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MP3: On Artist Protection And Copy Protection
I think that if you spoke with most musicians, you'd be surprised to find out that we hold big record labels in very low regard. Big record labels, owned by larger companies, run by stockholders, are interested in only one thing, and it ain't music. And it ain't musicians, neither. It is, quite simply, profit, and whatever they can do to maximise that profit, they'll do it. I know I'm sounding like Jon Katz here, but in truth a lot of what he says about corporatism fits the music industry perfectly. At the top are rich fat white guys churning out pablum, or thinking up new and creative ways to turn good acts into pablum, because pablum sells more records.
The problem with record labels is, quite simply, that in order to ensure that they make the kinds of money they want to make, they won't take chances. And because they happen to control all the methods of physical music distribution, they're the only game in town. When the only game in town won't take chances, that means that if you want to play, you have to play their game, and you can't take chances either.
Before the Internet, it wasn't even possible to compete against the major labels -- but in the 80s there were still plenty of minor labels willing to cater to your needs. In fact, once upon a time there was a thriving indie music scene -- there were bands able to make a living doing what they did by working with labels who didn't mind challenging music. But something happened: the big labels found out about these small labels, thought they could produce more pablum, and bought most of them out.
Meanwhile, the record industry lumbers merrily along, stepping on all the talent it can find, robbing them blind, making them sign ridiculous contracts that give up most of their rights and bleeding them dry. And a few musicians get fabulously rich in the process -- that's the carrot -- but the rest of the musicians wonder what the hell happened.
That's the problem with the record industry. And one of the biggest problems with a record label is that, despite how much they suck in general, they are phenomenally good at distribution. They know how to get the word out to record stations, they know how to put your CDs in stores, they know how to schedule you on talk shows, they know how to promote -- and they can reach a much, much larger area than you can. One of the biggest selling points a record label has is saying "our distribution network can put your CD in stores worldwide." Every musician wants his music heard worldwide, even if he tells himself he doesn't care. It's part of being a musician.
Here's the theory: the Backstreet Boys have thousands upon thousands of fans in every town they stop in. The Baptist Death Ray, on the other hand, does not. The Backstreet Boys play music that is likely to be played in every city and every town all over the world. The Baptist Death Ray, on the other hand, is a more cultivated taste. So while thousands upon thousands of people in every town might like the backstreet boys, only fifty to a hundred people in every town might like the Baptist Death Ray.
With the Internet, however, this can cease to be a problem. No longer does the Baptist Death Ray have to worry about finding 100 fans at a time. The Internet is distributed, which means among other things that although in reality all of the Baptist Death Ray fans are scattered across the globe, the perception is that they're all hanging out at the Baptist Death Ray's Web site, the Baptist Death Ray pages on Listensmart.com, Mp3.com, MusicBuilder.com, Riffage.com, and Garageband.com. In effect, the Baptist Death Ray has found a viable audience for his music over the Internet that he could not necessarily find via geography.
That is what the Internet should do for independent musicians. And this, my friends, is a genuine threat to the big record labels.
So right now you have musicians like me who make some of our music freely available. We say "listen to this! This is what I sound like. If you like it, why don't you buy the CD?" Pretty simple, not sophisticated, but all new movements start out simple and unsophisticated. In time, this could grow into something the major labels can't stop, and that scares them a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. Once upon a time MP3.com talked a lot about this, before they tried to become another music label themselves. They called it a revolution. They were right, but then they went public and stopped talking about it.
But here's the truth: to support yourself on the Internet all you need to do is sell 10,000 CDs a year at $8 a CD. If you're selling through a model like MP3.com's, you can make 40K a year -- not bad for a musician! 10,000 CDs is nothing to a major label. 10,000 CDs sold in a year means the label drops you and never talks to you again. Your album doesn't even go aluminum at 10,000 CDs.
This means that if the public could get used to buying music online, the major labels would be screwed. They're not willing to sell CDs at $8 a pop, and plenty of musicians are willing to sell them for less. That is a revolution -- a revolution where musicians are suddenly supporting themselves based on whether or not their audience likes what they do and buys their work.
Then there's Napster. Napster seems to follow the model where the plucky indie musicians put their music online and compete against the big labels toe-to-toe. The problem is, Napster doesn't compete against the record labels. Maybe the record labels don't know this, but it's true... Napster doesn't compete against the record labels, it competes against those plucky indie musicians.
