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Music Media Businesses Technology

Sir Mix-A-Lot Using Weed To Distribute Music 295

Posted by timothy from the single-entendre dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Hip-hop musician Sir Mix-A-Lot has made his new CD Daddy's Home available for download using Weed technology. Weed is a relatively new file sharing system based principles of shareware and referrals. You download the DRM WMA weed file and can listen to it 3 times on any computer before deciding to purchase it or not. If you do purchase it (at a price set by the artist), you will receive referral fees (20%, 10%, 5%) for the next 3 generations of people that purchase your copy. The artist always receives 50% of the price. Certainly an interesting approach to distributing music in a world of p2p and iTunes."
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Sir Mix-A-Lot Using Weed To Distribute Music More

Sir Mix-A-Lot Using Weed To Distribute Music

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  • Weed? (Score:5, Funny)

    by e r i k 0 ( 593807 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:12PM (#7940668) Homepage
    Ain't that what the RIAA uses too? ;)

  • I'm getting high (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:12PM (#7940669)
    Download rates... really fast! It's great!

  • First Big Butt Post (Score:5, Funny)

    by CptChipJew ( 301983 ) * <michaelmillerNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:13PM (#7940680) Journal
    I like DRM and I cannot lie
    You other brothers cant deny
    When a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist
    And p2p in yo face
    You get sprung
    Wanna pull out ya gun
    Cuz the RIAA aint tough

  • Wow (Score:2, Funny)

    by GoodbyeBlueSky1 ( 176887 )
    I can't remember the last time a slashdot title made me do a triple-take. Haha.

    Have to admit I was a little disappointed as I read on.

    • Re:Wow (Score:2, Redundant)

      by Thing 1 ( 178996 )
      Ha! Well, it makes perfect sense to use weed to distribute; I mean after all, that's what most musicians use to create music.

  • Weed technology (Score:5, Funny)

    by ZeekWatson ( 188017 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:13PM (#7940684)
    We had weed back in my day, but I had to *pay* for it. None of this referral paybacks. :)

  • People won't pay for DRM in the long run (Score:5, Interesting)

    by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:13PM (#7940685) Homepage
    You download the DRM WMA weed file and can listen to it 3 times on any computer before deciding to purchase
    it or not.

    Sure - it's a free tril so I won't complain about the format.

    If you do purchase it... ...then I get the song in a lossless format, complete with digitized cover art and free of any DRM, right? Because as a paying customer, I'd expect to get at least the sound quality and format versatility that the pirates are getting.

    Yes, I did RTFA - the format is no surprise. When the only option for online buying is DRM, it only encourages piracy because regardless of whether you're prepared to pay for the content, it's the only way to get the music without funny restriction.

    • Re:People won't pay for DRM in the long run (Score:5, Informative)

      by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) * on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:22PM (#7940754)
      I recommend MagnaTune [magnatune.com] if you are into non-DRM, lossless format music. They also are starting to get digitized cover art for their music. They have non-major label music that actually doesn't suck (unlike an MP3.com or similar, submissions must be approved and they are apparently at least somewhat selective), and their service basically encourages you to explore new songs and albums, listen to high bitrate MP3 streams and then buy at a price (of your choosing - between 5 and 18 dollars I think, with 8 dollars being the "recommended" price).


      About the only thing "Weed" has going for it as a music distribution system as far as I can tell is the pyramid scheme payment system. Kinda cool that if you get friends to try and buy a new song you get rewarded with a small cut, but I'm not sure how much of a factor that would be for most casual users.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:24PM (#7940764)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • As a DJ, I'd have to agree with the original poster. The quality lost by MP3s make them completely useless to me. The parts that you lose in converting music to MP3 are some of the most important ones when you're playing it through a 30.000 watt sound system.

        Of course, I haven't bought anything aside from vinyl for the past three years, so I guess I don't really care about digital anyway.

      • Re:People won't pay for DRM in the long run (Score:5, Insightful)

        by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:37PM (#7940879) Homepage
        What makes MP3s any less lossless than CDA.

        It's inferior sound quality.

        Its another format and thats it.

        It's a different kind of format. CD audio is not a lossy compression scheme, it's a way of storing samples. But you knew that.

        Look, it costs a couple cents to transmit a 650MB CD across the internet - half that if it's losslessly compressed. As far as I'm concerned, if I'm paying $$ for the songs, I should get them in the best possible format within accepted standards. I.e. I wouldn't expect 96KHz/24bit, but I wouldn't complain.
        • "Look, it costs a couple cents to transmit a 650MB CD across the internet"

          A couple of cents, eh?

