Slashdot Mirror
TruSonic Uses MP3.com Catalog As Muzak
Wacky_Wookie writes "Well, it looks like all the artists who put their songs up on MP3.com are about to break into a whole new market - elevators! The Register is reporting that Vivendi, who had control over MP3.com's archive of over 1.5 million songs even after the site's sale to CNET, has sold rebroadcasting rights to TruSonic.com, who sell them as piped music to hotels, restaurants and other businesses, passing on royalties along the way. I guess this is Vivendi's way of 'lifting' artists into new markets." Unfortunately, according to the TruSonic site FAQ, the site "does not support any type of artist page that is accessible by the public", and, according to another independent page, "any song that any artist [uploaded to MP3.com since a certain date?] got enrolled into TruSonic unless the artist 'opted out'."
30 years from now it will *still* just be
elevator music...
I, for one, welcome our new Muzak overlords.
They are using the mp3.com catalog as background music.
one, two, one two like a duck
I hope that I can hear the 1108 Thugz on an elevator soon. Preferably Fast Food Fuckin', but I'm not picky.
Brings new meaning to the term "going down..." :(
:(
Seriously, isn't elevator music bad enough already? Ugh, I think I will have to quit my job and find one on the 1st floor
That actually depresses me a bit, as I had bought some music off of mp3.com when it was around (believe it or not: the Megatokyo soundtrack. Yeah, I'm a geek.).
It was one of the few places where an independant artist could try and sell their wares without RIAA influence.
Now, it seems that Vivendi is doing everything they can to kill it off and make sure that the independant artists have no options to be heard by the public except through "established channels" - aka, through the Music Cartel.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
As good of an idea as this is, the system should have been made opt-in instead of opt-out. Some people might not mind being heard on the web, but being heard through other mediums may not be in their plans. And, also, there is no way for an independent artist to have been heard by say, a record label, and contact the person, as there is no interface. Good idea, bad implementation.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
Won't be long now till some artists sues them for lost royalties. It just sucked when they took the archive down, but now their trying to sell it like they own it?
Wow. CDDB all over again!
Yes, I can just see that, trance/techno, house, gangsta rap or hard rock in shopping malls.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Stupid. Waah.
that we can be sued for using an elevator?
Trusonic is pretty cool. They are an offshoot of MP3.com (before MP3 died and the domain name was sold to cnet) called "Retail Music Services". They used to use small, rugged PCs with a couple of audio output jacks, running Linux. They probably have something better now, but it was cool to see Linux boxes at the back of businesses.
-ted
I know the half-dozen craptacular tracks I uploaded to MP3.com back in the day. At the very least, the BPM is WAY too high for use as elevator music. Wouldn't want to the be person who has to review all the music to determine if it's appropriate or not.
I'm sure the artists did not envision this for there music when it was uploaded to mp3.com. This is certainly not going to increase sales of an artists music. Who while sitting in the elevator says, "I wonder who that is." If people were curious they wouldn't have the ability to ask. According to the article the artists are complaining about royalties. It looks like a way for the corporations to circumvent licensing agreements and make money off of content they shouldn't own.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
From the article:
Subconscious copying of a copyrighted work into a new work is actionable infringement. Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music, 420 F. Supp. 177 (S.D.N.Y. 1976). Given this precedent, what steps can a recording artist (call him "George") who writes his own songs take (a) to avoid subconsciously copying copyrighted songs, or (b) to minimize potential damages to George should another copyright holder discover that George had subconsciously misappropriated his copyrighted song?
I have *never* heard music played in an actual elevator. In restaurants, hospital lobbies, stores, lots of public places, but can't ever recall it in an elevator, and I've been in many that were packed with sleepy commuters going in to the office.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Pieces of shit didn't ever inform me that I had to opt-out of this. I had a catalog of over 40 tunes on MP3.com. Now without even informing me about this I am looking at having my stuff licensed out as elevator music. Fuck that.
/me begins firing off angry emails.