It's no secret that despite the "rampant piracy" of people trading MP3s last year, the big labels sold more CDs than ever before. People tend to like buying CDs; there's a psychological difference between downloading an MP3 and going to a store and buying a CD. Consumers aren't buying music -- they're buying CDs, with cover art and liner notes and a little poster inside and a few hidden tracks and a few spoken tracks and perhaps a limited edition signed thingie wedged in between the cover art and the CD itself. The record industry makes big stars, and owning the things that a big star sells is part of the job of being a fan. Trading bootlegs is also part of the job of being a fan, but buying the posters, the CDs, the T-Shirts, all that stuff is as well. Record companies will always make lots of money from CDs, DVDs, and any other physical format that comes after.
So yes, while there may be a billion people trading Metallica songs online, Metallica's fans will still buy Metallica CDs, because to their fans, Metallica is the greatest band that has ever lived. Despite piracy, record labels will be able to make money, gobs and gobs of it. Napster doesn't compete with the major labels -- Napster promotes them, whether either side wants to admit it or not.
Who Napster does compete with, however, are the independent musicans. While independent musicians are trying to convince people that they don't need to buy from major labels, that they can buy direct (for less!) instead, Napster is showing people that they don't need to buy music at all. So on the one hand, you could buy ABCDEffigy at MP3.com, on the other hand, you could scour Napster for all the MP3s and have it anyway. After all, the Baptist Death Ray doesn't sell CDs, he sells music. CDs are freakin' expensive. Liner notes and posters and colored cds and limited edition doodads are the kind of promotional, artistic things that record labels excel at, that they use to justify jacking up the price.
Meanwhile, the consumer looks at a Web site where he or she can spend $8 for a CD, and then looks at Napster and sees the entire contents of the album online, free. Pay, or free. It's entropy, people, it all depends on what requires less energy. Right now, maybe spending the $8 is more convenient than waiting two days on a 33.3 modem. When high bandwidth lines are commonplace, however, that will no longer be the case. The worst part is not that Napster makes it easy to pirate music -- No, the worst part is the overwhelming feeling among Napster users that pirating that music is somehow morally justifiable. Most of the arguments I see say that they're not stealing from artists, they're stealing from record labels who don't pay the artists enough anyway. Well, I have news for you, the artists, even if they don't get the amount that they deserve, still get something with every music sale.
So how does the artist make money? Well, the common response from the free music movement is "touring." But you all need to know about touring. Touring is not a good way to make money unless you have a core audience of a certain size. A "core audience" is an audience that of fans who love your stuff, and will go out of their way to see you play. Now, go back to the top of this article and read the bit about the geographical limitations the Baptist Death Ray has, versus the geogrpahical limitations the Backstreet Boys do not have.
Ideologically speaking, the people who defend Napster may very well be on stronger ground than I am. Perhaps copyright and intellectual property has run its course. Perhaps its abuses call for the complete and absolute revocation of any claim that any artist has to his or her work. Perhaps pirating music through Napster is the just the kind of direct action that we need in order to show the labels who, in fact, is boss.
What I see, however, is the death of a revolution before it even had the chance to get off the ground. I feel that even if Napster loses its court case, it's too late to stop the way things are going. Napster and its supports will, one way or another, win. However, the result of that victory will be that artists will depend more than ever on rich sponsors, which is all that a record label really is. You thought mainstream music sucked now? Wait a few years after you've won. It'll suck worse.
Signed,
The Baptist Death Ray
(bdr@baptistdeathray.com)
And in related news, ewhac writes: "CNet reported about a week ago that AOL has announced it will incorporate copy-protection measures into an upcoming release of WinAmp, the hugely popular music player (upon which XMMS is modeled). The copy protection technology, intended to deter music "piracy," is to be provided by InterTrust Technologies, and is also intended to be part of the upcoming AOL 6.0 release. WinAmp was developed by NullSoft, which was acquired by AOL a little over a year ago for about $100 million in stock.
Personal Observation: May we now conclude that AOL is no longer a customer-driven company? Because I can't imagine a single user actually asking, "Please take away my ability to share stuff with my friends." Sounds like it may be time for a Windows port of XMMS ..."
