|
Grex > Music2 > #112: Changes in the Music Business | |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 189 responses total. |
brighn
|
|
response 160 of 189:
| 
Aug 3 00:15 UTC 2000 |
Hmmm... $17 to sit at my computer for half an hour to download a CD onto a
generic CD, with no booklet, ... or $15 for a commercially produced CD with
booklet, no waiting?
Touch choice. I'll have to think on it.
|
scott
|
|
response 161 of 189:
|
Aug 3 00:51 UTC 2000 |
Online distribution may be more expensive now, but that pricing will kill
them. And long term online distribution has got to be cheaper... no trucks,
no excess inventory, infinite catalog space.
|
other
|
|
response 162 of 189:
|
Aug 3 01:57 UTC 2000 |
Ken, is that article on line? I think I'd have to read it myself to believe
something that incrfedibly stupid is actually suggested as a marketing plan
by a functioning business....
|
krj
|
|
response 163 of 189:
|
Aug 3 05:39 UTC 2000 |
It was in the New York Times online for August 2. Unfortunately they move
most of their items to the for-pay section after a day, though some of the
tech articles get to remain readable for free, so this article might
still be there. I'll have to check later.
|
mcnally
|
|
response 164 of 189:
|
Aug 3 16:59 UTC 2000 |
The only way I can possibly conceive of those prices being justified
is by using special "record industry math" (you know, the same kind they
use to calculate artist royalties..)
I realize that the record industry executives Just Don't Get It when it
comes to digital music distribution, but even they can't be so clueless
as to expect that to be a viable retail model.
|
brighn
|
|
response 165 of 189:
|
Aug 3 19:35 UTC 2000 |
Actually, I could conceive of those prices for out-of-print items, those
"Rarities" which some Napster users insist they're using Napster to get...
but not for items in current production.
|
krj
|
|
response 166 of 189:
|
Aug 3 21:18 UTC 2000 |
The New York Times URL for the story about EMI's plans to sell
downloads of music, including their pricing schemes:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/08/biztech/articles/02popl.html
|
krj
|
|
response 167 of 189:
|
Aug 4 17:19 UTC 2000 |
Anyone remember Copycode?
Copycode was Columbia Records' plan to put code markings into the audible
spectrum of recordings by leaving out certain frequencies.
The idea of Copycode was that this system would indelibly mark
copyrighted music, and then Congress would mandate that all recording
machines would include circuitry which would shut off if someone
tried to copy a Copycoded recording.
Congress punted to the National Bureau of Standards, and the NBS study
found:
1) Copycode was fairly audible.
2) Copycode did not always prevent the copying of encoded material
3) Unprotected material would occasionally trip the Copycode
circuitry in a recorder, causing it to shut off.
The NBS study buried Copycode, and it was never heard from again.
This was back around 1988, before Columbia Records was sold to Sony.
The concept, however, is back, under the name "watermark."
I have this from Usenet: I have not verified that it genuinely comes
from New Scientist:
Starting over
Record producers were appalled last week when they found they could
hear a supposedly inaudible "watermark" designed to make DVD-Audio
players reject copied discs. The industry's Secure Digital Music
Initiative (SDMI) had chosen a commercial watermarking system, called
Verance, which adds digital changes to music waveforms. The mark must
be robust enough to survive MP3 transmission over the Internet, but
remain inaudible when played on the yet to be launched DVD-Audio
players. After the disastrous London demo, an SDMI spokesperson
admitted: "We are starting all over again."
From New Scientist magazine, 22 July 2000.
|
krj
|
|
response 168 of 189:
|
Aug 4 18:28 UTC 2000 |
http://www.inside.com continues to offer interesting coverage.
http://www.inside.com/story/Premium_Story_Cached/0,2771,7085_9,00.html
discusses how some folks think the record biz needs to co-opt Napster,
not fight it, through a concept named "Superdistribution."
Essentially, you would want people to pass your content along and
become marketers for you.
There are also reviews of the early versions of the major label
legitimate download systems:
http://www.inside.com/story/Premium_Story_Cached/0,2771,7005_9,00.html
The title is really all you need:
"My Life In Hell, or How I Tried to
Download Pink Floyd, Legally." This discusses EMI's system.
http://www.inside.com/story/Premium_Story_Cached/0,2771,7677_9,00.html
This reviews the Universal Music download system. Quote:
"Apart from having a rather expensive, legitimately downloaded
song file rendered unrecognizable by the legitimately downloaded
software player, additionally off-putting were the 30-odd
screens of terms and conditions that must be agreed to before
using the Intertrust/Magex software."
There was a similar review in Billboard. This stuff is not ready for
prime time.
|
krj
|
|
response 169 of 189:
|
Aug 24 20:36 UTC 2000 |
A third major label has disclosed its plan for online
music sales.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000822/n22679178.html
BMG's prices are set at $1.98 - $3.49 for downloads of individual
songs, and $9.98 - $16.98 for each full length album download.
