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Tiny, Secure Music/Data CDs Due in the Fall
An anonymous reader submitted a story about a new recordable disc the size of a quarter, that holds about the same amount of data as a CD. Of course its an intermediate step before we
simply stream all audio from the net, but the RIAA sure is making that
obvious last step a royal pain.
I used to think this was all audiophile whinging - until I heard a 128Kbit MP3 of a song that I'd been listening to quite a lot in my car CD and I could tell it was worse than the CD version. Not by a huge amount, but it was still noticeable.
Now, imagine lots of fed up people like you and I that might have cd burners and high speed internet connections. We will always find a way to trade music even if they bring down napster, so then we make our own CD's. We simply record the audio from MTV or however we want in order to get the mp3's we need. Of course, I can see the quality increasing in digital audio as well so that we get CD quality files on our hard drives, and simply write the cd's ourselves.
Also, this could become a big pirate business. Because noone will be able to play music with these handicapped disks, people will look for alternatives. We could start burning CD's for our friends and family for $1 a piece, bypassing the record labels and (unfortunately) the artists. The RIAA is shooting themselves in the foot with this technology I think. We've gotten too used to CD's and there is too much money already in the CD players, and the future is the mp3 player, not this minidisk that has it's crippleware.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
Yes, there is a difference between Coke (tm) and Pepsi (tm). Just like there's a difference between S-video and Composite, as between DVD and VHS. Similarly, any serious audiophile (and probably anyone else who listens for music quality) will be able to tell the difference between an MP3 and a CD. I can certainly tell the difference, even on my not-so-great PC speakers.
Others have commented on the difference between MP3, OGG, and CD. I don't know yet, because until Icecast streams Ogg Vorbis format, I won't bother re-ripping my CDs.
Yes, I think so. I don't know who else agrees with me, but:
- CD's don't fit into pockets.
- CD's scratch easily as they are not protected by any casing like floppies and these new DataPlay discs.
- Portable CD players are terribly bulky as they must house fair sized motors to spin heavy and unweildy CD's and must house the CD entierly.
- CD's are still primarily a music meduim. Aside from the breach into the software installers, backups and games market, they are not too successful at photo storage, video storage and are silly for e-books.
That's just off the top of my head anyway. It's a format that is targeted at data storage in general.The dataplay marketing machine at least is doing it's job well. Prop-a-ganda worked for me! (read as hooked-on-phonics)
How exactly is the music going to be CD quality if you can store 5 hours on 500 megs. What type of compression is being used on the discs. I can't stand MP3's simply because of their lossy compression and will not support any other format that uses similar compression.
Doesn't matter anyway, because I'd end up losing the discs between the cushions on my couch. I think I'll stick with CD's until DVD-audio becomes a reality.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
"We are in need of a new format," says BMG's Sami Valkonen
looks like we know where they stand. sales slump, so they try to get people to go out and re-buy all their old cds.
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
Even now my CD's are sometimes hard to find. Now they're making them even smaller.
Second, AOL en Compuserve CD's made such nice coasters for my all my cups of coffee. Does smaller CD's also mean smaller cups of coffee?
Coincidence? No.
Don't hold your breath waiting for truly durable media -- just think of all the lost resales the music industry would 'suffer' if Joe/Jane Average never scratched a CD without having a backup...I know I've myself rebought at least 5 CDs in my lifetime due to lost or badly handled media. The cynic in me is screaming that the size reduction here is largely for the purpose of boosting incidence of lost mini-CDs...but alas.
They already have defined most of what constitutes "Fair Use". What's left has to be judged on a case by case basis, which is why people like the RIAA and the MPAA wanted (and got, ouch.) the right to make the process of utilizing "Fair Use" technically illegal. (see DMCA).
o de17&STEMMER=en&WORDS=fair+us+&COLOUR=Red&STYLE=s& URL=/uscode/17/107.html#muscat_highlighter_first_m atch)
Here's something to get you started:
US CODE Title 17 - copyrights
"Sec. 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a
copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords
or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism,
comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use),
scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining
whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be
considered shall include -
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in
relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or
value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not
itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all
the above factors. "
(from http://www4.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/htm_hl?DB=usc
Of course that section doesn't include such things as time-shifting, space-(aka format)shifting, reverse engineering, or making backups of things you legally own. I don't have those laws/rulings at my finger tips but "Sony vs. Betamax" & "Concentrix vs. Sony" come to mind.