I can't believe I had to opt-out of something that they didn't even begin to tell me that this was happening in the first place. I'm not really surprised. Just angry. MP3.com's management has always been a pain in the ass.
What you are watching is the latest Slashdot meme infecting more and more hollow teenage brains.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Muzak. What is it all about. . . is it good or is it whack?
What rights? I just had my songs sold for muzak because I didn't opt out. Let's go further, forget rights, how about a little decency and ask? You'd think, since the artsists made that site what it is, they'd actually give us a little respect. I guess not when you get lots of money for screwing some person you'll never see.
My band was at one time an MP3.com artist, and let me tell you, if they want to pipe Wrapped In Red into an elevator, they couldn't make me happier!
Makes me glad I was born with no musical talent, now I can't get fucked over by the music industry.
Linux O Muerte!
Speaking as an artist who was formerly on MP3.com I suppose it's kind of amusing that I could end up as elevator music.
At least I have always given some material away for free but I cant help wondering what elevators I am going to be heard in.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Although there *may* be a limited revenue stream from the comission from these lift-music systems, that not what independant music is really about. A lot of MP3.com artists hoped to start by giving their music away and/or selling it cheaply and by gaining popularity to get a record deal, i.e. get famous and repected first.
On the other hand having your music played in some random lift with noone knowing who you are will never get anyone musical success. I feel this is just another facet to the exploitation of the artist by the industry.
use Blunt::Instrument;
I hope they dont play any of your shit. I listened to several of your "catalog of tunes" and they all sucked ass.
Im glad your firing off those angry geek emails so I dont get stuck listening to this filth anywhere.
I'm a little irked that...
:)
1) I never was notified that I had to opt-out
2) I've vitually lost the copyright on my songs through some fancy corporate wheelin' and dealin'.
The thing that I'm most worried about, though, is that someday I may be sued for having an 'unauthorized' copy (the masters) of my own music.
Actually, I put my music on mp3.com so that others could enjoy it (not to make money, not to advertise). I guess if there's even the slightest chance that another person will hear my works, it coincides with the original intent. Incidently, I have a day job, but have a great deal of sympathy for those who do this for a living.
The Other Nate
You get opted in by default....
Who wouldn't want to ride up to their office or hotel floor while listening to the soothing sounds of The Shizit's 'Gak Bitch'?
I don't see what the problem is ...
a) if they play your music, you will get paid
b) if you want out, you can get out
this shit dates back to 1993
My band uploaded a few tracks to mp3.com a while ago. While I think it would be amusing to hear ourselves on an elevator, that's not really what we had in mind when we agreed to let them use our music.
We also put some tunes up on imntv.com
IMNTV
at about the same time. That got us exposure on cable TV for a while until they seemed to go belly up back in 2002. A few days ago, my girlfriend saw our band's video on Sprint's "wireless TV" platform. Apparently, IMNTV didn't die, they just switched from cable TV to wireless. Again, I think it's cool to see our material in strange places, but I'm not sure how many people out there are actually going to watch "television" on their 2 inch wireless screen.
What's an independent band to do?
Some complains might occur if this is true. MP3.com had everything from soft ambient to crushing death metal. Will the elevator go faster is some grindcore is playing?
Check out Broadjam for a good alternative. They've got some good artists on there and as I understand, good musician services.
browsing the top 10 charts I've found some good shiznit...
how DO you opt out? I have some music that I was planning to remove from their site, but they went under before I had the chance. I'd like to cut off any relations with them. I DON'T want to be receiving royalties or be making any money off the music.
have you ever listened to Muzak... ON WEEEED??
It cant be worse than cheesy christmas music, that stuff is the worst. Some twat singing about santa and his fuckwit elvs in the christmas snow, and you can tell by his voice that he has an stupid smile on his face and greased back hair - you can just imagine him smoking that pipe and sitting by the open fire. Still, it demonstrates how Vivendi feels about music - it seems to be nothing more than a bit-stream with a price tag to them, i wonder if they have an automated system to sell all this music and if any humans in the company actually listen to it?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I, for one, welcome our new whack overlords.