          Let's see... Say 3 cents per 650MB... times 3 million downloads... That's only, like 90 THOUSAND dollars.

          When can we expect you host these files, so I can download them free of cost, from your provider, because I don't really want to pay *anything* for YOUR bandwidth.

      • What makes MP3s any less lossless than CDA. Its another format and thats it. As a musician (and more to the point, an engineer and tech for real musicians), I don't think I've recorded anything in the last 2 years where the master wasn't at 24bit 96Khz...that means any CD ya listen to is VERY lossy.

        Yes, CDs are lossy. However, MP3's are much more so. CDs use 16bit/44.1KHz audio, but so do MP3's (I'm aware it's possible to use other datarates, but it's very rare). When the MP3 is made from the (already los

        • you mean you can't encode files in Apple's AAC format or whatever it is that the iPod plays? You can only get files in that format from the iTunes store?

          mp3 sucks, we need to either settle on a better format or try to include ubiquitous support for other formats.

          • Re:People won't pay for DRM in the long run (Score:5, Interesting)

            by damiam ( 409504 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @11:05PM (#7942338)
            Ideally, there would be a set of standard formats (Speex, Vorbis, and FLAC would be one such set) supported by all devices and used by all users. Since that's not the case, sometimes we have to encode existing material into new forms. A lossless original allows you to create a Vorbis, WMA, or AAC file of ideal quality (the best that that format can achieve at that bitrate). A lossy original means that your newly transcoded lossy file provides lower quality at a higher bitrate (or significantly lower quality at a lower bitrate) than the ideal. Therefore, lossless originals are better.
          • >you mean you can't encode files in Apple's AAC format or whatever it is that the iPod plays? You can only get files in that format from the iTunes store?

            No, and you could have found this out very easily...

            Google search for: itunes encode aac
            The first hit is http://www.apple.com/itunes/encode.html [apple.com] which says:
            "Unlike some applications that limit the number of songs you can import in the MP3 format, iTunes lets you import as many songs as you want in either AAC or MP3 formats."
      • And people who should know better about audio quality piss me off. Only on Slashdot will you find musicians who so willingly embrace lossy compression in music that is being sold.

      • Apples and xeroxes of apples. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 0x20 ( 546659 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @07:48PM (#7941340) Homepage
        I don't think you understand what "lossless" means.

        Using lossless compression, any digital audio file can be duplicated for infinite generations and still be a perfect copy of the original. If you make a FLAC copy of an APE copy of a CDA file (all lossless compression methods), the 3rd generation is identical to the first. No audio information is removed. If you make an MP3 of an OGG of a WMA (lossy methods), the file will change and the sound quality will deteriorate with each successive generation, as more information is irretrievably tossed out each time.
        • I hate to break it to you, but you can make any number of copies of an mp3 without degrading the audio quality.

          You've only got a problem when you decompress the audio and re-encode it using another lossy algorithm.

          This is roughly analogous to making copies of something using any sort of DA->AD conversion (or A->A for that matter)-- you lose information during each conversion. This would include copies of tapes, ripping audio off of cds with your computer (burn a cd, rip it, burn the ripped copy, et
          • I'm not sure if you read the post. I was referring to re-encoding the file. That was the whole point... explaining "lossless." When you encode/re-encode any file using any lossy format, data will be lost. I'm not dumb enough to think a *file copy* would deteriorate. By the way, my digital audio collection is all in mp3. I personally don't care what encoding scheme is used (licensing aside) as long as it doesn't sound shitty to my ears AND it plays on most of my devices. I was just explaining lossless vs.
    • link [weedshare.com]
      To buy a Weed file, get the Weed software, find the file you want to buy, and click on the title. Buying lets you play the song on up to 3 computers, burn it to a CD, or copy to a portable player. You can also share the song with anybody you like.

  • Maybe In Certain Circles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Oculus Habent ( 562837 ) * <oculus.habent@g m a il.com> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:13PM (#7940687) Journal
    While this has potential in large groups of same-age individuals - schools, universities - I don't see this making significant headway in "the real world". I purchase most of my music, and I occasionally burn CDs for friends.

    The biggest difficulties I see it facing are:

    • Selection: If there isn't much there, people aren't as likely to use it.
    • Price: Artist-set prices could mean big variations. Hopefully it'll be consistent, but who knows.
    • Convenience: When three plays are up, how much more difficult is it to download the song on the p2p-network-du-jour?