Here's a simple way to set up a place like MP3.com that can allow people to easily pay for music.
First, you set up a site to host MP3's, with a collaborative filtering system like others have mentioned. This provides some value to draw people in.
Then make all of the users on the site sign up for PayPal (that's why you'd want some value to draw people in). This is they key factor - without an easy way to pay artists, no one will. Then you could let users download songs, and either throw a bit of money at the artist as a way of saying thank you, paying for higher bitrate encoding, or just buying a CD from the artist online by clicking on a link that would generate a PayPal payment through you to the artist.
On the backend, you offer the artists a choice - you'll be happy to host the MP3's for 10% of any money sent to them, or if they want to host their own music you provide a nice framework and links (and possibly caching) for only 1%. This would encourage bands to build their own websites, which is better for the band and for you.
If the site was really successful, perhaps you could offer artists with a lot of downloads and fan support some use of studio time in different cities across the country.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying every musician should be a rock star. And I'm not saying that every musician should even be able to "make it" out there. But why is there an ideological problem with a musician being able to support themselves?
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Making music does take skill, and time, and effort. Like every other profession out there, it requires that you practice and improve in order for your skills to be worth the time of other people.
How is it somehow ideologically WRONG for a musician to be able to try and making a living off their work, but it's ok for a teacher, or a programmer, or an automobile manufacturer to DEMAND that they be compensated for their time?
And how is it that it's ok not to pay for music but it's not ok to steal a novel or a painting? Writers, musicians and painters are all artists... some are just more "respectable" than others.
Q: What is the difference between a musician and an actor?
A: The actor gets paid.
Sure, I know that a lot of people "do music" just because they want to become filthy stinking rich, but why do you assume anyone who would like to make a living from their work automatically has that attitude?
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+ The urge to destroy is a creative urge
Prgrammers have no god-given right to compensation. If there's no money in writing code, the market will adjust and fewer people will write code. Boo-hoo. How many programmers write code you actually use? There must be millions. The market is saturated to sickness. Many programmers write code because they love to do it, not because they expect to be compensated. I write code because I like doing it, I like what I create, and I want others to see it. If I make money off of it, cool, but that's not why I do it. If you were trying to make a living as a programmers, you had to expect hard times to begin with. Well, the market is changing, adapt. Finally. What are the implications of fewer programmers? Well guess who we're weeding out? The ones who are in it for the money alone. again, Boo-hoo.
Nah, it doesn't make any sense this way either.
It is really easy to say that something someone else created should be free.
But it's theft.
There's a profound difference between someone willingly giving something away (as in open source software) and someone thinking that they can take whatever they want, regardless of the author's wishes.
Too many people here are confused about this. To them, Open Source means "I get to take whatever I want". You can see it the way they bitch at people who put something out there that took a lot of work, free of charge and free for the usage. Pure selfishness. They should be thanking the authors for their work, not castigating them for trivial failings.
The music belongs to the musician. Not you. And while we may all applaud the musician that gives away his or her music for free, we have no right to demand they do so. That's selfish. It is the attitude of a spoiled little child.
And spoiled little children soon find that no one wants to give them anything. People will work for free if they get gratitude in return. If all they get in return is ingratitude, they'll just say "fuck it" and quit.
It is the difference between sharing and theft. Sharing is good. Sharing is people willingly giving what they have to others. We should encourage it. But encourage theft, and we devalue the producers. Do that, and they'll simply stop producing.
The cake is a pie
For an example, take the MPAA vs DeCSS.
We ALL know how unfeasable DVD piracy would be for joe consumer. But the MPAA has all their DMCA-enforced "access control" causing all inconvinence. Whilst REAL piracy rings are ignored...
For instance... in Hong Kong, Taipai, or even on the streets of San Francisco, Boston, or New York, if you know where to look, you can get substancially cheaper, PIRATED, DVD copies of just about every movie released on the format... and quite a few that haven't. Those that you can't get on DVD, you can get on VCD with little trouble. Hell, you can get a DVD of Episode I if you really want (it was released on Laserdisc in Japan... and promptly converted to DVD by enterprising pirates. Not as good as a REAL DVD, but better than VHS). These are professional piracy rings, who lay out the capital to produce these copies on a massive (economic) scale...