You people (the complainers) are so stupid.
This program has been going on for years. TruSonic has been around since 2000. Mp3.com artists have been used as elevator music for over 3 years already.
All that happened is that division of mp3.com called TruSonic got sold seperately from the rest of mp3.com.
Maybe try reading the artist agreement before you give your music away.
dumbasses.
I was an MP3.com artist and for obvious reasons wanted to opt out. Here's the link.
So much for the artists and creators getting full credit for their created works.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
Years ago, I was in an elevator that was playing muzak.
Normally it's easy to ignore, but in this case the tune was maddeningly familiar. I listened, started humming with it and realized what they were playing:
Black Sabbath's "Paranoid"
It's been all downhill after that.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I found some odd stuff on mp3.com. I'll be impressed the day I get in an elevator that's playing Bethoven's 9th in speed-metal style.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
I wonder how their selection process for the muzak is, I'm not sure if anyone besides a hardcore Something Awful.com fan would love to hear some "Semi Automatic Turban" musical stylings on their next elevator journey.
But seriously, if they got almost ALL of the MP3.com tracks, that's a lot of sift through and determine if it's elevator-worthy. I doubt it will all suit the occasion (or non-occasion)
Yup...
This is what was in my Fortune slashbox when I read this story:
"I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than 10 minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't." (By Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center)
Coincidence? Or a sophisticated government plot?
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
It's not likely that all the mp3s are going to be played in elevators. I'm sure they will be sorted for suitability, in other words, only certain genres will be played. You probably won't hear any Nordic death metal in any elevators anytime soon.
The only possible response to this question has to be... ahem...
IT'S ON TEH SPOKE!
How about making copyright reform a central issue in the upcoming election?
Very likely most politicians don't know if the DMCA is fit to eat, feel Disney and the RIAA are important campaign contributors whose requests should be given priority, and music downloaders are simple thieves who deserve every bit of punishment they get.
You can change that. But it's going to take some work. There are enough people sharing music in America - more people than voted for George Bush - that if you get off your collective asses and get politically active, you can get laws passed to get the RIAA off your back.
In Change the Law, I explain that copyright is not a Constitutional right, like free speech. Instead copyright is allowed (but not required) to serve a useful purpose, a purpose which I feel has long since outlived its usefulness.
I suggest steps you can take to bring about copyright reform, ranging from speaking out to practicing civil disobedience.
One thing I'd like you all to do today is to write your elected representatives to ask their opinion of the current state of copyright law given its widespread abuse by organizations like the RIAA and MPAA, and to urge them to work towards copyright reform. Let them know your vote will depend on a positive response.
When you're done writing that letter, write to the other candidates for each office in the upcoming elections, to ask them the same question.
Sixty million American peer-to-peer file traders have the potential to raise a lot of Hell with the politicians. I want every candidate to be peppered with questions about copyright reform at every campaign stop and in every press interview. I want the repeal of the DMCA to be discussed in the Presidential debates.
People marched in protest when Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested. Dmitry is free now - but the law under which he was jailed is still on the books.
If you agree with me that something needs to be done about copyright, I need your help.
Thank you for your attention.
Michael D. Crawford
crawford@goingware.com
Request your free CD of my piano music.
This is theft, pure and simple.
Oh well... I guess any exposure is good exposure.
I'd just about shit myself if I'm in Wendy's, munchin on some fries and I hear one of my tunes being pumped through the dining room. Just as long as I don't hear one of my songs being background music for a Fox News story!
