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Grex > Music2 > #190: Net Music: MP3, SDMI, and Disintermediation |  |
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krj
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Net Music: MP3, SDMI, and Disintermediation
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Apr 27 04:41 UTC 1999 |
I've been trying to work up a coherent essay for a few weeks, but
news is popping so fast on this story that I'll just start this item
and let it wander.
MP3, for those who haven't kept up with the story, is a compression format
for audio files which gets the files down small enough to ship around
on the Internet, while (reportedly) retaining near-CD quality.
The MP3 format spawned a little subculture of young people who
got into trading bootleg copies of files copied from CDs. As such files
began to be offered on web sites, the RIAA (Record Industry Association of
America) started to go into a panic.
Also around this time, a new web site, mp3.com, sprang up. mp3.com
dealt only in legitimate mp3 audio files, and they also began agitating
for the Internet as a way for musicians to bypass the chokehold which
record labels have on marketing and distribution. mp3.com's news and
opinion pages are well worth visiting if you are interested in tracking
this story.
MP3 files had one drawback for mass use: you still needed a general-purpose
PC to play them back. In fall 1998, Diamond Multimedia came out with
a little pocket MP3 player called the Rio. The RIAA tried to block
the Rio claiming that the player violated copyright law as laid down
in the Home Recording Rights Act from the early 1990s, but so far the
RIAA has been losing in court. The case is on appeal; the Rio is for sale.
Promptly after the RIAA's first big court loss in the Rio case, the RIAA
announced plans for the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI).
The goal of SDMI was to create a system for Internet delivery of
music which would prohibit illicit copying.
The RIAA grabbed the guy who developed MP3 to head the SDMI project,
and they raced forward with an incredible deadline: consumer players
for Christmas 1999.
The major labels have also taken a hard line against any of their
own artists who have wanted to flirt with MP3 distribution.
A few rap artists were made to take down their MP3 files by their
labels, and today's papers report that Tom Petty's label did the same
to him. In general, the RIAA is following a policy of painting MP3
as an inherently criminal format.
Saturday's New York Times had a big story about the current state of
affairs. The electronics industry says that to deliver players for
Christmas, they must have specifications by June 30. But the SDMI
project is mired in fighting between the record labels, who want what
one unnamed source described as "a digital Fort Knox" to defend their
recordings against unauthorized copying, and the hardware makers, who
want the digitial file players to be simple to use and appealing to
consumers. Two big bones of contention between the two sides:
(1) Should these new digital file players play MP3 files?
(2) Should these new players have audio inputs?
Meanwhile, I don't see how SDMI is going to accomplish anything unless
the RIAA can obtain legislation enforcing SDMI unlocking/decoding
provisions at the hardware & OS level on all new PCs.
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| 54 responses total. |
krj
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response 1 of 54:
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Apr 27 04:42 UTC 1999 |
(( Spring Agora #115 <---> Music #190 ))
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flem
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response 2 of 54:
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Apr 27 05:43 UTC 1999 |
Personally, I tried mp3's just after all the free ones disappeared off
the internet. I was really disappointed with the sound quality, as well
as the capture programs out there. Both were pretty foul. I'll stick
to CD's for the foreseeable future.
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mcnally
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response 3 of 54:
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Apr 27 07:27 UTC 1999 |
Further complicating the picture is a new digital music format introduced
by Microsoft. Virtually nobody *but* Microsoft wants to have anything to
do with it, but Microsoft being who they are, it stands a decent chance of
"success" anyway. At the very least it'll be a legacy format that things
will still have to support years from now..
Unless I *really* misunderstand things, what the RIAA seems to want --
a digital format that can't be copied, seems to me like a contradiction
in terms. In order for it to be a useful digital format it seems to me
that there has to be some step in which the unencoded digital information
is available to the play device, at which point a suitably motivated
expert will be able to take that data stream and convert to whatever
format she wants..
The RIAA can certainly complicate that process somewhat by adopting a
really obnoxious format but I see no way they can stop it completely.
