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EMI Promises Downloadable Music
SataiCam writes "The Economist has an article up referring to EMI's plans to implement digital music downloading starting on December 1 through a whole host of 'distributors'. They claim it will allow users to get music in 'the formats they are demanding' (ogg?), to burn copies of songs, and download them to other devices. Here's the press release from EMI."
Now all of us complaining about our rights to songs have an opportunity to put our $$ where our mouth is... Will you guys pay for downloadable music? If this doesn't work it will be a good sign that we are all just a bunch of pirates, or will it?
ogg = format people are demanding? I don't think there are many people who are demanding ogg who won't actually see this post on slashdot.. I know ogg is good, but seriously, no one outside of the tech community has any idea what it is..
"Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot."
Stubbornness can only last so long, it seems. It was inevitable that the Music industry would eventually realize that the old axiom "If you can't beat them, join them", is an old axiom for a reason.
If they had thought about all of this five years ago, of course, they could have realized a lot more profit. But, I'm sure that they will throw money at it until they are competitive.
The real question is, will they be able to guilt everybody into not pirating their music...
Even so I still think this is a step forward. Perhaps the next step will be to make the SECURE DIGITAL music cheap enough that you won't even want to bother pirating anymore. Perhaps allowing you to buy more than 1 license so you can put it on your computer AND your mp3 player.
You're nothing; like me.
A nice announcement, score one for the team, but I do not plan on supporting that company any time soon. The content of their now infamous email correspondance is still fresh in my mind.
Ever time I hear this, I wonder why the record labels are bothering. It's not that tough of a decision for consumers. You can have digitally-rights managed, proprietary format songs that you pay for, or songs that you can burn to a CD or put on a portable player for free. And before I get flamed, yes, I am in favor of the artists getting compensation. But the record industry has a rather bad track record when it comes to giving artists a fair share of the profits. What's to assure me they won't just do the same with this new form of media? Give me a system that doesn't restrict my fair use, isn't overpriced and gives more than a 2% share to the artist, then I'll look at it.
live(free) || die;
Music industry? You know what that is right? It's a middle man which we don't need. A lot of people missed the point about artists being paid just pennies per CD. But ever wonder why they drive a $100k car or have 5 houses each running $5+ million? Concerts obviously. I'm not a big fan of alternative music and would rather listen to Oakenofold, Tiesto, etc. When those guys came to america did I see them? Heck yea. I went to every club in my area they were playing at. So, what does the music industry really need?
;)
It needs music to be free. Bold statement for such a short rant, but yes that's exactly what needs to happen. One or two HUGE sites like MP3.com that host in the range of 50% of the album for free and the remainder could cost a buck to offset bandwith fees. It would have charts with top 100 in each genre of music.
Well what about small bands that would need a fanbase before people would attend their events? How about every band selling DVDs of their concerts? If you like a band and can't find it in your area you just purchase the DVD of the 4hour concert on that huge music site. And thus there is your solution.
No record companies. Bands get CDs printed which you can order if you would like a product that will last a heck of a long time. The bands all of their revenue through concerts, events, advertisements and the sale of DVDs. And... all their music is freely tradeable over the net.
So, back to the point of this post. Will p2p work? No. Not unless MS has its way and imbeds a method to watch our every move and control ALL content on your PC will p2p ever work. Most people are good natured but when they have an opportunity to steal something and a 99.999% probably that they will not get caught, they will steal it in most instances.
Long story short. This wont work. The record industry has to realize just like the oil companies that their domination and even existance in the world is limited from hereonout.
Mr. Coward
?-|||-----x<*))))><
Perhaps allowing you to buy more than 1 license so you can put it on your computer AND your mp3 player.
"Allowing," my ass. I can do that right now, with a CD I've purchased once - and it's perfectly legal. What you're talking about is requiring me to buy multiple licenses in order to retain the same functionality that I already have - and it's bullshit.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
No one wants buy god damn mp3s online. They want something they can hold in their hands! And also, how many freakin' people have credit cards? I'm talking about the whole lot of kids and teenagers who are the main target market for a lot of music these days.
Stop with these horseshit schemes and drop the prices of fucking CDs already. They should slice the price of CDs in half, and then I'd start buying them again. Those greedy bastard musicians can then realize what it means to work for their money.