Sugapablo
but the guy is right.
i once had music on mp3.com, and i know damn well that those three to five songs i gave away the rights to, are, well, owned by someone else now. i personally don't care, people stealing my music, both as in 'making copies' and 'claiming it as their own' i see as a *good thing*, because at that point, you *know* you have been doing the right thing all along.
you knew you were selling out when you agreed to their liscencing agreement. just like the rest of you out in the world who use windows, who use adobe, who use macintosh software, and the bunch of you punks who just click 'i agree' without reading anything. guess what?! you sold out! you didn't even get anything in return, too, except mabye some buggy software!
i have not clicked 'i agree' in almost a year to anything that was not the GPL or something that i can agree with on every point.
oh and NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES sign an agreement where the other party can change the agreement at any point without telling you and then have the contract still bind you. mp3.com did this, and this one line, however seemingly harmless extends as far into the depths of hell as anyone can imagine. they can own you, all your music, your girlfriend and her pets. and hey, its your fault!
summary? let them steal your music. don't make a fuss, instead, praise them for it. say *go for it!* and let your sound, your work be distributed by them. don't lie, and this means don't agree to something that you don't agree with, and don't agree with things that are totally harmful to you. and if you are sick of the riaa think about joining kult, and we'll see if there's anything we can do on this front.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
...sell them as piped music to hotels, restaurants and other businesses, passing on royalties along the way.
Passing on royalties? All the The Register article says about royalties is:
Artists who created the 1.5 million song archive have already expressed some disquiet about royalties. TruSonic has a very limited pool for the 250,000 artists, based on the number of plays, but has said it may re-evaluate this.
The TruSonic FAQ says:
How do artists benefit?
The main benefit for artists whose music is used in this program is increased public exposure to listeners who might not otherwise hear that music. An additional benefit is the royalties earned should your song be included in one or more playlists.
It's been repeated many times here and elsewhere, musicians do not make money from royalties, they make money from gigs. Because of the way their contracts are written, all expenses of production, distribution, advertising etc are deducted, usually leaving Zero. The only benefit of signing a recording contract is exposure (fame). TruSonic acknowledges this (sort of) in their FAQ.
I have tunes , or did have .. on MP3.com , how am I going to know if i am deserved royalties?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
If you follow the story link, you will find former mp3.com artists can request their music be removed from the TruSonic program by visiting this link.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
You people (the complainers) are so stupid.
I have a picture you shouting your post aloud that in the voice of that guy from the beginning of WarGames.
What's his name, Melvin?:
"You guys are SO dumb, I've got it all figured out, all by myself!"
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
I'm not sure what kinds of fact-checking they did, but this is contrary to what TruSONIC has said in their correspondence with musicians, namely that the only music from the mp3.com back-catalog that they're using is the stuff which was specifically enrolled into TruSONIC when it was part of mp3.com, and for that there was a checkbox when you uploaded a song (which was checked by default, yes, making it "opt-out," but you'd have to have been blind and/or stupid to not uncheck it if you didn't want your music used in TruSONIC).
Also, the royalty payouts are small because their revenue is small. Read the weblog entry which was linked at the bottom of the Register article... it's a followup to an open letter to TruSONIC about the bad wording in the FAQ regarding payouts.
lulu.com allows artists to sell CDs.
mp3.com's main draw was that they built communities and social networks of artists, which I don't think there is any replacement for--yet.
If you have the copyright to a creative work, you cannot be deprived of it without a court order (and for that there must be *cause*, and you'd be entitled to a *hearing*), or without you voluntarily surrendering copying or distribution rights to some other party.
I assume you've done the latter? Or do you have a case as a plaintiff under the DMCA?
I never was notified that I had to opt-out
Actually, you did, when you signed up as an artist. Remember the page where it's like, "Careful! It's important that you understand what you're clicking here" with a bunch of check boxes about how mp3.com can use your music?
I've vitually lost the copyright on my songs through some fancy corporate wheelin' and dealin'.
No you didn't. You still have the copyright. All you did was give mp3.com a license (presuming you checked those boxes) to use those songs.
Miss Piggy! Miss Piggy!
Will you tell me? Do you love me?
Oh Kermie! Oh Kermie!
I love you! Always will do!
You never loved me, you only loved Fozzie bear!
You never loved me, tho' I'm a puppet and I
shouldn't care!
You never loved me, 'cause I am a frog (again)!
You never loved me, tho' I'm a puppet and I shouldn't care!
Oh Fozzie! Oh Fozzie!
We used to be friends! It used to be so cool!
Miss Piggy! Miss Piggy!