Then there is that pesky little thing known as the "First Sale Doctrine" (look for the media companies wanting to 'license' not sell audio/video/ebooks)
That's enough for now though.
Do a seach on google for "Fair Use" copyright
I hope that helps.
someone247356_AT_yahoo.com
Unfortunately, I think the average public would buy them. It will take a while to catch on, like the CD did, but if they get shelf space in the music stores and there are cheap players everywhere for them, they will catch on.
There will have to be lots of cheap players. $200 portables won't sell the format. A $59.99 boombox at wal-mart will, and a car player for $200, and a component stereo player for $150, and a computer-drive player that comes with your computer. There have to be players everywhere, with base models affordable by everyone.
And they'll get away with it because the average comsumer doesn't make backup copies of his music. The average consumer is actually pretty computer illiterate, and just loans out his CDs or makes a tape. The average consumer doesn't think FM Radio sounds any worse than CDs. The average consumer puts one speaker in the living room and the other in the kitchen and never notices that his music sounds different depending on what room he's in. The average consumer will think the little discs are "cool" and want to be the first to have them.
sad, but true.
wishus
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The old 10p, derived from the 2 shilling coins of the early 1800s, or the newer 10p introduced within the past 10 years?
Thus was born the wasteful cardboard box, designed to make the CD the same height as an LP. But how long did that really last?
I seem to recall they were gone fast (1-2 years), especially in the "hip" music stores that wanted to show they were with it. Expect the same here: it will take a few months before stores start changing over, assuming the new format takes off.
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Small is just not ergonomic. It's why wristwatch calculators are still just an ultrageek niche, and Dick Tracy radios never caught on.
Anything smaller than a floppy is just too hard to handle, organize, and keep track of. Imagine storing 500 of those little discs, and then finding the one you need? What a pain in the butt.
I can see the fnords!
How exactly is the music going to be CD quality if you can store 5 hours on 500 megs.
500 megabytes / 5 hours * 8,000,000 bits/megabyte / * hr/3600 s = about 224 kilobit/s. And 224 kbit is just about enough for sounds-just-as-good-as-a-CD quality; see also r3mix.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
-- ER, listening to his new, kick-ass MD player as he posts this
1. Those who listen to the sound.
2. Those who listen to the music.
Group 1 can tell the difference, and are bothered by it. Group 2 can probably tell the difference as well (I haven't tried), but don't really care that much as long as the musical ideas come through fine.
Guess that now makes two of us...
The music industry could decide to artificially sell this (or another) new format for a lower cost than CDs. They could make some bogus argument about the 'high cost' of CD pirating to justify the high price of CDs. Lower prices could give people the (short term) incentive to change format full of 'content protection.'
I know. I felt compelled to reply, having bought a MD player over MP3 player only two days ago. When I saw the number of replies, I felt a big YHBT sign light up. :)
Everyone who matters is on the net.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
[whack]ghoti gets a tap in the back of the head with a clue stick[/whack]
:-D
Geez, you don't get it do you? The Internet is NOT a place to store stuff - it is a public communications network
Quote:
Now I don't think networks will ever replace storage media. Of course, everything has to be stored somewhere, but that's not what I mean.
Umm, one does NOT store data on a network, one stores data on storage media. The storage media is accessed from the net.
If I have enough bandwidth (isn't 44 KBits/second enough for CD quaility?) I could access my personal MP3 server behind my firewall connected to my @Home pipe with my VPN client. All of that gear is in my home, even though I access it from any Internet access point. Yup, I can get to my legally purchased and ripped CD collection from wherever I have sufficient access - be it wireless or whatever. That is the crux of the argument here - I paid to listen to the content, so I should be able to get at it from wherever I am.