If it does... well, it's hard to consider EMI a charity, and there are a lot more worthwhile causes to give away cash to than trying to convince the recording industry we're not criminals by supporting a half-assed service of one of their members. Such services have up until now left something to be desired, but if this actually offers customers a better deal than buying the CD, a fair selection, ease of use, and a format that is as versatile as can be ripped from CDs (MP3/OGG) I'd expect it to do pretty well -- if it's a pile, however, one can hardly expect a lack of customers to be a sign of anything besides a failure to deliver.
Most importantly, I want to be able to formatshift, burn, mix, freely trade, and put the music files on any device I wish. I will never use a service that imposed DRM restrictions on my fair use rights
Please, if what you really want is to download music for free, just say so. Trying to claim that your "free trading" is fair use just dilutes the message of those who are defending things that are fair use, such as format shifting and such.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
over 90% of CDs sold in China is pirated
well NO SHIT considering the average chinese citizen has a YEARLY purchasing power of 3,000 US dollars. that's 250 dollars per month, and you think people will shell out 15 dollars for a CD?
Of course, similar to the US (90% of the money is controled by 10% of people), chinese economic ladder is skewed too -- so actually the average family subsides on 100-150 dollars per month usually.
hence, all the "oh my god 4.6 billion dollars lost sale" is so bullshit that you can't even begin.
interesting side note: since there are so many people there, even though the average purchasing power is only 3000 (actually comparable to many nations (for example, in africa) that's starving), it still makes china the second largest economic power in the world.
but don't ever, EVER think people there can afford "legit" music, software, and all the crap we buy while taking the disposible income for granted.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
If the historical model of the consumer paying for art once and being able to enjoy it for the rest of his life, then it will work. This is the way books, paintings, and music have been sold to consumers for centuries, and in the last few decades movies have joined the list as well.
But if they decide to try to limit the usage term after purchase, which I believe is the real goal of DRM and other copy protection systems, then it will fail because consumers will feel cheated by the industry.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
My point is that each person wants to control how they listen and what they hear. It's about expressing yourself through the music you play, even if it's just playing a CD track or listening to an mp3 (or ogg). You don't get more anti-freedom (totalitarian) than telling me what I must or cannot read/hear/watch/say or when I do so. Call me a "liberal" (gasp) "anti-capitalist" (the horror) consumer but when I buy books/movies/music/cableTV/satTV then I think that I have a right to read/watch/listen/touch it when, where, and how I want to.
Making it more difficult for me to enjoy new movies/music/books/whatever how and where I want to won't entice me to buy more. If a music CD/movie won't play on my computer - where I spend 80% of my waking time - or in my car (where I spend 15+ hours a week) or on my mp3 player at the gym (where I spend <.00000001% of my time) then I just won't bother with it. And neither will a zillion other people. It's not worth the trouble.
And that's the problem.
I'm going back to coding and watching V: The Original Miniseries on DVD.
From the article:
"Counterfeiting is also growing in size and sophistication. Another report published this week by Informa Media reckons pirated music sales rose in value by 2.4% in 2001 to a worldwide total of $4.3 billion. Taiwan remains the biggest culprit: it has the capacity to press 8 billion CDs a year but has a legitimate demand for only 200m, says the report. Around 90% of CDs sold in China each year are pirated. But the problem is growing in western countries too. The heads of European record companies, meeting recently in Rome, estimated that 27% of music sold in Italy is now pirated; in southern Italy, the proportion is nearer half."
This is something I don't understand. If the problem really is music sharing in the Internet, then how come counterfeiters are gaining more market? I would understand this if there was a recession and people didn't have money to buy CDs, but.. hey wait a minute, there is a recession. Now I'm on to something. Since people don't have the money and they still need their favorite music, do they have any other choice?
Atleast where I live the counterfeited CD costs about 5-8 euros. Blank CD-R costs 40 cents. If people just could download those albums for 5euros maybe they didn't buy pirated versions?
(Maybe this is my childish logic. We all know that everyone using the Internet is an evil pirate who steals from the poor artists and wants to destroy the world economics.)
Regardless of one's opinion on the legality of sharing as it relates to fair use, violating our fair use rights (the ability to time shift, format shit, make backup copies, record copyrigted material, etc, etc) in order to prevent us from possibly pirating intellectual property shouldn't be tolerated. If that's the case we're being punished for crimes we may or may not commit, and our fair use rights are trampled because in order to stop piracy, DRM would lock down media and devices and prevent us from doing perfectly legal things with what we buy.