  • Interesting approach (Score:5, Funny)

    by MikeXpop ( 614167 ) <mike@redcrow[ ].com ['bar' in gap]> on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:13PM (#7940690) Journal
    Even more interesting name. I can see the advertisements now. "Weed, the legal alternative to KaZaA"

  • Bandwidth (Score:2, Funny)

    by AyeFly ( 242460 )
    Never underestimate the bandwidth of a pothead DLing weed.

  • Baby Got DRM (Score:5, Insightful)

    by linux_user_31337 ( 737587 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:14PM (#7940695)
    While I'm disappointed that they're distributing DRM'ed WMA files (non-Windows users will certainly be out of luck), I don't want to be too quick to dismiss this. Any distribution channel that gives the artist 50% of the sale is already better than almost anything else out there.

    Can anyone think of a better system that gives the artist this much or more of the sale?

    • Re:Baby Got DRM (Score:3, Interesting)

      by segvio ( 540235 )
      The artist still isn't getting "50%." Whoever owns the rights to the copyright gets "50%." If you signed a record contract, it's probably your label that now owns the copyrights. Thus, of that "50%", you get whatever your contract said. A fringe-case however would be the completely independent artist, receiving all "50%."

    • Re:Baby Got DRM (Score:2, Informative)

      by harmanjd ( 414263 )
      Well there is magnatune [magnatune.com]. Not a p2p system, but a nice idea. They are a recording company that sells all music online and splits the price of the sale 50/50 with the artists.
    • DRM gives sellers more freedom to set the particular distribution model they desire--so we shouldn't be surprised to see worthy DRM business models that simply don't work without DRM. The (non-insane) objection to DRM is not that it has no laudable uses that cannot be done otherwise, but that it puts vastly more power in the hands of the sellers of content. It's all fine and dandy when it's just this particular artist who chooses to use a DRM technology in a way that most people would agree is pretty reas

  • Sure . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by RPI Geek ( 640282 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:16PM (#7940709) Journal
    . . . isn't the first time always free??
    In this case it's the first 3 times, but close enough ;-)

  • Where's the crack? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:19PM (#7940729)
    For the Weed DRM?
  • Now he just has to find somebody who would actually want his music, or shall I say, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it.

    I think his best bet to sell music would be inventing a time machine taking him back to the early 1990s.
    • I think his best bet to sell music would be inventing a time machine taking him back to the early 1990s.

      Just wait 5 minutes. [catandgirl.com]
      • His best bet would be if he could get anyone to remember the two (or maybe more) albums he made before "Baby got back". Swass and Seminar were both cool albums. I had never heard a hip-hop song with a cowbell in it before that (cue the SNL cowbell jokes...)

        Uh, but I guess this is off-topic. Oh well.

    • Re:That's Great (Score:3, Interesting)

      by illuminata ( 668963 )
      Hmm, somebody modded this post as a troll. Albeit this post was meant to be a joke, it's also the truth.

      Sir Mix-A-Lot hasn't had a hit in years. In fact, aside from a few minor successes, he only had one major hit... in 1992. Regardless of his distribution method, he is highly unlikely to gain widespread popularity.

      Weed will need artists with much more popularity to become successful, not just a fad like Sir Mix-A-Lot.

  • Nothing New (Score:5, Funny)

    by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:20PM (#7940741) Homepage Journal
    I remember back in the 70s, we used to get together with our old buddy weed and put on some tunes... Your friends would have some great album and then you'd go out and buy it.

    So weed has been making music-sharing happen for several decades, at least. Hmph. Internet.

    • I don't know what you call weed, but the last thing that I want to do is "go out and buy" anything other than some munchies after I've smoked. I can't imagine a record store. It'd blow my fucking mind.
    • I've found this to be true too, but I was really shocked the next morning that I could even remember a specific song I liked, and a few of the lyrics from it.

  • yeah, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jeffehobbs ( 419930 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:24PM (#7940767) Homepage
    ...have you ever heard Sir Mix-a-lot's album... on weed?

    ~jeff
    (red team go, red team go)

  • Pyramid scheme? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:27PM (#7940786)
    And if the artist and friends buy and buy and buy at the beginning, they can create a false landrush that may influence others to jump in early. "Look at this! This thing is selling like crazy! Better get in now!"

