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.54 responses total.
(( Spring Agora #115 <---> Music #190 ))
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.
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?
There's no mystery about about what they hope to do -- they hope to make it somewhere between difficult and impossible to violate copyright.
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.
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).
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.
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)
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.
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..
Unless they license the technology so that it is never used on a PC.
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.
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.
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?
Probably. But then you've made two trips through digital/analog transcoding,
and there goes the quality benefit.
("DAT tape" = redundant.)
But aren't there tape recorders that will copy from one DAT to another without turning the signal into sound and back in between?
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..
Ah, but under the latest revision to copyright law, defeating copy protection schemes is a heavy-duty felony.
ok this text is very good I feel it better than others
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! :)
My own feeling (my hope, actually) is that the ease of copying and transmitting perfect digital copies will radically change the music industry.
Before, or after we've had a lot of our freedom eroded by business interests buying off legislators?
The Sunday NY Times had a great article about the music industry and the internet. Highly recommended.
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.
Every single piece of information I read about the music industry's reaction to digital music screams "THEY JUST DON'T GET IT." In fact, it's impressive (uncanny, actually) how thoroughly they manage to Not Get It. I'm pretty sure that their scheme will wind up deader than DIVX, but I'm intrigued by how much effort they're putting into a fight which I can't see how they can win..
Re #24: I'm not sure I'd trust Wired's reporting on this...their journalism has a strong yellow tint to it. Still, the theme lately seems to be big industry associations trying desperately to protect archaic ways of doing business. The National Association of Broadcasters, at one point, was pushing for a law that would prevent anyone from streaming more than 10 seconds of continuous video on the Internet.
Whatever they do, in terms of legal stuff, it won't work. The internet will not be legislated. There will always be enough Americans who will ignore or work around the law, until it's challenged and brought down, and, asside from that, the Internet is not just in America.
Yes, and the MP3 format is popular all over the world, not just in America. BTW, I just downloaded and paid for a really nice MP3 software the other day... it came recommended at MP3.com as "the only MP3 software you'll ever need".. it rips MP3's and Real Audio direct from CD-ROM, it'll convert WAV's to MP3's and back again, has a nice library function, good interface, etc.. well worth the $29.95 I paid for it 1 hour after downloading the "trial version" (which is limited to recording only 5 songs). Fat Amy will soon be making one of their old albums available through MP3.com's "DAM" program. What we do is upload MP3's to their system, making (at least) one "freely available". Then we set a price between $4.99 and $9.99 (Fat Amy has decided on $6.99). And when someone orders it, MP3.com will burn a fresh copy of it, include a jewel case and some rudimentary artwork, and send Fat Amy a check for 50% of the sales price. Of course, we're not expecting that anyone who isn't already a Fat Amy fan will buy it, but the album has been unavailable for 2 years now and there are a lot of Fat Amy fans who have been asking for the CD. Not enough to warrant going out and printing 1000 more CD's or anything, but this should definately appease those who really want the album.
The SDMI people have put out a press release denying they are working on a MP3 "time bomb" in the spec. However, what they do say they are working on is so complicated I have not yet been able to wrap my mind around it. See the news pages at http://www.mp3.com
"They" have contracted with a software company to make the digital file playable two times for free then, somehow, it becomes unplayable junk. The Fat Amy example is a perfect example of how new technology allows easier entry into the market. A tiny group like Fat Amy can satisfy their tiny following by going the MP3.com route of 1-offs, singly produced CD's. Remember, just because someone else's work is easy to copy and therefore steal, does not mean that it is easy to justify. You are allowed to make copies of stuff for personal use, but to make copies for re-sale is wicked and evil. Stealing for commercial purposes, for commercial re-sale is considered 1st degree theft, the most treacherous type of theft. The theif may not get caught right away, but will not go unpunished. Think how intellectual property production (music, writing, artwork) would flounder if only one copy of the original were purchased from the artist, writer or musician, and all subsequent copies were made with authorization by the artist and with recompense to the artist. Who would want to make a career of being an artist if there were no protections for their work? The impact of the Internet on the music industry, the telephone industry, the broadcast industry, the advertising industry is to eliminate tyrannical control of these industries. The Internet has reduced barriers to entry, and as a result, I think we will see less arrogance from those who erected those barriers.