The people in the recording industry who are writing the requirements
for the new format just seem to fundamentally misunderstand the situation
and what sort of things they can and can't control. Certainly they seem
oblivious to the fact that unencrypted digitally-encoded copies of the
information they're jumping through hoops to protect are already available --
for a few bucks at any store that sells CDs.
I just really, really, really don't understand what it is they think they
can design into their digital format that will stop digital music piracy.
Other than handwaving about "encryption" and "encoded serial numbers" does
anyone really understand what it is they hope to do?
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mdw
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response 4 of 54:
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Apr 27 07:34 UTC 1999 |
There's no mystery about about what they hope to do -- they hope to make
it somewhere between difficult and impossible to violate copyright.
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scott
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response 5 of 54:
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Apr 27 11:10 UTC 1999 |
They really want the music distribution industry to stay exactly the same as
it has been.
I find it really interesting that while the above is going on, there has been
a spate of mergers and mass layoffs of both artists are record company
employees. Now when all those laid off people start looking for ways to
compete, they stand a good chance at beating the majors into online business.
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cyklone
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response 6 of 54:
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Apr 27 11:53 UTC 1999 |
I'd like to see some bands use a shareware approach to music distribution.
The free download would only include a portion of the artist's full
release. This would encourage (a) the creations and distribution of
"bonus" tracks (already a popular approach on things like anthologies)
and also inspire creative packaging, lyric presentations, and artwork (to
be included only with the paid for units).
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jazz
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response 7 of 54:
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Apr 27 12:19 UTC 1999 |
The record industry really should pay more attention to what happens
when it attempts to regulate industry standards like DAT; they succeeded in
killing the commercial DAT format in the 'States in the late eighties, and
Sony released the somewhat more successful minidisc format unhindered.
MP3 decoding chips are becoming increasingly inexpensive, as is FLASH
RAM, the most popular means of MP3 storage on the portable players. I've a
feeling that any alternative standard won't be anywhere near as inexpensive
as the Rio and her kin.
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lowclass
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response 8 of 54:
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Apr 27 12:40 UTC 1999 |
I'm not too familiar (or concerned) with the technical issues. As
a hopefully "starving artist" looking for a market, (writing) I think one
has to consider the success curve for musicians. Current industry trends
in the Audio market are those of consolidation and (potentially) lower
opportunities for those beginning a career in singing or playing. The
esistance of MP3 gives the beginning individuals and groups a chance to show
there wares, at leat potentially, to the world at large.
Maybe an adjunct commitee or group to ASP? (Association of Shareware
Professionals)
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nex
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response 9 of 54:
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Apr 27 15:38 UTC 1999 |
I'm a user of mp3's, and I can see where record companies get mad.
I do think, however, that it is a good opportunity for new artists to expand
their horizons, and get heard by many for posting mp3s.
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mcnally
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response 10 of 54:
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Apr 27 16:10 UTC 1999 |
re #4: I understand that that's what they *hope* to do. I just don't
understand how they think it's possible to control what's done
with the information once it reaches the consumer.
They can probably ensure that any sort of portable Walkman-like
player doesn't make it easy to copy and distribute the music
but I don't see how they can control what happens to it on a
PC..
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jazz
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response 11 of 54:
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Apr 27 16:47 UTC 1999 |
Unless they license the technology so that it is never used on a PC.
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mdw
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response 12 of 54:
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Apr 28 07:50 UTC 1999 |
Actually, it's more than that they want to make it hard to violate
copyright, what they're really seeking to do is to have a monopoly on
the music distribution business. Otherwise, they wouldn't be working so
hard to kill MP3 -- they would just concentrate on making sure "their"
music weren't released on MP3.
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jazz
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response 13 of 54:
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Apr 28 11:51 UTC 1999 |
Once something's released in MP3 format, however, it's no longer
re-licensable, so it wouldn't be possible for a record company to purchase
the rights to the music afterwards.