'Nother quote:
Another point is access speed. No network can ever be as fast as locally existing media. I can easily and very quickly browse the stuff on my harddrive and find everything at once. That is not the same with the net, which takes much, much longer. And the network is certainly not as reliable as my harddrive. Yes, it gets better, and there are few problems now. But still, there are many more things that can go wrong, so it's much more likely to be a problem.
AOL giving you fits?
As long as the RIAA and other organizations that oppose consumer freedom allow that. Actually, I can do that too to my personal stuff on my personal servers behind my personal firewall - "ls -l \mp3z\rush\*.mp3" don't take a whole lot of time across a reasonable PPP connection. And I do everything I can to make sure my connection is reliable and secure. (I paid to use all the content on my hard disk, and feel others should do the same, so I secure my access to it to the best of my ability. Wish I could just give the money to the artists instead of the corporate elite, but that's a different story.)
With this tiny media, the industry is trying to kill one of the reasons for MP3s - solid state storage, a la RIO et. al. Anyone can make MP3s for thier RIO, but not these disks.
If the RIAA had thier way, any internet router would drop packets from any MP3 stream, or inform them so they can a$k you where the $ong came from. And I've lost a little more of my freedom.
Hope I've given you a clue - don't ever trade freedom for convenience.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Sure there is. you can have a 2" disc that also has videos and such on it, and crap.
besides, Taco is a tool, he keeps forgetting that 99% of the population can't get broadband yet, and 80% won't be able to for 5 years at least.
---
Desperation is a stinky cologne
Yeah I'm having some re-direct problems... udel.edu/~jgephart/ works
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Let me give you the lowdown
Surely something so simple could be easily cracked.
To me, if it's encrypted, cracking it is far from "simple". If you're a crypto expert, then yeah, you can reverse engineer it perhaps, but Joe Linux (me) won't be cracking this anytime soon.
I mean, SDMI was a huge failure, how can they expect these not to be?
I think you have it backwards. If I put out a product that was a "huge failure", I would improve upon that product and re-release it, which is what seems to be happening in this instance.
RIAA is pissed, and they probably made a helluva scheme this time.
Remember that the next time you come over and fancy some cheap gum.
Rich
Ummm...I don't want to "simply stream all audio data off the net". I want my audio data here in my hands (or in my drawer, or on my harddisk). That's the whole point of this whole Napster thing (which I'm pretty sure you've heard about, since it's all we talk about anymore). It isn't about "We want to be able to download"--it's about "We want to be able to do what we want with the stuff we own (which includes downloading)".
I mean, what if www.riaa.com started offering downloadable SDMI (or similarly encrypted) music files tomorrow provided that you could only listen to the stream, not save it or time-shift it or anything. Thanks but no thanks. I don't want a specific medium, I want a choice of mediums.
--
324006
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
And now, finally, we have the RIAA's latest weapon in the fight against "music thieves". Change the media. Put out another media format, spend your millions hyping it and telling everyone how great it is, watch the CD die a slow, painful death.
I'm not saying this new thing won't be cool or useful, but don't be fooled. The one reason above all others this format is going to be pushed is so record companies can gain back some control they've lost.
Roger Dean, Mouse and Kelly, the whole Hipgnosis team... its really kinda sad to see an artform pushed aside like that.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
ACtually the opposite could be true. The companies like the tobacco and booze companies already have the infrastructure and in some cases the equipment that would be needed to sell Marijuana as a consumer product. If the government threw on a couple hidden taxes and licensed some "dealers" everybody's happy. Even the quality of the marijuana would go up and you'd never have to be afraid of buying weed laced with heroin or speed.......
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
Mini-discs died a pretty miserable death, and the continued failure of people to adopt any of the other recordable mediums suggest that we're pretty content with CD's for the time being. I think that there is a sort of law of diminishing returns with size, and anything smaller than a CD doesn't appeal to many people.
Any new medium must offer something substantial for it to be adopted. In the case of CD's it was quality of music. For MP3's it was transferability and effective HD storage. What new quality is offered by these disks that doesn't already exist in another form? Are CD's at 4.75 inches in diameter and negligable thickness really that inconvenient?