I am really excited to have the opportunity to once again pay for the same songs from such wonderful people as
Billy Idol, Blondie, David Bowie, Coldplay, Joe Cocker, DC Talk, Duran Duran, Everclear, Fatboy Slim, Pink Floyd, Norah Jones, Kottonmouth Kings, Dave Koz, Lenny Kravitz, Megadeth, Kylie Minogue, Anne Murray, Tina Turner, Thalia, Keith Urban, The Vines, Cassandra Wilson and The Beach Boys
many for the third or fourth time. It is clear that the what the record labels consider piracy is the consumer not paying full price for a song on each new media. It is not enough the we pay for the CD, we have to pay for the MP3 as well, probably on each device with which we wish to play.
It is also clear from the list that EMI believes none of us have any interest in artists such as Shaggy, AALIYAH, Janet Jackson, Snoop Dogg, Meridith Brooks, Garth Brooks, or any other artists that has had a major new album in the last two years. I certainly don't want to be one of those people that damn them if they do or if they don't, but the press release gives me little hope that this is any more than a way to push old material.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Actually, downloading music for free has nothing to do with it. DRM just plain sucks. I bought a Sony NetMD player a while ago. Great little device. I personally think MiniDisc rules. But it's got DRM crap built in, and is thus nearly impossible to reverse engineer the protocol. As a result, I can only use it in Windows. My $150 player is now just a piece of plastic. Am I ever going to buy another audio player from Sony again? Not likely.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Formatting problems aside, this will fail for 2 reasons, both are money. The first is obvious, if you do a search of the press release, the word 'price' is never mentioned. You would think they would have something like 'each track can be downloaded for a reasonable price'. Nope. Wanna bet it will be $2.49 a song, restricted also, because people 'demand' secure formats because they don't want to be 'ripped off'. Sure, this will fly. That is the short term deathblow.
The longer one is more insidious. Say you have the songs you purchased on your hard drive, and one day, you turn your machine on and hear a grinding noise followed by clicks. Disk failure. You then call up the nice people who sold you the music and ask for new copies, because your legally purchased music is gone, and you are well within your rights to request another copy. Remember, they give you the honor of using a license, not owning the track. If your HD dies, you still have the rights to the license. So, you ask the nice person on the phone if you can have free downloads of the entire 98Sync degrees to men collection that you just spent $800 on. Then you wait. You can just barely hear the riotous laughter through the phone that has dropeed to the floor on the other end. Then they tell you to fuck off. Luckily, in the fine print that they changed since you agreed to it, legally of course, they want the money they spent on senators put to good use, says 'we can tell you to fuck off at any time for any reason'. So you fuck off. And then you never patronise them, or any other similar service again. This will really end the industry, and they are way way to greedy to do anything else.
Lastly, a personal note. The music industry, chiefly in the guise of the RIAA has done more in the last year or two to erode our civil rights than anything else that I can think of. They killed several good, legal services, and they are not stopping. They are forcing changes to the technology that I use and love to make them more money. They have no qualms about buying power and abusing it on a whim. If you doubt it, read the legislation that they are trying to get passed (there is to much of it to link here, start at www.theregister.co.uk with a search for RIAA). By using services like this, you are only enriching the very people who are targeting you and the things you love. Don't give them more money, it will only hurt you in the long run. When they went after napster, I said that I would not buy a CD until it played out, and if napster won, I would go back to buying CDs. If they lost, I would never buy a CD again. I have not bought a CD since. My 300+ collection collects dust. I have stopped consuming music. NPR is better radio anyway. Don't buy the 'new, friendlier' record company BS, they are sharks, and you are bleeding.
-Charlie
i've actually met with some guys from emi in the course of my work regarding secure music. they seemed to be pretty much know what's going on. not that i like these guys very much, nor the concept of drm. but they were very reasonable. they understood that any drm they put out will be immediately broken. they told me they know sdmi is crap. they understood that they can't shaft the consumer with too many restrictions or difficulties to use or transfer, or excessive charges. they understood that people want music on their portables. these guys are not engineers, but music people.
they also understood that convincing their management to give up any restrictions is not going to be easy. i would say though, that emi is the most forward looking label out there. they're probably gonna take quite a few missteps on their way, and us slashdotters are gonna beat them over the head for it. but they're actually working on it, and not trying just to fuck us over (well, not all of them). maybe one day, they'll actually find the right balance (wow, late night optimism. who woulda thunk it?)
my favorite quote: "sometimes i think 'fuck it, why don't we just give it all for free, download all you want'".
two things.
Piracy is an apropriate term, we can get into arguments but flagrant copyright violation sure as hell aint' sharing.
If it is true that so many people pirate music, then the RIAA needs to start advertising more, because that is a social problem. I honestly only know one person who would pirate a CD he thought was decent, and everyone else does without music they don't own.