However, all of this is ignored by the MPAA. Instead we get crap like:
Regional encoding
Macrovision
Contractual ban on firewire output
Legal harassment of DeCSS authors/distributors
No japanese track on anime DVDs!!!
etc.
None of which combats REAL piracy rings.... But all of which are a hassle and inconvinence to *ME*, the average consumer, who just wants to view the DVDs that I bought LEGALLY; whenever, wherever, and on whatever hardware I like.
And you can bet your sweet ass that the RIAA regrets the existance of the red book standard which makes it impossible for them to pull that crap... unless they force some propietary format like DVD-Audio on us...
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
I have noticed among the geek culture that personal encryption is a VERY important thing. A person has a right to use encryption to ensure that her message is only read by the intended recipient. Now what is wrong with musicians and record companies using encryption to ensure that thier music is heard by only the intended recipient, namely those who PAYED for it.
Numbers 31:17,18 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,but save for yourselves every virg
In Jazz music, there's a tradition similar to the Open Source movement - musicians will take one song and start to modify it to their own whims. Charlie Parker used to take other songs and make riffs on them. (He also had to often had to modify a section, usually the bridge, to avoid paying fees!)
It's sad that modern music has gotten so commercial, but unfortunately, modern music lacks the same spirit that music once used to have. But we can remember that music once used to be different, and that an artist can survive on concerts alone. They used to do it, and if we turn the spirit of music back into sharing, they still can.
Here's an excerpt from an e-mail conversation I had with someone I met on /.:
/. mp3.com is a GREAT idea. It's great because it's purpose is to provide a medium for independent artists to be heard. But it doesn't work. It doesn't work because there's WAY too much crap on mp3.com. I've spent hours and hours searching the HUGE archives of indie content on that site, and I've come away with maybe 3 bands that I actually found worth listening to. Others were plagued with poor recordings, sub-amateur production value, and
I think it has a few major roles:
1) The label serves as a distribution channel, paying for the actual, physical media, the physical packaging, shipping to its retail outlets.
2) The label pays for artwork. The intellectual property that apears on the traycard, cdlabel and jacket.
3) The label pays for studio time and recording media for the band to actually get their music down into a reproducable form. This includes
production, engineering, mastering, mixing, etc.
4) The label pays for advertisements, television, PoP displays, radio spots, free distributions of singles to media outlets, internet ads, etc.
5) The label promotes and pays for tours, and special events/appearances which in turn, sell more CDs. They find sponsors, venues, do bookings,
arrange transportation, and all the other fun stuff that comes with touring.
6) The label pays for other media production such as videos, websites, and CDRoms.
7) The label provides management and public relations for the band.
8) The label serves as a screen, filtering out the music that won't sell, and contracting that which will. This gets rid of a lot of crap, but filters out some really good stuff.
(I might be missing something...)
The real kicker is #8. The others are a matter of money. #8 is a matter of function.
I think you mentioned mp3.com in your post on
pathetic musicianship and vocalization. When a label functions as a screen, it gets rid of these 'musicians' who think they're great, but are actually terrible, and promotes music that sells.
Now, this has always worked for a label. It's great that a label can screen, but there has always been an element of greed, which usually
produces a mediocre product, at best. This has always been a theme that has plagued the music industry, but has become more dominant in recent
years. Think of the Monkeys and the New Kids on the Block, Milli Vanilli (sp?). Those bands were money makers.
If labels were eliminated, who would serve the function of filter? The role of the label will CHANGE in the near future. Perhaps they won't
even be called a label.
It's also very expensive to lay down tracks in the studio. Studio time is REALLY expensive, but this is a matter of money, so it isn't as
important to me.
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[end excerpt]
The person who figures out how to make money from recordings without selling the music will be very very wealthy. There is already a great distribution infrastructure (the net) in place, but I believe that the key is filtering the crap.
Right now, maybe spending the $8 is more convenient than waiting two days on a 33.3 modem. When high bandwidth lines are commonplace, however, that will no longer be the case.
Higher bandwidth may help the unknown artist more than it hurts. Right now, it's a risk to spend a half hour downloading something you've never heard of and might not like. I've often taken the chance and been disappointed, and felt like I wasted my time. So right now, it's a safer bet to download a song by a band I've already heard. But if that same download took 3 seconds, then even if I listen to the song and hate it I won't care as much. I'll keep sampling until I find a band I like, then I'll order the $8 CD from the artist.
