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Unlimited Legal Music Downloads for $3.95 a Month?
fishmasta writes "I'm at a major university studying the music industry, so we get to regularly talk to executives in the major labels. In a recent talk with someone working at Warner Bros, she brought up an idea they want to try where all file sharing is legalized by paying $4-5 a month through an ISP, all downloads are permanent, and you can get them from any source, and do what you want with them. It seems like some in the industry are starting to 'get it.' I was just wondering what Slashdot thinks of this idea. Would you be willing to pay a small fee each month if you could get all the music you want and have no legal liability?"
El-Man has another take on that subject replacing "unlimited" with a set number of licenses: "I believe that people are basically honest (maybe a failing, but it's how I feel), and are quite happy to pay for something of value. With music downloads, the only solution the recording industry has come up with is wrapping digital files with onerous, incompatible DRM systems, suing those whom they say have illegally distributed music (what is it, 13000 people and counting? Surely the courts have better things to do!), and generally not doing themselves or music lovers any good. How about a system, whereby a user can purchase a license for [n] amount of digital music files? Numbers can be, 10, 50, 100, 200, etc. Doesn't matter what the files are, as long as the number is not exceeded. There'd be a lot of details to thrash out, but is this something that is ultimately workable?"
If you were an executive of a medium-to-large sized record company, how would you handle the potential of the Internet?
If you were an executive of a medium-to-large sized record company, how would you handle the potential of the Internet?
I would gladly pay $5 a month for unlimited, non-DRMed music. Heck, I already pay $5 amonth for DRM'ed downloads (Yahoo! Music Unlimited).
My spoon is too big.
There is no way for the money to get back to the artist. This plan only benefits the labels. Perhaps they can survey the P2P networks and get a sample of what's being searched for, then pay the artists accordingly. This will ensure the popular artists get the money while those with fewer fans get the shaft. At least by getting DRMed music, in theory the provider can accurately track whose music is being downloaded and thus compensate the artists.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
I'm starting a studio in Chicago, Illinois this spring: No Copyright Studios. We've started to take in donations and investments, and are hoping to open our doors in very late spring if not sooner (considering the equipment we're getting, it should be sooner). I hope to be a future medium-sized label exec by repudiating copyright and focusing on bands that have a real value in live shows versus CD sales.
I believe that music has some interesting profit incentives when it is played live. We've looked into all sorts of value-added options for those live venues, including the following:
* Buy the official CD, get a free ticket to a private show.
* Buy the official CD, get a login to view the band in the studio for a set period of time
* After the live show, purchase a real-time edited sound-board fed DVD of the show
* Buy practice time with the band
* Let anyone else play the song live if you like, but we'll make sure we find out who performed what and when, and advertise that we're the co-op that created the music.
I don't believe in any intellectual property. In the last 6 months, I have attended almost 50 live shows in the Chicago Indie, Punk and alternative scene. I've met over 75 bands who have admitted that copyright has done jack for their income, and they were always better off giving away the recorded music in exchange for getting people into the shows. If you're a musician and you want to earn an income, is it better for the top 10 in the country to make $10,000,000 because they're the main earners for those who control the distribution networks? Or would you rather see 1,000 bands locally who can generate $100,000 each?
There is a lot of money out there to be made when you take out the copyright cartel companies from the market. I firmly believe that bands can make money if they realize the supply and demand forces at work can not be manipulated. Taking advantage of supply and demand is the best way to go about it. MP3 = near infinite supply = $0. Live music = limited supply = income. QED.
Actually, that's not precisely the system you have. With the system you have, you pay the levy whether you use it or not, and whether you were otherwise entitled to the music or not (e.g., by buying it through iTMS or because you already paid for the CD).
Personally, I find the idea of paying a levy on every piece of media I *could* use to pirate music repugnant. I do sound for a Dharma center where we have a lot of teachings; we record them and give them away for free. Having to pay a levy for an iPod or for CDs or whatever is completely unfair in this case - we aren't getting any of that money back when people copy our audio (nor do we want it - the audio is *supposed* to be free).
Meanwhile, because of all the paranoia from the music industry, it's very difficult to record anything - there are so many attempts to close the analog hole and to avoid perfect copies that, to this day, it is a struggle to get any kind of usable equipment that works for us - e.g., something where you push "record" and you get a clean digital recording. If you have the bucks for really expensive pro gear this isn't out of the question, but all of the sub-$1k equipment is deliberately crippled.
Nielsen Soundscan already tracks paid downloads. It wouldn't be hard for them to track popularity of P2P downloads too.
However what happens to the tracking if the artists themselves decide to boost their income by having bots download their songs as often as possible?
Tracking P2P downloads is probably simple and accurate as long as noone is profiting directly from the results. As soon as an individuals salary is completely dependant on these figures then I think it will get much more difficult to ensure the correctness of the results - it is too easy for people to influence.
'' However what happens to the tracking if the artists themselves decide to boost their income by having bots download their songs as often as possible? ''
That should be no problem. Lets say everybody pays x dollars a month, and lets say three dollars of everyone's payments is to be distributed to the artist. If all you download in one month is one Britney Spears song, she gets your three dollars. If you download her song tenthousand times, she gets three dollars. If you download ten different songs, everyone gets 30 cents, if you download 1000 different songs, everyone gets 0.3 cents.
The bot can only produce three dollars of income to an artist, but it needs an ISP address where more than three dollars are paid, so it is a net loss.
What would be dangerous is a virus that gets copied on many machines of paying consumers and downloads stuff they don't want.