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Labels Agree On Free Music Downloads To Cell Phones
An anonymous reader writes "CNet's Crave reports on a potentially revolutionary digital music service set to launch worldwide later this year. It's offering free, unlimited over-the-air downloads to cell phones, with music from all four major record labels, with no subscription. And the selections that users download get automatically downloaded to their PC or Mac. Rather obviously, the tracks are DRMed, but unlike the similar Nokia service unveiled last year to much disappointment, this MusicStation Max service will have exclusive handsets from LG and no additional fees to customers. This is a little similar to an idea talked about last year, but with all four majors on-board it seems to have greater potential."
"...Rather obviously, the tracks are DRMed..."
They still don't get it! Do I say more?
Apparently nobody with power has been listening at the **AA, not even a little bit. I couldn't even work up a yawn for this new service, never mind enough excitement to contemplate what missing features will be on the phone and what 'extra' goodies will be there to track my every move or some attempt at that.
ooops, there, I yawned.
Did I hear someone just call them fucking idiots?
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And then I saw that it had DRM. And was limited to certain LG phones. Wow. Underwhelming, sad to say. Not that it'll appear down here, like, ever. Moving on.
And hell, it's *NOT REALLY FREE*. You need a special contract. Oh yeah. Sure, each track is free, but you're still paying a premium for it. I don't mind that, but it's a bit misleading. Not that I'm surprised.
They haven't even said which player will be able to play the files. It looks like Windows Media Player is a contender.
All-in-all, not impressed.
Quick, get off his lawn before he eats us! Run!!!!
If you read the article, it does say that you'll need a special contract and a special phone. And in addition to that contract, I believe you'll need to buy an unlimited data plan as well. Woo.
And it's not like you can put them on your iPod. If you want to use them on the computer, you'll need to use an approved player. Which I'm sure will be *fantastic*, the best *ever*!
Exactly! It still boggles my mind that computers do anything other than do math! Whats all this graphics and gaming crap they put on computers these days- just grab a pen and paper or go outside! *humph* "applications" on a computer... what a waste.
Tsk. Tsk. You and your fancy "number storing" telephone.
Music companies just found another tech company to take a bajillion dollars to promise them that sweet, sweet DRM.
How many times does that make now? I can think of no better evidence that cocaine makes you dumb.
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The majority of people want to have four digital devices with them at all times: a phone, a PDA, a camera, and a music player. They also do not want to carry separate devices to do these things. So, they get bundled. A cell phone is a PDA/C, a personal digital assistant/communicator. The PDA/C allows the user to organize contact information, schedules, etc. The audio capabilities keeps the user entertained while travelling. The video capabilities allows the user to capture spontaneous moments, or take video notes (pictures of signs, etc). Oh, and it also allows the user to communicate. That means sending text, pictures, and of course, two way audio. Cell phones are starting to have internet browsers on them. In the future, look for them to have docking stations with full sized keyboards and monitors, as the cell phone and the notebook merge.
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Bundling some sort of a music fee into digital items is not a bad business model. The record companies get their piece of the pie, consumers can get a set of appliances where they can have their music.
This actually isn't that different from the software model, pre-Microsoft. Software was ultimately bundled in with the hardware and service contract costs and so everyone could just sorta of copy software all over the place. Heck, Microsoft owes a lot of its success to this sort of model for Windows largely due to its lack of DRM. If Microsoft required the sort of authentication with DOS and Windows 3.1 that it requires for Vista, it is very doubtful they would be in the dominant position they are in today. DOS used to be $10!!!
Of course, this bundling sucks for Linux and completely free software, but one could envision a distro actually having a service plan with it for DRM content. If you throw in a few extra bucks, the content plan could actually be used to help fund further Linux development. Thus, tacking a few bucks onto teeny boppers wanting to get the latest Hannah Montana on a Linux box could actually be used to help pay for things like additional FireFox, Open Office and other Linux core applications development.
The one thing that really hurts the credibility of the music industry, aside from the obvious and vile thuggishness with which RIAA presses its claims, is that, the artist's share of the proceeds is rather small. In the CD / Vinyl days, a large cut for the industry was reasonable because of all the people that the business needed to pay to make physical copies. Now, with electronic distribution, there's really no moral reason why the artist can't get a larger piece of the pie. But as we have seen with the writer's strike, it seems that the content industry isn't really interested in promoting, well, the truly gifted people that make content, but rather, exploiting them, and that completely undermines any legitimate claim onto the advantages of copyright. The recording industry isn't really an enabler of artists, as much as it is more like the Islamic caliphs of old sitting on overland trade routes, exploiting them until the Europeans figured out how to sail around them and avoid the ridiculous surcharges.
To have an efficient capitalistic economy, you want to reward investment in people that actually add value, and record companies don't. So, having a more consumer friendly business model won't fix the problem. Record companies have to actually pay the artists a real percentage of the music sales. IF shareware distributors can thrive taking 10-15% of a sale, leaving artists with the lion's share, then so can record companies. The situation is different with movies, which are much more collaborative and capital intensive thing, but, even there, there's no reason that the principals of a movie can't get a bigger piece of the pie.
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