...all subsequent copies were made without authorization by the artist and without recompoense to the artist. <correction>
I have decided to weigh in *against* having the concept of "intellectual property" in the law. Yes, this would tend to slow down the processes of creation of art, entertainment, and technology. However: * The music and movies and such aren't exactly blue chip stock; * It's my observation that technology tends to undermine freedom - both through responses to people misusing the tech (cars, guns, etc.) and by giving the powers that be more effective tools in imposing their mandates. Technology is a useful thing to have around. But I am not willing to support the feedback loop of undermining freedom to promote something that tends to undermine freedom. New stuff would still be written and invented. It would just go a bit slower, and have a slightly different set of motivations behind it.
Without a legal concept of intellectual property, how are artists, musicians, computer programmers, etc. supposed to get paid?
Contract performance would provide some pay - if you want live music, a program that fills your specific need, etc., you have to pay for it. The free recordings, especially, might tend to be pretty poor if the band, studio, etc. got paid the $ame (zilch) whatever the quality of the product (especially if the band thought too much good recorded stuff would undercut their live shows). On the flip side, where would all the benefits flow if the stuff was free?
So MY self paid training, abilities, and intellect are available
to YOU for free.
What was it you do for a living? I've got this list...
Fat Amy's "tiny market" sold nearly 3,000 copies of that CD over the course of time. But the demand died down a while ago and they didn't want to spend the $$$ to print any more, so this was a perfect outlet for the relatively tiny "remaining" market of people who still want the album. The good news of exposure for little Fat Amy on MP3.com is that in the 5 days since I posted "Purple" to the site, it has risen through the ranks and yesterday was the #1 most popular song in "Power Pop" with 70 previews and 25 downloads (which also qualified it for #10 in alternative). http://www.mp3.com/fatamy/
I have the unpopular, but probably accurate, view that the various entertainment industries exist more because of the pirates than in spite of them. I've not cared enough to do detailed research, but it seems to me that all the really popular media forms are the ones that can be copied with little effort. As far as I can see, there are a lot more outlets for music and video than for books, which do not lend themselves to duplication easily. If the industries could exert the kind of control they wanted, I expect they'd be bankrupt before they figured out what happened. I suspect that people buy things that they 'expense-spread' on that they would never consider if they had to pay the usurious prices that the entertainment industries would attempt first if reliable copy-limiting existed. DVDs seem to have soared in popularity right after word started going around that the analog copy-protection could be defeated by off-the-shelf macrobusters. (Region control breaking probably did not hurt either.) Translating all the above, I think that the entertainment industries are making more money because of the easy duplication than they would otherwise. They complain of lost revenue on the errant assumption that thier sales would not sink if copies were impossible. Not a politically correct statement, but I'd bet it reflects reality much more closely than any logic models of the industries involved.
So what you're saying is that the publishers have a very skewed idea of the real economics of their product? At the $16 list price of CD's , I buy few. I wait until I can get them for $6 thru the mail. I haven't practiced any 'price spreading' myself, although in the old days of LPs and reel-to-reel tape recorders, my music collection was augmented by wholesale swaps of LP stacks during vacations, so I guess this could be construed as 'price spreading' thru barter. I've heard it said that the old LP's cost about $3 to produce, and sold for $6, while CD's cost $.60 to produce, and sell for $16. If the publishers weren't so greedy, and accepted the same 100% markup, there's be little incentive for end-user copying, and the publishers would see much closer to their entire market.
A very skewed view, yes. Retail outfits know this to a degree. Sales of DVDs would be rather slower if the MSRP were used, which tends to be about $25 for the average disc. The stores bring the price down to about $20, the lesser per-item profit being more than offset by the sheer volume of increased sales. The online retailers are pushing it even harder, with with up to 40% off MSRP becoming the pre-order standard, and I've started buying there. The discount is in excess of the shipping costs by a fair margin if you order more than one disc at once. The various Intellectual Property interests will probably continue to waste huge amounts of money and effort on copy control instead of analyzing the patterns and optimizing thier pricing/control points. This is a losing battle, for every brain they can put on the project, a thousand brains, most of them better than the hired one, will be working to break the lock. Before anyone points out that there are wonderful, nearly goof-proof security methods available for this sort of thing, I'll point out that effective mass distribution means that such methods cannot be used, or they would be.