It seems that the people defending napster and its ilk fall into 2 categories. The first (which appears to be much much smaller) has a philosophical commitment to the free exchange of ideas and art and software and so on. The second, while claiming to be the first, is thinking "free music dude -- why should I pay for it if I can get it free." These are the sorts of people who justify shoplifting by saying "I'm stealing from Macy's (or whatever) not an individual" and who sneak out of restaurants congratulating themselves for getting away with something rather than thinking about the waitress they just screwed over. This is called stealing, and the last time I checked it was against most (all?) major religions, and the laws of most countries.
If you were trying to make a living as a rock star, you had to expect hard times to begin with. Well, the market is changing, adapt.
Finally. What are the implications of fewer musicians? Well guess who we're weeding out? The ones who are in it for the money alone. again, Boo-hoo.
Sausage King of Chicago
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
That said, I agree wholeheartedly that labels spend a lot of time screening in order to find what's most likely to sell. It's a process that's guaranteed to generate mediocrity, really.
I disagree with the notion that free-exchange technologies themselves screw the artist. It's like a gun -- it's a blunt technology that vastly amplifies the behavior of the user. Some people want to screw the fat music management companies. Some people find joy in ripping off the artist. I WANT to pay the artist. It's that pesky ethics thing again.
On the surface, what it missing is some form of micropayment that isn't yet technically feasible. Perhaps an EFT routing number stored in the MP3 tag information along with the artist name and song title, so that if I like the tune, I can send a buck directly to that artist's account. Maybe some other nifty low-overhead method.
But here's the catch -- it has to be voluntary. The reality that the music industry is unwilling to face is that the genie is out of the bottle. MP3 is a high-enough quality format for most listeners, so there's very little incentive for the listener to switch to an encrypted or otherwise limited format. SDMI is stillborn, and other copyright-control methods haven't even pierced the consumer sphere of awareness. Any near-future encryption and control technology will be quickly decoded and rendered irrelevant.
What will save the indie artist is a culture of contribution and support. A culture of control and enforcement doesn't just play into the existing music industry's hands, it IS them, it creates a NEED for them. On the other hand, a culture of support takes away the thrill of 'screwing the man' from music piracy, and promotes indie artists by sending the message "If you want to hear more of this, send a buck for this song to 325077763:765364:4." You have to focus on the culture surrounding the business before the business model will change, and have people WANT to pay.
I think not...(*poof*)
the Baptist Death Ray pages on Listensmart.com, Mp3.com, MusicBuilder.com, Riffage.com, and Garageband.com
These are the new record labels, and they are ripping off artists just like the old record labels. They want musicians to post songs to their sites, and keep ALL the income the generated. It's just a matter of time before they start buying physical record labels. Oh, wait. AOL already did that.
They all offer to sell musicians CD's, but no one is buying them. Plus, the musicians have to create pages at all the sites. Upload their songs over and over again. Re-type all their bios, etc. What a waste of time, not to mention doing self-promotion on all the sites, keeping track of all the message boards, multiple mailing lists, etc.
The best way for the musicians is the keep their mp3's on their own site where they can control the content and look and feel of the pages, keep track of downloads, and run one mailing list. Then have the new record labels link no them - and NOT deep link directly to the mp3 files. The band can then set up a system for micro payments if people like the music they download, and put banner ads on all the pages.
- daniel
- daniel
Turn off your computer and go outside
Music | Posted by timothy on Friday July 07, @11:00AM
Every once in a while, it's good to have someone slap you with a reminder [...]
Yeah! Every once in a while is good! Like last week. And the week before that. And a few days before that And the day before. And the same day.
8 articles in June alone regarding MP3's, 17 about Napster in the last two months and 7 YRO articles in the first 7 days of July. Everyone is turning the MP3 topic into their own personal martyr for whatever cause they think is worthy. It's not a revolution of freedom of speech, it's not a culture revolution of the record label owners vs. the bourgeoisie everyman artist, it's not even about the UCITA and whether or not my license to my music gives me various rights, or doesn't. Let's not forget what MP3's are about: portable music. Nothing more, nothing less.
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