The next wave in media will most likely be based not on size but on durability. This is the one area where all current forms of storage are severly lacking.
As near as I can tell, it isn't an RIAA or SDMI initiative. These guys have a good product, but it has nothing to do with any format; they just make a small WORM drive. Of course, if the RIAA has any interest in the device, they wouldn't make it obvious.
They do have the minimum amount of market-speak hoopla to show that using the WORM characteristics, a number of copyright control schemes can be implemented, however, most of these will be at the controller level, not at the device hardware.
Take their unlockable data; basically this means that software is stored in an encrypted state -- the consumer is able to purchase a key which will be stored on a special part of the disc. Other schemes that are possible would be media with a limited lifetime -- just store a timestamp on first listen, and have the controller refuse to play after a certain time.
All of these schemes (and others I haven't discussed) are based on restrictions in the controller. These guys just sell the mechanism, and as near as I can tell, it has no secure policies hardwired into it.
Mind you, that doesn't make it obvious that there will ever be a device sold that without draconian controllers attached. Witness the Minidisc. It would have been a kickass removable media a few years back for computers, but no computer drives were ever produced, as this would have undermined the security of the SCMS that sony was betting on.
So while music media moguls would love to replace all the CD players in the world with their protected proprietary system, it's simply not going to happen. This is just another MiniDisc in the making. Now this MIGHT work as a media for PDA applications and data, but for music, we have our CD's and we have our MP3s. DataPlay offers no benefits for the end user compared to these.
Um. None of that sound doctoring stops at the concert, unless you mean an orchestra concert. Have you ever seen the huge mixing panels in use at a concert? Have you noticed that they use amplifiers? Guitar pedals? Microphones? Those all change sounds.
Or for an even better example, the one time I did spend money on a Metallica ticket, the sound quality at the live show was terrible. All of the speakers were facing somewhere else, so all I really got to hear was echos-- which in a stadium is a severe distortion because of the size of the room.
But I can't really tell when I've converted a song into mp3 then burned it back as AIFF/WAV on CD in a mix. I've found some mp3-players (especially the free ones for Mac OS), though, that really blow-- washed out sound, etc etc.
I do not have a signature
Do they deliver magnifying glasses with a music CD, because otherwise it's a bit hard to read the lyrics :)
This is the same disc mentioned on slashdot earlier.
Here Dataplay
Remove the spam reference to email
(Donning asbestos long johns...)
This is another example of technological measures to enforce copy right, which will inevitably lead to somebody cracking the technological means, lawsuits, destitute geeks, and wealthy lawyers.
We need to know (in the US at least) What is fair use.
OK, this thing is definitely going to keep me from extracting small portions of a cd for purposes of review, etc. which has always been upheld as fair use. The RIAA is almost cetainly not afraid of me doing this, they're afraid of me Napstering albums. But they feel they have to do something.
OK, its time for Orrin Hatch to carry out his threat and ask the Congress to define "Fair Use".
What would this do for Us ?
1. Buisiness owners who depend on production of copyrighted material would KNOW what can and can't be done. Technological measures which prevent legal fair use would *NOT* be protected.
2. Buisinesses would LIKE this. All buisinessmen LOVE determinism, all they really want is to know what they can and can't do... and then beat up competitors for the can't.
3. We would love this. We would know what we CAN do, and would have a legal leg to stand on, as opposed to having some ignorant judge use an undefined concept like fair use is now to uphold what he sees as "pirates" against a "legitimate" buisiness.
Technological means of copy control are going to be upheld by the courts until such time as the courts have SOMETHING codified to look at (that's what they like). An incontrovertible definition of fair use would provide this.
-- Rich
Free your mind and your Ass will follow -- George Clinton
A quarter is a denomination of US money. It is valued at US$0.25. It is a round metallic coin of measurements: 24.26mm (diameter) x 1.75mm (thickness) and weighs 5.670 g. It has a reeded (ridged) edge with 119 reeds. The front has a embossed picture of the first US president, George Washington. The back has a embossed picture of an eagle (the US symbol for freedom).
t ion=coin_specifications.
