but your post raises a question:

      On the site, they advertise "Unlimited CD burning, unlimited transfers". Nowhere in their TOS could I find anything related to transfer limits. Not that I plan on downloading 2000 tracks a month, but I'm assuming you're using hyperbole. Any idea what the real limit is? (God, I hate companies that lie in their advertising)

  • Who cares if it's P2P? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Frankly, people who download music don't really care if it's coming from P2P, or a central server, or whatever.

    The only issues here are:

    1: Will people pay for it?
    2: What is its quality (i.e. is it encumbered with DRM)?

    If people will pay for it, then P2P might not the right topology for distribution anyway. Peers will always be flaky; central servers can always be made much more robust than the average peer.

  • There will always be cheaters (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:34AM (#7137092)
    Even if songs were practically free, there will always be people who can and will skirt the normal distribution methods. Look at cable TV and/or satellite. At some point the industry will concede a margin of loss and move forward - the cost of chasing the cheaters will be greater than the lost revenue.

    But of course we are nowhere near this point yet. The music industry probably needs to spend another three years with it head stuck in the sand and a near death experience on CD sales to see that it needs to change. It will at some point take the obvious route people had been recommending for years, but only when they are the brink of extinction.

    Our economy is filled with cartel-like behavior (OPEC, cable TV, media) that will be very painful to break, the record industry is no different.

  • Kazaa == TV == Radio (Score:5, Interesting)

    by numbski ( 515011 ) * <numbskiNO@SPAMhksilver.net> on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:35AM (#7137096) Homepage Journal
    I know inherently what I've just said is wrong, but hear me out.

    The target market of the above services are more or less ignorant that the product they are consuming has to be paid for by someone. When I turn on the radio do I have to think about paying for it? No. When I turn on the TV? Well, not most of the time, okay there's cable and/or satellite, but I could just use an antenna, and I usually don't think about having to pay for a specific show and with radio I don't have to think about paying for a specific song.

    I think this was more true when Napster was out, and maybe it is now, but people generally don't want to have to pay for music. Not because they can't, but because they don't feel they should have to. They view the distribution service as something that is free, just like TV and Radio. Most people don't notice or realize that TV and Radio are paid for by adv. spots. Thus the reason these DVR's are getting into so much hot water.

    I tend to fall along those lines as well. Yes, the music needs to be paid for somehow, and iTunes is reasonable in it's methodology, but even iTunes is a step backwards from Napster.

    Not saying I have the right answer, but I really feel that's the predicament we're in. Napster more or less got it right the first time, and had they not been shut down they would have a monopoloy on P2P right now, and no one would have given Kazaa a second thought unless Nap started doing something stupid like bundling in Spyware...oh wait, that doesn't stop people.
    • As other posters have said, check out EMusic, which is exactly what you are describing. You pay a monthly access fee, and get virtually unlimited downloading (you're limited to 2000 songs over a 30 day period, but how many people would actually exceed that?). It has a good community, great music, gives you recommendations and they add new music on a regular basis. What's more, the music is completely unrestricted and it's owned by Vivendi Universal, so by using it you're encouraging the RIAA to move towards

  • I know you don't like MS but ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blowdart ( 31458 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:36AM (#7137103) Homepage
    the inherent restrictions built into the wma format

    There's no restrictions built into WMA (aside from the lack of source/format documentation). Just like there's no restrictions built into AAC. Apple, like Microsoft, have built DRM on top of their formats, but unlike Apple, Microsoft are providing the SDK for DRM freely. If you examine the options available with the SDK you can make the rules as loose as you like, more "free" than iTunes have, it's just no-one seems to want to do this.

    Is accuracy too much to ask for?

  • Network effects? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:36AM (#7137106) Homepage
    I think the point of having a P2P network would be to get music known, not save costs. Sure, your homepage might be nice if you get someone there, but what you need is promotion. Why do you think so many independents want to join the iTMS?

    A good legal P2P network could provide much the same, without requiring the huge central that iTMS is. With digital signing, the quality of the files would be guranteed. The one thing missing though is incentive for consumers to use their bandwidth to run "someone else's" net.

    Kjella

  • This is NOT P2P (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ReallyTweakin ( 695722 )
    This NOT P2P. P2P=Peer to Peer - this is client-pays-for-access-per-access-to-server.

    Get it right - it's why it won't succeed. The power of P2P is that what you have that I dont and I want I will soon have and so on, the same applying for every user of the system.

    There's no library that can be assembled like the one that we assemble when we all put all our books together on the same set of shelves.