You humiliate me! In front of my best friends!
You never loved me, you only loved Fozzie bear!
You never loved me, tho' I'm a puppet and I shouldn't care!
You never loved me, 'cause I am a frog (again)!
You never loved me, tho' I'm a puppet and I shouldn't care!
*snigger*
Just what every elevator needs...
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
They had you check boxes for this kind of thing, and it really wasn't misleading.
unless you buy CDs.
Little did you realize, fools, that the whole purpose for me
learning an instrument or three, recording my creations in
various bands and uploading them to MP3.COM was to
INFECT the corporate drones of the world with my music.
Sooner or later, they will bow to my sonic juggernaut and will be forced to listen. And sooner or later connecting the
dots will be easier - the yuppies of today who listen to rock
won't want to hear 'elevator' music in elevators, they'll want
to hear the music of their generation so my stuff will fit
right in - edgy and aggressive enough to please rock tastes
but ambient and synth-i-fied enough to sooth those rattled
corporate exec nerves.
Of course, it's doubtful that tracks like 'aliensporebomb', 'squeeze toy brain' and 'requiem for a dead cat' are going to
make it in the burgeoning elevator music anaesthesia world.
But some of my more mellow instrumental tracks just might. I moved over to zebox which seemed to be a bit
more pleasant but will eventually host my tracks on my own
server on my own time.
Still, MP3.COM was an interesting experiment while it lasted and lo and behold they actually paid me once in a while.
I had some *BAAAD* music on mp3.com. Grandma killing bad.
adventure-today.com
This is pretty much how Jesse Cook got his break - the TV Guide channel started playing his flamenco guitar as background music, and thousands of people called them to find out where they could get a copy.
I'm not gonna touch the issue of the artists' permission, here, but it's a shame they don't plan to have an accessible song list.
My experience was with a string orchestra and The Doors "Light My Fire". My opinion of my doctor at that point went from 'conservative, but safe' - to 'just plain twsited' and, Do I really want this person diagnosing me!
Stuff that matters.
So this means the three or four songs we uploaded, which sounded like new age neo-pr0n music will be played in elevators and cheesy restaurants nationwide! Woohoo, the Backsync Britneys will be famous!
Cafepress.com offers to create a music CD (or data CD) for ya, similar to the way MP3.com did, 'cept you can do more customizing of the cover and disc. You can't download full songs, but you can stream samples of tracks.
Here's mine
Anybody find anything else out there to replace MP3.com, yet?
Some people are like slinkys. They're useless, but it puts a smile on your face to push them down the stairs.
I opted out of all of that stuff myself while MP3.com was still online. They didn't pay the artists (or even inform them) when they sold our music for corporate use then, and they certainly aren't now. It was pretty clear to artists who paid attention at the time, but apparently not many people read what they sign... there was a big fat checkbox for this whenever you uploaded a song.
Kind of shitty for them to be selling this stuff to anyone when they no longer have an agreement with the artists though... I'm sure there will be a lawsuit sometime...
I can't wait till i hear the first politician get up and publicly denounce the "violence enstewed by elevator rap music"
______ Eagles may fly but monkeys don't get sucked into jet engines.
My friend's death metal band Kiriyama had thier music on mp3.com and i have this great mental image of the attendees of the regional promise keepers convention being subjected to such death metal greats on the ride up to their hotel room.
You get paid 15000*n/t where n=number of times your songs get played, while t is the number of songs they play on all playlists. Oh yeah, and they don't pay you unless they owe you more than $25. Which means that unless your songs make up 1/600 of the songs they play in a month, you get jack.
Living in Korea and having visited Japan enough times, I can assure you that they never play anything as classy as Vivaldi in elevators here. It's either commmercials on the mini TV screens, or it's awful J-pop/K-pop.
So I found their Opt-Out page. My band had music on there way back when, so I put in the email addy and password, told it to opt-out, and submitted it.
"Thank you for considering truSONIC, Your request has been recorded."