Info on other US coins can be found here: http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/index.cfm?ac
No, it's free money for the record companies. If they can put three or four albums on there "if you liked this album, perhaps you'll like these" they can hypothetically sell you 3 additional albums without spending a single cent on marketing them. It's the perfect place to put lesser known or niche acts that don't have enough momentum or mainstream appeal to be marketed on their own. If you use a scalable encoder format, they could offer you teasers at a crap bit rate, and then just sell you the additional bits. (does OGG do this?)
They'd be kinda like a B-side album. Can you imagine the stigma of being a bonus album act, tho? Destined never to sell an album by yourself, never headlining your own album...
There are a few negatives:
1) risk; lose the disc (easy, given the size) and you're down three albums.
2) duplication; if the same bonus album is on several discs, do I get to unlock all of them with one purchase? What if I then give one away?
3) quality; there's only 500 MB, so that works out to 125 MB per album, which isn't going to make the sound quality people happy. Perhaps this can be ameliorated if they use a VBR encoder with manual hinting -- this would be a new trade, the compression engineer, whose job it is to decide the bit-budgets for various parts of the album ("let's give the intro skit 96 kbs, which should allow us to push up this dynamic bit into the 300 odd kbs"). I'd expect some albums to be sold with "gold" compression, and cost more, but take up all 500 MB for one recording. Classical music especially, which will be longer than a typical album, and also appeals the quality conscious and price-insensitive listener.
I notice that most of the other posters here claim "MD isn't dead" but every time I'm at BestBuy or the like I see an increasingly smaller MD display and more emphasis on CD-R(W). MD prerecordeds are nonexistant (Sony had a few titles from their own in-house labels, I never saw others).
That being said, I believe MD is a superior technology. I just wish that Sony would get off their arses and give us MP3 capabilities. Somebody did a great mockup of a Palm/MD/MP3 combo player which would be HUGE if someone would actually build it.
The one thing missing from flash-based MP3 players is their cost per unit of storage. MD is the ideal storage media for MP3.
Heh. But if someone needs "an expensive professional sound system" to tell the difference, then to the consumer, there really is no difference. And guess what? The target market is consumers.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
about 10p
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Ignore all replies that don't mention the bitrate of the MP3s.
Take all replies that don't mention the encoder, or who didn't try a "blind taste test", with a grain of salt.
Keep in mind that listening to any MP3 though most computer speakers is not going to sound as good as listening to CD audio through most stereo systems, and that 99% of the MP3s on Napster were apparantly ripped and encoded by poorly trained monkeys.
Check out this site for the best discussion of MP3 quality I've ever seen, including the link to a German computer magazine's test of 300 audiophiles. 90% of the 128kbps MP3s were rated as worse than CD Audio; the 256kbps (constant bitrate) MP3s were not.
I personally can hear the difference between (constant bitrate) 128 and 192 kbps, but not between 192 kbps and CD Audio. My roommate is happy with 160. My one audiophile friend reencoded all his music at 384kbps after discovering how lousy 128 sounded through $2000 speakers.
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Okay, this is somewhat off-topic, but I want to take issue with this statement in the write-up: "Of course its an intermediate step before we simply stream all audio from the net" - no, I don't think it is.
;-) Any opinions?
Storing all your data "on the net", getting all your music "from the net" - that has been promised for quite some time. Oh, and there was "the network is the computer", too.
Now I don't think networks will ever replace storage media. Of course, everything has to be stored somewhere, but that's not what I mean. When I copy a CD to MiniDisc, for example, it is available to me, and I can take it with me. I don't depend on the infrastructure I would need to download the music. Yes, I know, eventually, every place on earth will have wireless access at 5 bazillion terabytes per nanosecond, but we are far from that now. And then, why should I pay for streaming the music? And even if I paid a flat fee, why should I waste resources (frequencies) to do that, if I can have the data in my pocket, easily?
Another point is access speed. No network can ever be as fast as locally existing media. I can easily and very quickly browse the stuff on my harddrive and find everything at once. That is not the same with the net, which takes much, much longer. And the network is certainly not as reliable as my harddrive. Yes, it gets better, and there are few problems now. But still, there are many more things that can go wrong, so it's much more likely to be a problem.