    Any 'service' such as these, especially insofar as they incorporate any DRM/copy protection features, is sim
    • Yeah, too bad the library we currently have is made of all of our books, all of our magazines, all of our old newspapers, all of our supermarket coupons, all of our random scraps of paper lying around the house, and so on. And it's not in any particular order. And some of the books have the wrong binding. And someone had to pay for printing all those books in the first place. A centralized solution (like the iTunes store) could easily do better than this (not better than the ideal, but better than the real-

  • This already goes on (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Flagbrew ( 471794 ) <jeff.flagbrew@com> on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:51AM (#7137172) Homepage
    This already goes on at etree [etree.org]. Does the slashdot crowd turn a blind eye to this because they are looking for "pop(ular)" music? I would hope that the folks here are willing to step out of the mainstream and support bands that allow taping [wagnerone.com].

    Regards

  • Three Letters Spell FAILURE: WMA (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    These three letters spell failure for legal P2P: WMA

    Or you could substitute these three synonymous letters: DRM

    It is the Digital Rights Management properties of Windows Media Audio that will destroy any and all legal P2P schemes. DRM is just double-speak for "You can't do what you want to do with what you legally own." Sorry! I want to own and be able to download copyrighted music and other material legally, but I also want MY FREEDOM TO ENJOY IT UNRESTRICTED by any DRM crap. Until that happens, no on

    • Re:Three Letters Spell FAILURE: WMA (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ieshan ( 409693 ) <<ieshan> <at> <gmail.com>> on Sunday October 05, 2003 @11:58AM (#7137487) Homepage Journal
      Actually, DRM is double-speak for "You can't do what you want with what you legally own that isn't legal", or it's sister-saying, "You can't do what you want with things you don't own".

      Since you don't own certain rights to what you're listening to, they have every right to restrict it. There's a really good reply to this in the capitalist system we live in: Don't buy their stuff.

      No, I'm serious. It's one of those interesting facets of capitalism that people often overlook: if something is desired by the people, people will make it and sell it. Likewise, things that aren't desired by the people simply won't sell.

      Why do you use Linux? Why do you read Slashdot? Why do browse with Firebird? Is it because you don't support the other products on the market, or because yours have certain features that they don't?

      A great example of this is the recent block on cigarette smoking in bars around the Boston Metro Area. They've passed the legislation because of workers and consumers rights - people shouldn't be exposed to a cancer causing agent. A friend of mine brought up a great point - this entire idea is absurd, if people wanted smoke-free bars, they'd exist and be doing well *without* legislation that prevents other bars from having cigarette smoke. This is the danger - Microsoft and other companies forcing this unwanted legislation down your throat. You can either a) sit in the bar and not smoke, b) quit smoking, or c) go to a bar that allows it. The same analogy stands up when dealing with Computers and Operating systems - keep using Windows if you like, stop using computers altogether, or switch to something that's more viable for your needs.

      Oh, and about the lossless music - don't bother. It's completely not economical to distribute WAV files or SHNs across the internet. If you can really hear the difference between a WAV and a good mp3, you've got quite the ear. :)
      • Since you don't own certain rights to what you're listening to, they have every right to restrict it.

        How do you figure? Are you saying that first sale doctrine does NOT allow you to resell used music? Are you saying that fair use does NOT allow you to listen to music on whatever device you want (computer, car stereo, mp3 player, etc.)? Those are all prohibited by these various copy protection schemes. DRM isn't just trying to prevent you from doing things you're not allowed to do, it's trying to add a

  • Why do people insist on using the umbrella term "P2P" for Napter or its spawn? It was server based. In addition, I doubt if any of these new legal services are going to be peer-to-peer, how could one possibly keep it legal, when it is inherently not controlled centrally. So the answer is no, legal P2P services can't succeed, they're not even being tried!
  • The big problem I see with Mercora, is that everything needs to still be vetted by the powers that be. Everything needs to go thorugh official channels.

    I can't find live stuff (Especially multiple tapings and multiple levels?), no thanks. I'll stick to DC++, Soulseek and BT, thanks.

    Not to say that this software is completely useless. I think if the software is NOT bloatware/adware, has a decent interface+built-in player, that it could be an interesting way to explore new music. Depends on the speeds that

  • I _will_ pay. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by XenonOfArcticus ( 53312 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @11:27AM (#7137325) Homepage
    But only on reasonable terms.

    I have about 20Gb of MP3s. They're all mine. Ripped from CD's I own. Occasionally my CD was too badly damaged to get a good rip, so I've gotten a copy of a rip from a friend who owns the same album. Legal nit-picking aside, I think I have every legal right to do that.