I wasn't sure this was a new story, it so resembled the
previous stories on the EMI and Universal plans.
|
mcnally
|
|
response 170 of 189:
|
Aug 24 22:42 UTC 2000 |
I'm baffled by who would purchase an album under such a plan, unless
you absolutely had to have it *NOW* (or rather, four hours' download
from "now")
So far all of the major label on-line music retailing plans I've heard
can only be explained by one of two possible explanations:
1) they want on-line music retailing to fail, or
2) they simply do not understand the concept of providing enhanced
value to consumers.
|
anderyn
|
|
response 171 of 189:
|
Aug 25 01:27 UTC 2000 |
at work, i could download an album fairly quickly. (i've usually been able
to get five or six songs concurrently, in much less than twenty minutes.)
of course, if i'm paying over ten dollars for an album, I want a physical
item.
|
other
|
|
response 172 of 189:
|
Aug 27 02:24 UTC 2000 |
i'd lay odds that these marketing shams are direct responses to an RIAA lawyer
suggestion that the record companies establish an online business model which
could be demonstrated in court to be suffering from the unfair competition
of the mp3-sharing systems, in order to either maximise damages claims or
comply with a technical requirement of the laws they seek to use to extinguish
napster/gnutella.
If i had to guess, that is...
(No, i don't have any inside information, just a theory about the law and its
uses.)
|
mcnally
|
|
response 173 of 189:
|
Aug 27 03:31 UTC 2000 |
I have, in my more paranoid moments, harbored similar suspicions..
|
other
|
|
response 174 of 189:
|
Aug 27 04:24 UTC 2000 |
considering whom we're discussing, calling it paranoia might be a stretch...
|
brighn
|
|
response 175 of 189:
|
Aug 28 04:04 UTC 2000 |
I don't see how that would be relevant unless the lawsuit against Napster was
only against future actions and not past actions.
|
mcnally
|
|
response 176 of 189:
|
Aug 28 18:01 UTC 2000 |
True, but even the record companies must realize that "What on-line music
business?" is a pretty fair rebuttal to the charge that Napster, et al.,
are killing the major labels' on-line music business..
|
brighn
|
|
response 177 of 189:
|
Aug 28 21:10 UTC 2000 |
I thought the charge was that Napster was damaging RIAA's business in general.
Also, there's MP3.com, a commercial venture, as well as ecommerce sites that
sell CDs (notably Amazon and CDNow).
|
mcnally
|
|
response 178 of 189:
|
Aug 28 22:20 UTC 2000 |
Another recent intellectual property-rights battle being fought in the
music industry is covered in Salon this week.
http://www.salon.com/ent/music/feature/2000/08/28/work_for_hire/index.ht
ml
Artists have been up in arms about a 4-word amendment stuck into the
Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act by a congressional staffer (who has
since been hired by the RIAA) changed the law covering sound recordings so
that such works were now classified as "work-for-hire" with the rights
belonging to the record companies, at the expense of the artists.
|
krj
|
|
response 179 of 189:
|
Aug 29 03:16 UTC 2000 |
What I loved from that article--besides reinforcing my belief that
the record industry is run by weasels--was the horrified realization
of the record labels that they were pissing off the artists whose
rights they were stealing at the very moment they needed the support
of those artists in the Napster battles.
|
mcnally
|
|
response 180 of 189:
|
Aug 29 05:14 UTC 2000 |
Yep. I'm hoping that as in any good Greek tragedy, their hubris will
bring down the wrath of the gods.
|
brighn
|
|
response 181 of 189:
|
Aug 29 16:40 UTC 2000 |
Yes. IT enables Napsterites to justify their theft, since stealing from
thieves is morally more sound than stealing from non-thieves.
|
krj
|
|
response 182 of 189:
|
Jan 4 19:15 UTC 2001 |
News item from mp3.com passes along a press release from musicmaker.com,
reporting that their board has voted to "liquidate and dissolve the
company." The web site seems to be gone, though I have been having
erratic browser problems today, so...
Musicmaker.com provided custom-made CDs where the customer selected
the tracks to be burned. I am fairly sure that musicmaker.com handled
the big Pepsi promotion of custom-made CDs this summer, which we talked
about somewhere else in this forum. (I don't actually have my Pepsi
CDs here to check.) Musicmaker.com was also trying to
sell legitimate music downloads.
Perhaps musicmaker.com was a victim of Napster, which offers a better
song selection.
|
dbratman
|
|
response 183 of 189:
|
Jan 6 04:27 UTC 2001 |
Someone - I think it was Mitch Wagner on sff.net - having tried Napster
and found bad sound quality, incomplete files, and mislabeled songs -
said that he's discovered how copyright owners will maintain a paid
market for their wares in the cold new economy.
Two words: Quality control.
|
other
|
|
response 184 of 189:
|
Jan 6 20:52 UTC 2001 |
/. reports that Napster has followed up their agreement with Bertelsmann
with a similar agreement with Edel AG, another major European media
group.
|