And last, but not least: Despite all the talk about leasing music and selling services, there is something very deep inside us that simply wants to own things. I own my CDs, I can take them in my hands and be sure I got something real for my money. Yes, it's stupid, but I think it's something very basic. And it doesn't matter what the media look like that we buy, but we will want to buy things in the future, too, not just some abstract data streams.
Phew, that's a bit more than I thought I would write
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
You've got to be kidding me? Another format? Of course, I know the RIAA doesn't "get it", and they probably never will. This new format is ridiculous. So you've got these little discs now. Great. What ever happened to the mini-disc, what was wrong with that? It was small, it was recordable...oh, wait, the record cartels did not control the distribution media of the mini-disc.
My advice to all of you who own stock in any of the big five cartels...sell it. You're revenue streams will evaporate. Face it, if you make money from a record company and you are not a recording artist, than you are a parasite. Don't try and justify it, just accept it and move on, because the new methods of music distribution are like a flea & tick collar and you are going to lose. Get out while you can.
This is hardly new news. The company is DataPlay. There was an article in Slashdot about them and their technology a few weeks back.
We already saw this...
3 21 6&mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/02/08/062
Editorial jokes aside... It hasn't even been a month for petes sake.
I think we can pretty much say that DataPlay disks will replace cassettes, with lower-quality sound than CDs but higher capacity.
Consider this analogy, if you will: 35-mm cameras and APS cameras. APS cameras have demonstrably lower quality, objectively speaking. Yet, people love APS cameras. Why would someone put up with low-quality crap? Because it's good enough. APS film is 35% smaller than 35mm film, yet because of the convenience of its intelligent processing and the cool-factor of panorama shots, it has gained a nice toehold in the market. But, the 35mm cameras aren't going anywhere, because people who care about the absolute best images, and the best control of the photography, spit on automated point-and-shoot gimickry, and use 35mm or large-format cameras.
I see the same situation possibly coming into play with the DataPlay disks. The amazing convenience of putting a handful of albums in your pocket will outweigh the (relatively minor for most purposes) difference in audio quality.
Illegitimi non carborundum
Whoa there, cowboy! Jeezus, did I hit a nerve or what? The guy asked if anyone can really tell the difference - I can, and I bet you can too. Let me make myself crystal clear - 256k .mp3 is just fine for everyday use.
.mp3 as compared to the original, and I responded with my own opinion about that comparison. Don't take it personally - it's just my opinion, and it's neither whining nor complaining about the quality.
The question asked about
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
If push came to shove, could you simply not connect all the audio-out ports on your stereo to your soundcard and hit "Record?"
How exactly do these new DataPlay discs thwart music thieves?
I mean: a decent sound system can be wired to a decent sound card to produce a re-digitised product "as good as" the original and then compressed back into MP3, no?
What I find so interesting about Napster and it's recent downhill battle with the RIAA is that it has started forcing people to *think* about the level of corporate control in our lives...
I mean, Napster & it's distributed filesharing equivalents are _insanely popular._ If the laws are, supposedly, by the People and for the People -- shouldn't these People decide whether or not the copyright laws are valid?
I wonder though if Good Old American Apathy will set in, again... I mean, how many Napster users will stand up and say, "I believe this activity is moral and should be legalised." Or, just as everything else from speeding to marijuana, will we simply keep breaking the rules rather than reforming them?
Hm... how does that quote go? To live legally is to live immorally, to live morally is to live illegally?
BRx.
Life after capitalism? The participatory economics project
Prerecorded cassettes fell to 76 million shipped last year vs. 123 million in 1999, the industry says. "We are in need of a new format," says BMG's Sami Valkonen.
So, really old technology (cassettes) starts falling off so they need a new format??? They make it looks like the industry is not doing well or they are losing sales! My question is how the CD sales are going?!
Answer: Up only ~$400 Million USD for US sales only.