    Not a good idea, me thinks...no different than time shares and generic brandingiron futures.
    • " And if the artist and friends buy and buy and buy at the beginning, they can create a false landrush that may influence others to jump in early. "Look at this! This thing is selling like crazy! Better get in now!" "

      That's not a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme is when you buy something worthless, and sell it to a bunch of people for a similar price so that you have a net gain. Sir Mix-a-lot's product is worth...well... er... ok, point taken

  • The artist does NOT get half... (Score:5, Informative)

    by skizrule ( 701743 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:29PM (#7940816)
    50% of every sale always goes to the artist or publisher who owns the song.

    Even with Weed, the record industry still stands a very good chance of taking half the profits, unless the song was never released on a major label.

  • Those that meet their quota of referrals graduate to the amway program?

    Fuck the greedy sellout whores. They're the ones giving the RIAA its power (complete with the delusion that they are an actual law enforcement agency), and lord knows the RIAA had its chance to do right by us. They flunked. They have alot to make up for, simply doing it right isn't enough anymore, and I don't expect any kind of reparations.

  • Actually (Score:5, Funny)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:35PM (#7940864) Homepage Journal
    You download the DRM WMA weed file

    No, no I don't.
  • The similarity between average music and average weed are interesting. Both are grown easily in the home, and can be distributed at almost no cost. The effects on the consumer largely depend on the maturity and natural tendency of the user. Neither, on it's own, is are more dangerous than other products that are traded with fewer regulations.

    Both products become expensive because of government regulations. To protect the profitability of both products, distributors employ tactics typical of criminal o

  • After you download from Weed, you can burn your music to a disc with Alcohol 120%. But make sure you use a crack to remove the DRM first.

  • Thinking about the costs of doing it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rcastro0 ( 241450 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:42PM (#7940925) Homepage
    How can this be less expensive as a means of distribution than simply setting up a server and sell direct, like Apple did ? I mean, don't think about only bandwidth costs but:
    1) Costs of paying people down the pyramid
    2) Fraud Management
    3) "CRM" with the huge mass of "distribution partners"

    Unless they have some brilliant marketing concept hidden in there, which I may have missed, it seems like just a more expensive way of doing the same thing Itunes does.

  • I was going to collect a lot of referral money... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:44PM (#7940936)
    ...but then I got high.
  • I thought I was gonna get a free bag if I picked up his new CD. It would certainly help me sit and listen to the whole thing.

    Just kidding, I actually used to be a big Mix A Lot fan, like 12 years ago, and this method seems very fair to both parties. Artist gets paid better than thru the RIAA, and the customer gets to listen before they buy. Perfect!

  • Poor marketing foresight. (Score:5, Funny)

    by jhobbs ( 659809 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @06:45PM (#7940941)
    Mastercard - Sept 9 - Oct 8

    $4.99..................Weed

    Deja Vu man. This will be like when I called the hints line at Virgin Interactive. Took forever to explain to my parents that $3.99 to a 900 line called Virgin Entertainment was not a phone sex line.

    Honestly though, I wonder if anyone has though about what a tough sell this will be, not to the target demographic, teenagers (they'll love it), but the source of their disposable income, their very uncool parents.

    My crystal ball keeps showing me a Chevy Nova.

  • I had a quick look at the site...

    I couldnt find anywhere telling me which direction I should pass it on.

    I just wanted to make sure everyone gets their fair share of hits.

  • Coopting the term "Weed" -- Live music distro (Score:5, Informative)

    by oboylet ( 660310 ) on Saturday January 10, 2004 @07:19PM (#7941156)
    The term weed has frequently been used in live music trading circles to refer to a method of distributing your favorite phish/dead/moe./sci show quickly. Out of generosity on person seeds the show to two people absolutely free, no blanks, no postage, etc. The only string attached are that each recipient in turn gives it to two more people for free. And so on, like rabbits. peace.
  • the amway of the digital age...
  • The thing I don't get about any of this DRM stuff is what makes the artist/record company think people won't use something like Silent Bob (or any other streaming audio recorder) to workaround their protections?

    The audio quality is not as good as in the original file but then you can take the WAV file created by Bob and convert that to whatever format you like (MP3, OGG, etc...). This is definitely not legal and the artist loses out on the payment. I wonder if anyone bothers to tell the artists that this

  • Hey,

    Shameless self promotion:
    www.hearsaymusic.ca, canadian independent artists
    artists get 45cents for each dollar song (oh, notice the .ca, thus you may have guessed we're talking canadian dollars).

    There currently is an huge selection of 3 artists :-), with a forth coming in a few hours... we are always looking for more independent artists.

    cheers
    warren

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