Only I'm pretty sure I typed the password wrong. So I typed in gibberish for the account name and password. And I get the same message. What's up with that?
Who doesn't like free music?
Although it's really not a big issue for me, I did upload 6 or 7 songs to MP3.com a while back (mostly electronica or trance/house genre tunes). It's pretty weird to think someone might be reviewing my work to decide if it's good elevator music to put in retail outlets though!
Quite frankly, I suspect the vast majority of songs taken from MP3.com won't lend themselves well to this purpose at all. They'll probably just focus on certain genres first, review the songs, and trim the list down considerably from there - picking and choosing what works best for non-offensive background music at the appropriate tempos.
I'm not sure of this either, but I have a hunch that with only a *few* exceptions, most artists on MP3.com were just trying to find a way to break into the music scene - and never generated very big royalty payments from their uploads anyway. If they had, then you'd probably see a much larger outcry about this.
You make my point exactly. Now they have taken away the ability for normal people to download and peruse music so that maybe i can find a new artist i like and they are going to use it for elavators where I will never be able to figure out that the song is yours for example. They managed to do all of this without paying the artist a cent. It makes me mad. Not because it is hurting at home artists like yourself but because it was misleading and goes against principle.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
...if you uploaded your music to mp3.com, which required agreeing to their TOS, you gave them the right to do what they want with your music. If Vivendi had wanted to, they could've sold the entire collection of music to SCO, who would have then told you that by remembering the music that you wrote, you violate their copyright. And because you signed away your rights, along with your testicles and first-born male child, you could do NOTHING whatsoever about it.
Let's see.. TruSonic take my music without telling me, but I lose absolutely no rights on it, and they send me a royalty check every quarter. The only way I can find out if they used my music *is* the royalty check.
:)
Personally, if some company started paying me without my knowledge, I'd be disoriented but RELATIVELY HAPPY!
I don't see what the "unfortunately" is for
I didn't agreed to TruSonic to grab my music I put up on mp3.com for commercial exploitation. TruSonic says that they can't say if your music is/will be used. You can only test if your music is in the current set of tunes send to the customers by logging in with your old account. If that fails, your music isn't part of their current set of tunes. However you can't see if your music was selected for future sets. So you can't check if TruSonic rips you off or not.
I don't mind if people play my tunes on whatever device they own, I DO mind if people use my music to earn money without asking me if I agree with that. It's a simple question.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
There wasn't a clause where I signed away my rights to them so they could do whatever they wanted. I'm not in the US of A, so they don't have the right to do so by a silly website, according to Dutch laws.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I first couldn't find my password, then found an old email with the password, but I'm not sure if I've changed that during the years, but anyway I tried the opt-out page as well and also had the feeling I typed it wrong but got the same message. I too thought: "This is pretty fake"
I don't think they check it at that time, because I couldn't login with the same credentials in their new system and they couldn't check if my music was up for a future music set from them. That's pretty close to "we don't have any records about who owns this music, we just have the mp3's".
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I never agreed to MP3.com to use my music in whatever situation/tool/firm they think sees fit. I don't recall signing a contract which says so.
When MP3.com was sold to cnet, the word was that the files would be deleted. I then thought: ok, fine by me. However now I have to find out that my music isn't deleted but stored somewhere in the dungeons of TruSonic waiting to make them money and I don't know about it. I never signed a contract with TruSonic.
Perhaps you should read some lawbooks. I'm not in the US of A. I don't care what stupid laws they cook up there so a person can sign his whole life away with a click on a webpage button. In my country we have laws which strictly say that clicking an 'Ok' button on a page is not enough to sign an agreement.
Furthermore, It's MY music, so I'm concerned. You may call me stupid for being concerned for being ripped off but that says more about you than about me.
I assume you don't have any locks on the doors of your house, because why bother when someone ripps you off, right?
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I have been in an elevator where Weezer's Dope Nose was playing, and my elevtion-noughts (sorry, Mr. Bush has me all excited about space) were two members of the RCMP.
Sell Schmell. Exposure is what bands need. Not an occassional sell. There will be other sites that promote new artists and offer cheap downloads of unsigned artists.
Imagine being at a restaurant and hearing something worth purchasing, and not some hash of a great song. Personally, I'd be thrilled to hear that my music is getting public performance playtime. My only wish is for periodic announcements of the artist and title.
Here's a loophole in "viral licenses": abstention. We contributed our music to MP3.com and our album playlists to CDDB.com, giving our labor to the community. We expected that the servers to which we submitted our data would be accessible to the public: the servers were a means to that end of sharing with the community. But the owners of CDDB.com closed access to the database, opening it only to licensees with a new, commercial license. Now MP3.com has done the same to the music. If the data is not "distributed to users", it isn't bound by the license to be available to the users in the license's terms.
We need a data license that includes Terms of Use. When we submit data to a server under that license, the owner of the server has rights to access it only under those terms. If they change access from public to private (or none), they lose their license to the data. Another ToU license variation might require PRIVATE access only, non-distributable. This would apply to personal data we supply for authentication purposes, for example - selling that data to a 3rd party would break the license. Deleting the data, notifying its owner (the sending user), and damage compensation would be an appropriate remedy for breaking the license terms.
Of course, in the case of required-public access, we also have techniques to strengthen our rights. We can send our data to many servers with many owners, providing redundancy in distribution which avoids the single-point-of-failure flaw in MP3.com and CDDB.com monopolizing the redistribution rights. In other words, our data is safely in the public when we distribute it promiscuously. Get out there and reproduce!
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make install -not war
I have had my music played by Trusonic when it started 3 years ago. When you uploaded a song on MP3.com you had the option of checking the trusonic box. If you did check it retailers had the option of selecting your music out of the massive MP3 pool. I started by having my music played 10,000 times during the first Christmas season, this last season it was played in stores and restaurants about 5,000 times a day. Most of the comments on this thread are by people that think "elevator" music is beneath them. Well its paying my heating bills this winter and thats a lot. You know indie artists dont get much radioplay because the big labels and the major broadcasters are sleeping together. So my music is being heard in stores and restaurants across the country and people must like it because my numbers are growing. More people listen to retail music in one day than heard Bach, Beethoven and Mozart in their lifetimes. If you want to hear it you can go to http://celestial-image.com Dennis Jennings
I put my music on MP3.com the first year it was operational and it was exciting. Then Vivendi took over and made their changes. The home page was filled with THEIR artists and the indies were forced to pay the bills to keep their music in the MP3 web traffic. Dec 2 was sort of a sad day when MP3 closed down and erased the files. However the domain and much of the operation was purchased by CNet a net savvy company. So look for a resurrection of MP3.com within a few months. Hopefully it will have the excitement that the original MP3.com had and will be beneficial to indie labels as well as artists of every genre.
trusonic has a monitor so people can find out the name and url. But they are probably hidden in the store someplace. Cnet bought the Mp3.com domain name and will be back online soon. I think this will be a very good thing. Vivendi couldnt manage their way out of a paper bag.
We were calling it elevator music in the 70s. That was replaced by calling it "muzak" after the brand name provider of "elevator music" systems. I do not know if the company took any steps to protect its brand, but it was free advertising for them. You heard the same "music" on radio stations being billed as "easy listening", meaning music that did not require any brain-power. (I think that phrase disappeared because by the late 90s, as almost all new pop music could be heard without any brain-power.)
I have not heard much music on elevators. I assumed that the term came from the music that is played in places where you wait for elevators, such as lobbies.
You suggested the music was meant to elevate your mood. That would fit with the lobby idea. But have you heard elevator music? It usually makes me want to sleep. I think it was meant to dull your mind so you would not notice that the elvator takes forever to reach your floor.
Or it could be that the music goes up and down without going anywhere. It tends to be extremely boring.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
In Spanish, elevator music is instead referred to as dentist music. Seems to make a lot more sense if you ask me, as the only music I've heard in an elevator is the near the end of the Blues Brothers movie, while dentists routinely play bland, tasteless music in their clinics.