    I've never bothered with Napster, Kazaa, Gnutella or their like. I make intellectual property for a living, and I believe artists and creators ought to get paid for their work. (A discussion as to whether they actually _do_ get paid anything by the music publishers is beyond the scope of this rant.)

    I want to buy more MP3s, legally. But I'm not going to bother with these half-assed more-expensive, more-restricted offerings. Sooner or later, they'll realize they have to offer equivalent or greater value to the consumer to win their business.

    I want to listen to my newly-purchased songs in WinAmp, right along side my existing rips that I legally own. And if I want to put them on my laptop and listen to them while traveling, so be it. And MP3 players, while cycling. And maybe burn some to a CD to listen to in my car. It's my music, I can do what I want with it. Anything less is unacceptible.

    Buying an entire album one song at a time and ending up paying _more_ than that album costs down the street at a bricks & mortar store? And getting a crippled, compressed, proprietary format that locks you to one CPU (what if it dies?) and only certain players? Who thought that was a clever idea?

    The end of insane music publishing margins and selling the same music multiple times to a consumer (vinyl, tape, CD, DVD-Audio, MP3, etc) is here. The industry needs to learn to trim the fat like everyone else, and actually deliver value. And, to treat their customers like customers, not criminals.

    I want to buy music. A lot of it. I'd probably drop $300 the first week such a reasonable system were available. And that's just the start. But lose this stupid business and operational model that they keep coming up with. Nobody wants less for more.

    • Re:I _will_ pay. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Nucleon500 ( 628631 ) <tcfelker@example.com> on Sunday October 05, 2003 @01:14PM (#7137856) Homepage
      Thanks, you saved me having to write that. In order to sell something, it needs to be valuable to the customer. Depending on what the thing is and how you provide it, you can influence this value.

      Selling music online, if done properly (iTunes without DRM, or eMusic with mainstream music) has great potential, because it can offer great value. You (would) have the convenience of files in the format of your choice. You could listen to them on the computer, in the car, in your home, on your portable player, or however else you want. You get the warm fuzzy feeling of helping the artist, and of knowing that you won't be sued. You don't have to go through the hastle of ripping CDs. You would get album art, accurate track names, and high quality rips. You'd have a wide selection, it would be quick and easy to buy music. Parents could give their kids a music budget. Few would download illegally, because it wouldn't be worth dealing with the shortcomings of P2P networks. The economies of scale are more than enough to make the artists rich. This is the potential of online music sales.

      The music industry doesn't see this yet. DRM isn't helping them. As long as there are CDs, as long as iTunes lets you rip CDs, as long as there analog speakers, and as long as sound is transmitted through vibrating air instead of through an encrypted channel directly into a cochlear implant or nerve graft, DRM does not hinder piracy! DRM cannot have the convenience of unencumbered music: it won't be cross-platform, players will be expensive, there will be the chance of losing the music, the system will be centralized, and music won't have the tangibility and concreteness of a file. DRM, for me anyway, will always kill the sale. Others aren't so idealistic, but the inconvenience won't help. DRM actively drives people to illegally download music from P2P networks. The sooner the industry realizes this, the better off they'll be.

      Two paths to sanity: First, the industry might pull it's head out of the sand, give us a non-DRM cross-platform multi-format iTunes-alike, and reap the rewards. Second, the amplified marketing power of the internet might let eMusic or similar services become so popular that indie music could supplant the mainstream. These are interesting times.

    • how do you make intellectual property? ;)
  • But the End User may not be aware of it.

    I seem to remember a paper written by one of the founders of TiVo. One of their original ideas was a video-on-demand service for cable where if someone put in a request for a movie, the system would query other cable boxes in the neighborhood to determine if any of them had a copy, and download it from there if someone local had it. The user still needed to buy a "license" to view the movie. As far as the user was concerned, his on-demand movie worked like it always

  • No digital (Score:2, Interesting)

    by contrasutra ( 640313 )
    Im actually against music being distributed digitally, rather then through CDs (or DVDs). Call me a freak, but I find music to sound too crappy in MP3 (or ogg, or whatever). Yeah, its ok for POP songs, but if Im listening to classical, or The Beatles, I want to hear it was it was intended to be heard.

    I dont see ever getting this quality online, even with broadband. I buy only CDs, and then rip some, and listen to the CD in my stereo. When I buy a CD, I have a hard copy of the best (sort of) quality, that

  • It WILL succeed ... as soon as ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fygment ( 444210 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @11:58AM (#7137490)
    ... art is truly valued by the majority of society. Which is to say maybe never.