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raven
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response 14 of 54:
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Apr 28 19:26 UTC 1999 |
It seems like the protection scheme is pretty useless anyway couldn't
you just plug an adapter into the headphone slot of the player and
record onto DAT tape?
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drewmike
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response 15 of 54:
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Apr 28 19:55 UTC 1999 |
Probably. But then you've made two trips through digital/analog transcoding,
and there goes the quality benefit.
("DAT tape" = redundant.)
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orinoco
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response 16 of 54:
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Apr 28 21:45 UTC 1999 |
But aren't there tape recorders that will copy from one DAT to another without
turning the signal into sound and back in between?
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mcnally
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response 17 of 54:
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Apr 29 00:13 UTC 1999 |
Yes, certainly there are. But what raven proposes in #14 (take a signal
from the headphone or speaker out jack of the hypothetical digital music
playing device) is not using a digital signal -- by the time it gets to
the speaker out or the headphone jack, the signal has been converted from
digital to analog by the player. The tape deck would have to convert back
to digital to store on DAT.
I suspect that consumer models, at least, of any digital music playback
device to use these new formats will *not* have a digital signal output.
However, unless the format is going to be "unplayable" on a PC (and I
don't see how they could ensure that..) someone's going to find and spread
a way to rip out just the digital music data and leave behind all the
serial number and copyright metadata..
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krj
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response 18 of 54:
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Apr 29 00:44 UTC 1999 |
Ah, but under the latest revision to copyright law,
defeating copy protection schemes is a heavy-duty felony.
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lilwei
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response 19 of 54:
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Apr 29 07:36 UTC 1999 |
ok this text is very good
I feel it better than others
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ncric
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response 20 of 54:
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May 6 17:05 UTC 1999 |
Well I had to create a new account just so I could respond here..
MP3.com is doing some cool things for the indie music market (and they
will probably eventually break into mainstream too). For example, an
artist can send in MP3's of all their music and MP3.com will burn CD's
on demand, sending the artist 50% of the take. No real costs at all to
the artist. It's pretty cool. The only requirement is that the artist
selects (at least) one song from the album to be "free", so that MP3.com
can give the song away in MP3 format.
I remember back in '94 when I first started going to The Verve Pipe's
web site at IUMA, they had MP2 audio files of some of their songs. They
took forever to download! :)
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scott
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response 21 of 54:
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May 8 22:53 UTC 1999 |
My own feeling (my hope, actually) is that the ease of copying and
transmitting perfect digital copies will radically change the music industry.
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gull
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response 22 of 54:
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May 9 04:49 UTC 1999 |
Before, or after we've had a lot of our freedom eroded by business interests
buying off legislators?
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cyklone
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response 23 of 54:
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May 11 23:17 UTC 1999 |
The Sunday NY Times had a great article about the music industry and the
internet. Highly recommended.
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krj
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response 24 of 54:
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May 17 21:47 UTC 1999 |
From WIRED NEWS, 14 May:
http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/19682.html
The Secure Digital Music Initiative people are reportedly formulating
an Evil Plan to try to exterminate the criminal format MP3:
"SDMI backers want manufacturers to build a time-bomb trigger into
their products that, when activated at a later date, would prevent
users from downloading or playing non-SDMI-compliant music.
The hardware would initially support MP3 and other compressed file
formats, but a signal from the RIAA would activate the blocking
trigger.
"Hardware and software developers that refuse to build in the switch
would not have access to the SDMI specifications or the major-label
music that will be made available when the specification is
complete.
"According to a source who attended the SDMI meeting last week,
participants discovered that the Internet and music industries have
precious little in common. Coming to a consensus on the delivery
of digital music may be all but impossible, said the source, who
requested anonymity.
"Committee members from the technology industry were convinced that
record labels don't 'get' the Internet, where open standards are
the norm."
So, the idea is to try to trick people into buying a player which
will play MP3 files, and then disable the MP3 functionality after
(the RIAA hopes) everyone has thrown away their non-SDMI stuff.
Wow. My guess is that a version of SDMI with a "time bomb" included
will be DOA in the market.
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