The only way you could justify "file sharing" would be to quote an economist or politician who has said that copyright is in fact an outdated model. Until that time, sharing files is breaking more than the law, it is breaking one of the most fundimental motivators in our capitalist system.
/I understand CD fabs are expensive,/
When you amortize the cost of a CD fab over the entire production run, it's small change. Most of what you pay in a CD goes to inflated marketing, legal fees, and the associated beauracracy of a major music publishing company.
So getting rid of the CD fab cost won't make a lick of difference.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
So it's reasonable to assume that people who are downloading over 180 hours of music a month are probably sharing their accounts, or something. Or just abusing the service. Downloading more music than a single person can conceivably listen to in a month is abusive. But anyway, why don't they just say "Download all the music you want, up to 10000 minutes of music a month!" instead of saying "unlimited". There will always be some who leach and seek to abuse the system - but no need to be dishonest, just state the limitations and expectations up front.
Does the subject that you gave this post and the AC posting infer that you disapprove of EMusic's letter?
Here _we_ are, trying to argue that the music industry needs to change it's business model in order to adapt to the digital age.
Here's a company trying to do just that.
I find EMusic's letter to be well written, and I can understand why they find downloading 5-6 full albums per day unreasonable.
OTOH, "Unlimited" is "unlimited", and while I haven't seen EMusic's Terms and Conditions (do they say anything about this?), I would take "unlimited" to mean I could subscribe, download a year's worth of music, and then unsubscribe.
Now it may well be that EMusic's business model is not yet robust enough to cope with the abuse it's getting. It may have to adapt further to reach that stage. But that is what this letter is all about.
I, for one, hope they get there.
Anybody whose business model depends on people not being able to copy a file across the internet doesn't deserve to be making millions. Anybody whose business model depends on making it impossible and/or illegal to copy a file over the internet should have their corporate charter revoked. I mean, seriously, come on. Sucks for them and all, their empire will come crumbling down, or will at least change so they can't make the millions they've been making for decades, but isn't it time for them to stop their whining and learn how to live on salaries more consistent with the amount of labor that they do, like the rest of us? I have no problem with people making millions, but when their business model no longer makes them millions, why should the rest of us agree to suffer for it?
Agreed... Radio stations play too much of the same shit. And besides limiting the new stuff we get to hear it also makes sure i dont buy anything they play on the radio anyway. Because i know that they'll gonna play it for months to come... and getting tired of a song is one thing, but having bought it and then getting tired of it through radio play is very irritating...
PjotrP
Instead of spending so much energy focusing on DRM, which everyone realizes is useless, they should instead focus on a service and ease of use.
DRM wont work unless each piece of hardware used to play music is tagged and then submitted to their service so that the music you download can be authorized to play on those hardware. Not to mention, that all DRM will eventually, if not the day of its release, be cracked anyway. Instead of limiting consumers (temporarily) the music industry should focus on making music downloads quick and easy. Give us our choice of bit rates, easy menus for selection, the ability to mix and match songs from various albums and artists, allow quick and easy payment, and by god not only will you turn a profit, but people will purchase more music. In addition they should be able to sell more music, since personally I buy a very varied range, and some rare and difficult to find CDs can be just as easily offered online for download as the latest Pop Top 40.
I never goto the store to buy a music CD anymore, its just much easier online, but offer me a service online to download mp3s from and I would purchase much more, there is no charge for shipping, I can mix, and I can get them already in mp3 at high bit rates, which saves me the hassle. (98% of my listening to music is solely on PC). Thats just my take on it.
it will allow users to get music in 'the formats they are demanding'
Funny, I didnt think everyone was demanding WMA
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Hello, I recently read EMI's November 13th press release outlining the planned online Musicnet distribution system for downloadable music.
I am very excited about this service and will be examining it in detail when it becomes available.
But I have one question for you: Will the music be offered in Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) format? This would be highly desirable (as opposed to MP3, windows media, etc) for both me and you because there are no royalties at all for the format (it would save EMI money) and the sound quality is clearly superior per file size to that of the other format I mentioned, so it would save EMI more money on internet bandwidth while providing a higher quality product to the customer.
Will this be available in the Musicnet service?
Lastly, I must congratulate EMI for these ambitious plans. It is refreshing to see that a music distribution company is actually giving customers what they want instead of producing crippled CDs, a la BMG, Universal, etc. I have stopped buying their products because they treat their customers like theives.
Thank you for your time,
- (my name)
Ontario, Canada