    How about this as a theory. How often have you heard an artist explain that they can't help doing what they do? That it's a spiritual fulfillment? Well then, isn't that the reward in and of itself? And maybe subconciously sensing this, society feels that it doesn't need art per se but that if someone feels good about producing it, well then it can be appreciated. But should society pay for it? Historically, it seems the answer is no. It isn't as if, except in relatively rare occasions, that art is asked for on commision (think big picture here e.g. were musicians approached for hire to invent "punk" music as a useful contribution to society or we hire bands for concerts or entertainment but not to create specific songs for us).

    So maybe musicians produce music because it satisfies something inside of them. And maybe that's the payback i.e. feeling good about expressing yourself and connecting, perhaps, with others.

    Now the music industry is about making money and their M.O. is ostensibly peddling other people's art. But if most of society doesn't really feel the need to pay for it, then what hope is there for any selling scheme if a free source exists?

    It seems that the preceding reasoning would mean the music industry should focus on those circumstances where music is readily payed for i.e. the concerts, film scores, etc. The production of CD's would then be viewed as a form of advertising and hence an expense, not a profit making venture. In that light, you would conclude that the music industry should embrace P2P since advertising doesn't get much cheaper.

    Funny world ... but not ha-ha.

  • P2P? yay for semantics... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Diamondback ( 111383 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @12:35PM (#7137653)
    How is downloading your music from iTunes/Musicmatch/Napster 2.0/whatever P2P? there's no 'peer to peer'... you're downloading it all from a central server like you would any other data. It's not coming from someone else's personal computer that's sharing the data.

  • iTunes is still better. The songs are always there, they're always of excellent quality, the speeds are pretty good, previews are fast and free, AND you get exclusive content from artists up to and including such greats as Jimmy Buffett, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, and others. Can something that amounts to Napster with a fee come close to the impending Windows version of that?
  • is like bundling the worst aspects of both worlds. Legal music downloading is great... iTunes Music is easy and not even that expensive for a (mostly) uncrippled download that sounds very good. P2P means unpredictable download speeds, crap shoot for quality, and in general painful searching for songs, the only thing that makes P2P worth it is cause it costs you only your time, and even then I often check iTMS before I go to download a song. I value my time and the work of artists.

    The way execs have res

  • it's a great way to get your customers to pay your bandwidth costs. Of course it'll be heavily encumbered with digital restrictions. So yes, they'll be p2p, but it'll suck for the consumer.

    Oh, and what the hell's with $1 a song? At that price it's on par with buying a CD used, but without either a) nice packaging and b) a reliable backup of the data (remember those articles on how cheap cd-rs can only last a few years?). Then again that price is probably half buying it new, and the used market won't matt
  • I looked at the MusicMatch site to get an idea how similar it is to iTMS from Apple. It's pretty close, except for a real problem: Deactivating a computer is permanent. That, and I couldn't find out what format the songs from MusicMatch are (or a list of players for the "legal" music).

    I don't think that you can really call, MusicMatch's service or Napster 2.0 a P2P service. They're all really just a new way of the corps selling stuff to consumers. There's nothing peer here. Move along.
  • P2P will definitely survive. But P2P isn't the true future. The "industry" will be broken into two pieces: commercial and non-commercial, and the non-commercial aspect of the industry will be a hundred times larger, and serve as a breeding ground for artists. Touring will not be as important. More effort will be focused on marketing and distribution and online merchandising. P2P will be one of the major marketing mediums but will eventually be overshadowed by aggressive efforts on the part of the indep
  • I wrote an essay about the subject at sharethemusicday [sharethemusicday.com].

    The big problem I see with the online sites is not the legal issues but the usability. mp3.com and other free mp3 downloads use a web browser to serve music. Bad! We need a more sophisticated client, like p2p or bit torrent (or like the audiogalaxy satellite). I can't remember if winamp is good at managing mp3 downloads.

    I advocate a voluntary compensation method as the only credible way to compensate artists (and I fault commercial music webhosts fo
  • Convenience, perhaps. The ability to offer CD-quality sound. (if you think that's offered by iTunes or WMA, get your hearing checked)

    But few consumers now are going to buy the horseshit that we should actually pay for broadcast-quality content without some sort of value-add to the material.

    Their options are to come up with something better or fail miserably.

    If they think a failure and using the law amd the courts and attacking their best customers to protect their content and distribution monopoly will h

  • ...for those bands that choose not to get in bed with the RIAA, and allow their music to be distributed freely.

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