Slashdot Mirror
Replace Your Music....Again
sethadam1 writes "I was not at all surprised to find that experts are predicting the death of the compact disc in as little as 5 years. This article over at Ananova suggests the next format of music will be little fingernail-sized cards. As cool as these sound, is anyone else worried that sneaky industry folks might try to distribute all new music in DRM'ed WMA files?" Yeah, this description sounds basically like bigger Magic Gate, that wonderful situation where you can pay more than normal to get DRM. Update: 11/13 16:45 GMT by H : As RobertB-DC pointed, this is sort of a dupe - see our previous article.
This article isn't about the death of compact discs, it's about that new storage medium they've discovered that was already reported about. Death of compact disc is just Ananova's bullshit spin on the topic.
Jeez, maybe Hemos should RTFA before posting.
Compact discs could be history within five years, superseded by a new generation of fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts.
Scientists say each paper-thin device could store more than a gigabyte of information - equivalent to 1,000 high quality images - in one cubic centimetre of space.
So they are fingertip sized, paper thin, and a cubic centimeter? I'm having trouble forming a mental image of this...
Does anyone else think that fingernail-sized cards for music is a BAD idea? I have enough problems keeping track of CDs sometimes, these things would be incredible easy to lose.
Of course, the RIAA would love that - "Sorry, you'll have to buy another copy!"
It really was only a matter of time before a new format with one or two new features (and a few glaring flaws to be fixed in the next format) would be introduced as the replacement to the compact disc.
The Ananova article focuses solely on the implications for music storage. That will, no doubt, be a major application, but the important part of the story is: permanent, reliable storage with a data density of 1 GB/cm^3, for God's sake! This seems to me like a major breakthrough that will have implications far beyond whether we can or can't rip an MP3 of the latest disposable pop star of the week's manufactured hit single.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The researchers claim: "turning the invention into a commercially viable product might take as little as five years". Would that turn out to be true and this device takes off, it'll still take a few years to push CDs out of the marketplace. Though I'm certain the RIAA would love to sell you your music colllection all over again, that task would likely take years more to complete.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
>Once again, I'll refer to the old "Only Criminals Would Oppose This" arguement.
The one which is wheeled out whenever freedom is being threatened, such as cctv, id cards, drug tests at work etc etc?
I don't think that the future of music lies in its media format. Those days are gone.
But, I agree with the parent, the big future is distribution. Of course, that is what everyone is talking about now- creating a new method to download music.
What the music is stored on will be secondary. Some people will put it on a hard-drive, some on Compact Flash, some will burn CD's.
The CD/DVD media is not too bad, but carrying around an entire CD for just one album sucks. More CD players will be able to play MP3/WMA/(insert your favorite codec here).
Who cares what the music will be stored on in retail stores- nobody will be getting their music there in 5 years anyway.
No reason to lie.
Yes, I know the spirit of this post, but... Actual consumers cherish "fair use." IMHO, no DRM should interfere with fair use.
I should be able to make as many copies as I feel like on as any devices as I own. That is fair use. If the producers want to prevent infringing uses like Internet swapping, it is their responsibility to do it in such as way as to not interfere with fair use.
I am a solid IP and "rights of the copyright owner" supporter, but I am just as strong a fair use supporter. I will boycott anything that stops my fair use rights.
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
Why waste money on more expensive solid state distribution methods when we already have a cheaper solution working today?
There's absolutely no need to sell new fingernail sized cards that replace CDs, when they can just distribute over the internet. If anyone needs to carry around their music, then they can just buy memory cards and move their music around on those.
And on another point, if they start selling fingernail sized cards, are they still going to package them in CD size boxes and waste more space than they have to?
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Maybe they could put DVD-like things on there - special features, commentary, 5.1 surround sound. It might actually make buying these things worthwhile.
I noticed that when, for awhile, they tried to do this exact same thing under the name "Enhanced CD-ROM", it was more or less a commercial flop..
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
1) Will it sell?
2) Can it stop unauthorized copying?
I'm sure record companies are eyeballing many potential storage technologies to replace CDs. But the article doesn't give one good reason why these chips will be tha annointed one.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Let's look at the history of digital storage media and copy protection:
* Floppy Disk - lots of stuff got tried, it all got hacked.