I think the unpopularity of books relates more to the fact that people want less involved forms of entertainment than to the difficulty of being copied.
Borders chain sold on the order of 3,400 copies of the Phantom Menance novelization and 2,000 copies of the graphic novel last week, in about the third week of release. Multiply this by a couple more large chains, then compare to the how many million that seen the movie this past week (or will see it in it's third week of release).
I have a freind who is selling CD of the Pahntom Menace for the cost of 2 CD. It axctually plays rether well on his computer.
That would be a pirated copy, I presume. That's rather illegal, and from what I hear, Lucas's organization is going after that sort of thing.
And they have stiff fines. It's like being fined $20,000 for stealing
a slice of bread.
One of my clients, AWARE Music, a relatively well known indie label in Chiago is getting ready to try digital distribution of some of their music, using Liquid Audio. I haven't had any experience with Liquid Audio yet.. anyone else? FWIW, Fat Amy has now sold 21 copies of "Ice Cream Headache" =)
Various MP3 stories continue to pour out: www.mp3.com's news pages
are, as always, a good place to start looking, as is Wired's continuing
Mp3 coverage at:
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/mpthree/
The RIAA's lawsuit against the Diamond Rio portable MP3 player was
thrown out by the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals
court judge ruling upheld the trial court's ruling that the Rio
is not a "digital audio recording device" as defined by the
Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, and thus is not covered by that act.
The first round of the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI)
specifications are nearly done, but not released.
Phase I SDMI equipment will play MP3 files; a future Phase II
will not. The SDMI people are racing a June 30 deadline to get
their specifications to the hardware industry.
(In other words, SDMI plans to be a parasite on the distributed
base of MP3 recordings, and then plans to turn around and try
to destroy the utility of those recordings at a later time.)
John Perry Barlow, a founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
and a Grateful Dead lyricist, was the keynote speaker at a recent MP3
meeting and he had some harsh words for the RIAA, comparing their
tactics against the MP3 file format to the War on Drugs.
"((Music publishers)) insist that they still own
most of the music in the world. I think music is the common
property of humanity."
"To fight SDMI, the EFF has founded the Consortium for Audiovisual
Free Expression, aimed at preserving freedom of expression from
copyright protection, he said."
http://www.eff.org/cafe/
News item: a company called Audiohighway.com claims to have been granted a patent which will cover all portable players which download digital music. Supposedly they applied for this patent in 1995. I think the Patent Office needs a few whacks on the head with a two by four.... this falls into the category of "too obvious to be patentable," as do so many of their computer-related patents.
<sigh> I agree completely. The PTO people just aren't up to the task of making reasonable decisions in the computer age. Complicating matters further, patent law has been applied to computer algorithms as the best fit among the various types of intellectual property protections that existed in law at the time it became an issue but "best fit" doesn't mean "good fit"
so this patent covers all laptop and palmtop computers with sound cards and speakers?
I still remember back in the 80s when someone was allegedly awarded a software patent on the process of element-by-element string comparison..
I want a patent on obnoxiousness in online postings. Then I'd refuse to license it, and life would be so much more peaceful. <g>
If it wasn't denied on the basis of 'obviousness' I'm afraid you'd still have to deal with a substantial body of 'prior art.'
And true obnoxiousness is, indeed, an art.
Online news sources such as www.sonicnet.com are reporting the conviction of Jeff Levy, who earns the dubious distinction of the first felony conviction under the 1997 "No Electronic Theft Act." Levy was convicted of running an MP3 server with copyrighted songs at his school, the University of Oregon. Levy could face a maximum sentence of 3 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, though he pled guilty in return for prosecutors' pledge to seek "the most lenient sentence allowed under federal guidelines."
You have several choices: