Slashdot Mirror
Peer Impact Signs 3 Major Record Labels
An anonymous reader submits "Three of the Big Four music labels have reached licensing agreements to provide their music to the soon-to-launch Peer Impact network, a peer-to-peer service that enables legal music file-sharing."
Now There's Another Place To Get Your Jessica Simpson Fix, Legally
I sure hope they have better artist than this or you can count me out.
They list some other artists there and none of them are any better. Yet they later say they want PI to be have the most "diverse" content. Yeah, right - everything from Britney Spears to Jessica Simpson!
Yet another indication of how clueless the music industry is these days.
I also checked out the PI web site and there's almost no information there about the service. How does it work? Is this that stupid thing I read about a while ago where you're actually just sharing links to music rather than the music itself? In other words, it's just like publishing your playlist somewhere and then linking to some music publisher's store? If so, I don't even really consider it P2P. And I'm sure the quality's going to suck (128k files, no doubt) and there's got to be some pretty onerous DRM tacked on too.
No thanks. I'll stick to buying and ripping my own CD's. You'd think the industry would love guys like me who actually go out and pay for their music (when I actually find a new artist I like, that is, which isn't often these days), but given the DRM they're trying to force onto CD's, they obviously don't. It remains the only viable option as far as I'm concerned, though, if you want legal music for the best price with the greatest selection, and you want the highest-quality compressed files along with it.
Seems like a DRMed bit torrent to me.
It's going to be interesting to see the price structure they come up with and also how they monitor transfers. As you say it sounds like they want us to provide the bandwidth. Will it be a proprietary p2p setup. Will their server be the only tracker? Will they provide the only transferrable songs?
I'm thinking it will be similar to bittorrent in that once you download a song from them, you help unload the server load as other's download it. They still track the downloads and bill the downloader, but with reduced server load and it gets the PR hype of P2P. They confused the next generation into thinking that P2P means Pay to Play and they're rolling in a new generation of mindless drones.
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
I think you're right. This actually may be a conspiracy to do just that. DRM is easy enough to get around anyway -- plug an mp3 recorder into the lineout of your sound card, record, and distribute. This could only stand to make MORE files available illegally. It may not affect the numbers though, it's probably a pretty good bet that most cd's that are ever released are ripped and illegally traded anyway.
Speak for yourself.
That's like a highway where it's legal to speed, but takes you nowhere. That's like a legal drug, that doesn't get you high. That's like stealing your own stuff! Where's the fun in that?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
How much does /. get for the free publicity?
:)
Seriously, I checked the wurld media site. This looks like (yet another) music label attempts to control the whole distribution stream.
My guess on how it works: You get a custom application (windows and mac only of course), that downloads and tracks MP3 files that are enrypted somehow. And every now and then, everything you've downloaded, how many times you listened to it, etc. is uploaded to some central server by the app, and you're billed, and the music industry gets more demographics than you can shake a stick at (don't think so? read the privacy policy on the company's web site about aggregate data).
So how how long will it be until someone decompiles the software, extracts the key, and puts it on BitTorrent?
I agree with your take on the strategy. However, I optimistically see this as a possible building block for a more comprehensive 'on demand' strategy. When I say 'strategy', i mean it as a 'business opportunity in the making' vs 'deliberate action on the part of the labels'.
#1. Make it p2p so that operating costs are defrayed by subscribers.
#2. Secure login, unique key/identifier, etc.
#3. Unlimited access to back catalogue. Variety of bitrates and formats of files allowed.
#4. Client contains advertisements in way of discrete banners, controlled by p2p service (another source of revenue).
#5. Monthly fee equivalent roughly to that of a MMORPG, or basic cable/telephone service. Say $20 USD a month. Some respectable caps can be in place (say 10gb a month, or only so much bandwidth per second)
#6. Tracking mechanisms used to identify # of downloads per file. Artists compensated based on volume of traffic.
Such a service would be ridicuously popular and successful IMHO. If hundreds of thousands would pay $19.95 a month to play everquest or Ultima online on a indefinite basis, think of the audience available today? Music is a much bigger target audience than MMORG, is easier to deliver, and has longer lasting appeal.
Record labels, listen to marketing 101. "Market the sizzle, not the steak.". Files = steak. There will ALWAYS be file traders. These people you would never gain as clients no matter what you do. However, convenience = sizzle. Why would someone pay $3.50 for a coffee at Starbucks? Because of the experience. Focus on the experience.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
So, let me get this straight...
I buy a song, download it with their app, then I'm considered a sharer. Someone else buys the song, pays the company, then downloads the song from me.
Am I going to get a "Shipping & Handling" fee from the company for storing the song on my pc for someone else to download? Who's going to be paying me for my bandwidth spike if the song is popular? Am I going to be required to share every song I buy 24/7 so that it's available for others to download when they buy?
Sounds like a pretty good scam to me. Selling music for someone else and you don't even have to store it on your own servers or use any of your own bandwidth except for the tracker.
mmm... I smell a patent being filled out...
I'm making the assumption that this uses DRM and is actually p2p. So how on earth could that possibly work?
Just a quick primer, DRM (at least in any existing form) is nothing more than public key encryption turned upside down. A private key is generated on your machine and the public key is sent to the server (in the case of itunes or napster v2). The public key is used to encrypt any files you "purchase" so that only the private key can decrypt it. So far so good, but that is just simply public key encryption. What makes it DRM is that the software attempts to "hide" your own private key from you, the rational being that if you can access your own key, you can decrypt the data at will and save it rather than letting the application place all kinds of restrictions on you.
If this seems like an incredibly ignorant and technologically weak idea it is only because that is exactly what DRM is.
So how do you pull something like that off in a P2P environment? Who handles keys? Who encrypts stuff and to whom? I can only see this working with a flat fee based system where everyone has access to everything which has been encrypted with the same key. Of course as soon as that one key is "found" (and it will be, it has to be in every player on the network), the whole system falls apart.
Details on this would be nice (and not too much to ask from a news for nerds site), right now there just seems to be empty marketing blurbs.
Finkployd
What a SCAM!
The only way that ANY legit p2p service/program can ever work is by charging a flat rate for 'all you can download'. Or at least have a two tiered system where the Billboard top 100 sells a la carte, but once a song falls off the top 100, it moves into the flat rate category. This is basically the model the movie industry uses. New films are exhibited in theatres for a premium price, but once their popularity starts to wane, they move to HBO and DVD. Also, lose the DRM! If you don't, your plan is doomed to FAIL. Someone will crack it anyway! Accept the fact that while some theft is inevitable, the majority will do the right thing and sign up. Besides, despite what you say in all your RIAA bullshit rhetoric, most of the people who download now wouldn't be buying the song anyway.Looks like they're going after the iTunes market and not the napster market.
Is there a difference? The only differences I see between iTMS and Napster are 1. Napster uses WMA+MSDRM instead of AAC+FairPlay, and 2. Napster also offers a streaming service for $10/mo. Is there another big difference? Or how are those two differences major?
Ok Chuck, I'll walk you through it step by step.
"This means you won't be able to steal music" - you cannot "steal" music. You can only commit copyright violations. Stealing music is impossible, unless you shoplift CDs. And even then, you're stealing the CDs, not the music. The music still exists.
"that artists worked so hard to produce" - you know, I actually know people who play music because they just like to. Odd, no?
"and music companies worked so hard to distribute." - Cost of a music CD, about 10 bucks. Cost of a Hollywood movie on DVD, about 15. But making a movie is orders of magnitude more expensive to make and market. Wanna know why? Here's why. The music industry is uniquely corrupt. And also incompetent. Are you sure you want these goons scanning your hard drive, even if you haven't done anything wrong? What if your name happens to be Usher, too?
"Woe is you!" - and woe is anyone who allows this band of barely legalized criminals into their affairs. Even with something as simple as a click through EULA.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The record company LOANS the artist $$$! Each artist has to pay back the label for all that marketing, engineering, etc.
Most bands starting out make NOTHING from their first few albums; the label gets it all!
Here's somethiung for you to read. Steve Albini has been in the business a LONG time, and is very well known and respected. I know him personally and he has something that very few others in the record business have: INTEGRITY!
Want to know the truth? read this:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html