* Hard Disks - lots of stuff got tried, it all got hacked.
* Removable Media - lots of stuff got tried, it all got hacked.
* CDs/DVDs - Still trying lots of stuff, it all got hacked.
* Removable RAM/ROM storage - been around forever, and for the most part has mostly been hacked.
* paper thin thumbnail size media - stuff will get tried, it will get hacked.
You would think in 30-40 years of computer technology that someone would figure out it's next to impossible to secure digital information FROM BEING DUPLICATED.
The paper thin, thumbnail media is cool. DRM is a waste of time and money.
-- $G
The public will not fall for such a cheap stunt again. CD is here to stay for a looooong time. Its faults are quite tolerable. The only reason anyone ever put up with the lousy audio quality of walkman tapes was the ability to record your own at home. One of the recordable DVD formats, together with an open-standard audio codec, will be the next logical progression for portables. Uncompressed CD can already stray beyond the ken of most consumer-grade headphones and loudspeakers. If any new format takes over, it will be one we can record at home - and whatever it is, we're not going to pay to replace our CDs with it in the same way we replaced our vinyl LPs with CDs.
Now think about this for awhile. When you buy a piece of prerecorded media, the cost is going two ways. Some is going on stuff that you can do for yourself {i.e. writing to media and assorted logistical matters}, and some is going on stuff you can't {i.e. singing the song in the first place -- well, you could do that, but I'm assuming you want to hear it as performed by the original group}.
We should contact our representatives and push for a new law: Non-Discriminatory Licencing. The gist is, if the group has licenced the record label to sell the music on their media in return for a certain fee paid to the group, then anyone should be licenced under the same agreement to make one copy of the music for the same fee. Furthermore, anyone distributing the content to third parties must make said third parties aware of the fact that they have a right to make copies conditional on payment of a fee, the amount to send and who to send it to.
Fair enough, it won't stop anyone copying without paying; but I think there are many people who would pay a nominal fee in return for not being criminalised, and I don't see for one instant what difference it makes whether or not I involve the record labels, as long as the artist gets their money. Record labels are just middlemen - and expensive ones at that. Everyone likes to miss out the middleman if they can.
Traditional deal: I pay 14.99 for prerecorded CD, record co. takes 14.00, artist gets 0.99 {note these figures may not be strictly accurate as I don't know for certain how much of the purchase price of a CD goes to the artist}
Under NDL: I pay 0.20 for blank CD, 0.02 for electricity, 0.99 to artist, artist gets 0.99.
If I wanted to sell the media I had recorded, or offer the files for paid download, I - not the eventual recipient - would be responsible for paying the artist's fee, and the law should not allow me to disclaim such responsibility.
If anyone cares enough to comment, I'll probably write a more official-sounding spec for my NDL vision that might be better received by government types.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I know without a doubt what the next physical medium will be for me.
Zilch.
After getting used to my 60 GB MP3 player (swapped drives on my laptop and Archos) and ripping all my music into my computer, I'll never get up to go swap a (tape/cd/fingernail speck) again.
There won't be a next physical medium.
When cassettes came along, they offered an advantage that appealed to customers: they were small enough to take with you.
CD's offered improved sound quality and much better ease of use (no more fast forwarding, rewinding, or turning the media over to hear the rest). They also avoid the glitches or pops that other media develop under normal wear and tear - CD's only scratch from mishandling, not from the laser wearing them out. These advantages allowed them to overcome their (artificially) higher price and initial read-only limitation
Other media have been proposed but not caught on. 8 tracks briefly flourished, but offered no advantages over a cassette tape, yet were bulkier and more annoying to use. Mini-discs offer only small size, which isn't enough. Audio DVD's have improved sound compared to CD, but this hasn't proven sufficient reason for anyone but an audiophile niche to take much interest.
On the other hand, MP3 has slightly lower sound quality than a CD, but has gained widespread acceptance, much to the RIAA's chagrin. Ease of use surpasses even the CD, and the portability problem has been solved - a person's entire music collection can fit into their pocket, or listened to across a (high bandwidth) network with no physical media at all. A bonus for the user is the upgrade path. Rather than it being easier for the user to buy all the music they already legally own/license/whatever over again, a CD ripper is all that is needed to move your previous investment into the modern times.