Very good question. It'll be especially interesting to see what happens on BMG's home turf (Germany), where rules on excess packaging are extremely stringent.
I suppose they could use those big plastic exoskeletons that have to be removed by the cashier with a special tool. But they certainly haven't been terribly popular to date.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Let them sell the little buggers to their black little hearts content. *shrug* Nothing can make me or anyone else buy them.
I and all users would have a choice. Either:
OR
Now... I'm not going to any MENSA meetings, but you really have to be rucking fetarded to either puchase these mini cd's or think that average public would be stupid enough to buy them.
hmmm... on second thought... Full House was on the air for 8 years.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Of course its an intermediate step before we simply stream all audio from the net
/. crew but.....
OK, I realize that this is news to the
NOT EVERYONE IS ON THE NET. Online music sales, even if you counted every single napster download as a sale, don't begin to touch the amount of music that is sold through normal channels.
SONY in all the wisdom they have decided to make two kinds of MD's. One is a DATA MD. It can be used for comupter programs and other binary uses. It can not be used to cut a MD mix to play at your party. This is because it can be copied. The other format is the Music MD. It has serial copy protection built in. Their is no getting the original binary recording back off the disk. A copy does have a generation loss and the number of generations are set in the software. Unlimited copies of copies do not happen. The copy is not the same as the original. Because the original demand was for music, the data discs got no shelf space. Computer interfaces were even more scarce. Now they are a hard to find specialty item at 5 to 10 X the price of a music blank. CDRW took SONY's market on that one as a blank could be used for either purporse and didn't have serial copy protection. Free market forces went around the roadblock. I see a competitor to DataPlay entering the MD market with a portable MD MP3/Data walkman/external computer drive that will fill the void in the market!
The truth shall set you free!
What Mr. Volk should have said was:
Music hasn't had a successful new format in 20 years.
Don't forget DATs and minidiscs came and died. Maybe you could call compactflash a format as well (for MP3s) and say that that's a success??
Vending machine. Slip in 100 quarters. Get 1 back.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Wow. This guy obviously doesn't use any of this stuff himself.
1) Time to do something new? I don't think so. CDs are more popular than ever, and CD-R drives are just recently entering the price range that Joe Average wants to pay for them.
2) Something smaller? Definitely no, not for me anyway. I lose CDs often enough, and they're 5 inches across. I don't need to be trying to keep track of 3/4" discs.
3) More versatile? I fail to see how this applies. These discs supposedly hold 5 hours of music or 500mb of data. 80 minutes is hard enough for me to fill up, same for the 700mb in terms of data. If these discs do both at once, that's an improvement, but the article wasn't clear on that.
However, it's not going to be more versatile at all until it become ubiquitous. That's why I bought a CD burner instead of a SuperDisk drive. The LS-120 disks would suit my needs just fine...until I need to share data with a friend, or bring things between work and home.
Yeah, CDs suffered the same issues early in their life, I'm sure. And how long did they take to catch on? If they're 20 years old like the guy says, it took about 10 years or more, didn't it? I wouldn't expect these discs to catch on much sooner. People are just now getting comfortable with CDs.
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
Uh, MiniDisc?
'"It's time to do something new, something smaller, better and more versatile."'
Uh, MiniDisc again?
Nothing quite like conveniently forgetting something for marketing purposes.
Asikaa
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
What license? CDs don't come with a license. They are covered by ordinary copyright law.
The reason why you can listen to your CDs all you want without permission of the recording company isn't because you're licensed to do so. It's because private listening to a CD isn't one of the "exclusive rights" granted to copyright holders in Title 17 Section 106:
Sec. 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
...you know that Aerosmith isn't worth a quarter. ;)
You could accidentally put the Aerosmith minidisk into a jukebox...in order to play an Aerosmith song.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
RIAA is desprately trying to prevent serial copies, which is defined as a copy of a copy being identical to the original copy. They want the copies of copies to be degraded to discourage the trading of copies of copies. I also expect them to be fragile and easly destroyed by dirt and scratches. A format that wears out from use is also a plus. That much data in that small a form has to be affected by dirt and scratches.
The truth shall set you free!