In this landscape, where does this new format fit in? What does it bring to the table that would compel joe user to embrace it at all, much less buy all his existing music over again? Sure, it's small, but not as small as an MP3. Manufacturers might bump the audio quality up to THX level, but that would only give a benefit to those who have both a discerning ear and high end audio equipment. Price could be dropped to entice people to switch, but the RIAA isn't that intelligent. Extras and bonus materials could be offered, a la the DVD, but that would take a lot of work from the publisher and probably be passed on as a higher price, further stacking the odds against acceptance.
In short, I don't see what advantage this would offer would be that is compelling enough to get anyone to adopt it.
I'm quite content with CDs as well, but when new albums start being releases solely on the new format, with no CD pressing, it obviously becomes a problem.
Granted, I wouldn't see the underground metal genre (don't judge my musical tastes by my username, as I've been using it for 5+ years) as being the earliest to adopt the new technology, but I don't want to see a new format until it's a tangible gain in terms of both technological benefits and cost.
Maybe if the plan were to distribute the files electronically and have them stored in bulk on one of these things the way you'd use a flash drive, but a fingernail sized format as the primary physical medium of music distribution? How on earth would these things be packaged and stored? We could have miniature jewel cases for them, or little binders, but what about the labels? How would you fit "The Mighty Mighty Bostones: More Noise and Other Disturbances" or "Beethoven Symphony No. 7, Movement 2, performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach"? And what about track listings?
Can you imagine having an Altoids tin of tiny little chips labelled with teensy-tiny ittie-bitty text, and trying to find the album you want to pop into your portable music player, while standing in a subway car or say, while driving? Can you imagine how easy it would be to lose one of these things or swear profusely as a strong gust of wind just blows them out of your car window into a fluttering confetti of $10 albums?
I'd much rather see larger-sized storage mediums with greater capacity and do away with physical distribution of music altogether.
What folks fail to realize, and these companies especially, is that the CD format, as originally envisioned, did die a horrible death. The CD-R completely changed the landscape and started to effect people's perceptions of CDs in general. What was originally an expensive to produce one-to-many delivery mechanism had transformed into a many-to-many cheap DIY revolution that was a logical extension of what came before while maintaining backwards compatibility. "Wow! I can play this in my CAR?!" This whole escapade should serve as an object lesson. The CD revolution that we are still experiencing is the direct result of a ubiquitous and formerly closed technology being opened up without restrictions to common, and decreasingly technical, folks. If the introduction of CDR had been highly restrictive or less versatile it would have never taken off to the degree it has. I could go on for hours as why CDs are here to stay and the new DRM enabled and proprietary media formats are doomed for failure - (which is more than obvious to the /. crowd). What I find truly interesting is that introducing new DRM-ish media and formats perpetually tempts large companies. I think the main appeal is controlling the playing field followed by selling new electronics to support new formats.
There is also a weird percolation of pressure between the consumer, the media giants and the electronics companies. All of them, ostensibly, wield political influence. The marketplace (consumer) does not want to be locked in. Like they used to say, it's hard to go back to the farm once you've Paris. The electronics companies - want to sell more electronics. CD burners, DVD players, PVRs etc. Selling new features and extending open media formats seems a safer play than introducing restrictive DRM enabled formats from scratch. Creating players to play media with non-standard protection schemes or media has burned them in the past. The big media giants are completely freaked out. They like being big media giants. They believe in letting the marketplace decide as long as it decides in their favor or, at the very least, doesn't question the fundamental assumptions of why we need media giants. They will bend over backwards and do anything to maintain their control - including putting massive pressure on electronics manufacturers to create more DRM enabled products.
This creates an odd dynamic where media pushes DRM, electronic companies get their toes wet introducing it slowly, customers push back and get angry with the media companies for the hassle, electronic companies get cold feet and pull-back. And on and on and on and on.
All the while folks will be ripping CDs to listen in the car.
-_-