Bach Launches Updated MP3 Format

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Bach Technology has rolled out an updated MP3 file format in a bid to combat music piracy. Dubbed "MusicDNA," the new format offers embedded "updatable premium content" like lyrics, videos, news updates, and album artwork. "Using the new technology, music labels and bands will be able to send updates to the music files – with tour dates, interviews or updates to social networking pages – while illegally-downloaded files remain static. ... No major labels have signed up to use MusicDNA so far, but British record company Beggars Group and US label Tommy Boy are both on board. However, the files are likely to be more expensive than MP3 files – according to the BBC – and will have to compete with Apple's iTunes LP, which already provides additional content such as bonus tracks, lyrics and video interviews."

Comments

Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[sopssa]

with tour dates, interviews or updates to social networking pages – while illegally-downloaded files remain static.

So if I want to buy music legitly, in addition to paying for the track I will now also get spammed with ads?

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[BabyDuckHat]

They're not ads. They're valuable opportunities from trusted online partners. Now, where did I put that shiv?

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, if I download a file illegally, I'm guaranteed to be left alone and my files won't be changed around without my consent or prior knowledge?

Hm.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[alop]

Sounds like a misguided effort. What I really want, is high-quality audio in smaller file sizes. It seems like they're creating a solution without a problem, or for the wrong problem.

I understand the point of incentivizing legitimate downloads, but the incentive here is something I (or just about anyone) can get with a quick google search.

If they really want to incentivize legit downloads, give me exclusive content or, life-like audio... Heck, I'd take the music equivalent of "Director's Commentary" over their proposal.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[infinite9]

I hope it's an open standard so someone can write a utility to strip all the crap from the "new and improved" mp3 files.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Monkeedude1212]

Opt-in, not mandatory.

So if you want to buy music legitly, you have the option of having the bonus features, similar to those on a DVD or Blu Ray. Its just incentive to buy over pirating.

Which is the best way to go about it, and we all know it. That way they can have their cake and we get to eat ours.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[jollyreaper]

So if I want to buy music legitly, in addition to paying for the track I will now also get spammed with ads?

But wait, there's more!

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[unformed]

If I want to receive information from a given band, I can put my email address into their newsletter.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Monkeedude1212]

Perhaps you misread the first line of my post?

Or perhaps you misunderstood it?

Or perhaps you missed everything altogether...

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[InlawBiker]

Doesn't matter what we, the end users, want. The customer is big record labels. They want a format to "combat piracy while adding value and opportunities for marketing synergy in strategic channels."

The folks who designed the format know perfectly well it will never go anywhere. So what! They're getting paid.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Kitkoan]

Sounds like a misguided effort. What I really want, is high-quality audio in smaller file sizes. It seems like they're creating a solution without a problem, or for the wrong problem.

Smaller file sizes would be a much better option then all these extra's hidden away in the file. I won't be surprised to see programs popping up to help strip all this extra information away since MP3 players seem to be getting smaller not larger. My old player was 80gigs, but when I needed to buy a new one last month I was hard pressed to find one larger then 32gigs, with many being around the 16gig size. And larger files means less music that can be taken with you so people will just try to strip this extra junk with them, since most mp3 players don't even have internet connection to take advantage of the updated information, only a computer or smartphone is able to.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Aeros]

I dont think he did. The bands newsletter is opt-in also. I seriously think this will be a dud. I seriously couldn't care less about this feature.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem for me is, how do they ensure that "illegally-downloaded files remain static"? There must be some type of DRM involved, and therefore I, and many others, won't buy it. I bought my first mp3s once Amazon started selling them unencrypted; I'd buy ones with optional lyrics etc, but only if I can be sure that I can always put it on whatever device I want.

The music companies still shoot themselves in the foot at every opportunity. For example this summer I was in France & heard a couple of songs I liked on the radio. I got home to the US, went to Amazon.com, found that they didn't have the album I wanted. So I went to Amazon.fr, installed the French mp3 downloader, and when I tried to check out I wasn't able to buy the songs because I was outside Europe! (And yes, I know that's the experience of most of the world with iTunes.) It's pretty ridiculous that a decade after Napster they're still putting up stupid barriers.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[PopeRatzo]

My old player was 80gigs, but when I needed to buy a new one last month I was hard pressed to find one larger then 32gigs, with many being around the 16gig size.

The shrinking size has nothing to do with the size of media files and everything to do with flash memory having larger profit margins than hard drives.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[nine-times]

From TFA:

Dubbed MusicDNA, the files contain embedded additional content including lyrics, videos, news updates and album artwork.

Ok, so lyrics and album art totally makes sense, but... can't you already do that with ID3 tags? But videos? Why would I want to store a video in my MP3 file instead of as its own video file? And the news updates, as you said, sound like spam.

To include some context to your quote:

MusicDNA was developed by Norwegian firm Bach Technology, the company that also created the MP3 file, in an attempt to combat illegal file-sharing. Using the new technology, music labels and bands will be able to send updates to the music files – with tour dates, interviews or updates to social networking pages – while illegally-downloaded files remain static.

Ok, so to me this makes it sound like, if I want to avoid getting spammed, I should listen to "illegally-downloaded files". This also implies that these files have some sort of phone-home DRM when the music is played, which is a potential privacy violation.

You know, when I'm listening to music, I often do think, "The only way this could be better is if it had DRM and reported my listening habits back to record labels, and if I was getting spammed right now. If only someone would develop the technology!"

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[sageres]

There is ogg vorbis for that

• Vorbis files can compress to a smaller file size and still sound fine; Vorbis' better compression will cut down on bandwidth costs and keep you from being a victim of your own popularity.
• Vorbis' standardized, easily-edited comment header provides a space for you to scribble all sorts of notes about yourself to distribute with the music; this helps fans find you, your site, and where to buy your stuff.
• If you decide to sell your music in MP3 format, you are responsible for paying Fraunhofer a percentage of each sale because you are using their patents. Vorbis is patent and license-free, so you will never need to pay anyone in order to sell, give away, or stream your own music.

--------- http://www.vorbis.com/faq/

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[PopeRatzo]

I hope it's an open standard

Not likely.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to think what the record companies are going to include with this new format, lets face it they cannot even manage to tag mp3's properly most of the time.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[mariushm]

They can do everything the description says with id3v2 tags. Perhaps just an extension to the id3v2 tag standard that would allow embedded javascript or html would be enough for all interaction they would need.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is it's OGG that allows for the additional information in the headers, and that it's Vorbis that the audio frames within an ogg file are encoded with. This isn't meant to be a flame, it just irks me that people tend to confuse the container format (ogg, avi, wmv) with the encoding (vorbis, xvid, vc-1)... As most containers will support multiple encoding formats and is where the meta data is stored, not in the encoding itself but in the container.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

That was my first thought. Also, it would seem to me that they would include a watermark to a particular user in the meta-data and anyone whose files wind up splattered all over the net would see some serious litigation come their way.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Jeremy Erwin]

HILDEBRAND Hi. I'm Andy Hildebrand, and I'm here with my good friend Paul Northfield, and we're here to discuss why this albums sounds the way it does.
NORTHFIELD: What's so impressive about this album? I'd like to point out that this track is particularly loud. By keeping the basic beat at fairly steady -0.5 dbFS, we were able to achieve a dynamic punch heretofore unrealized in the industry.
HILDEBRAND: One of the problems with singing that loudly, of course is that sometimes a singer's voice distorts. By applying a proprietary algorithm, we able to ensure that the distortion is minimal.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

What I'd like to see is more channels with, say the voice channel(s) able to be independently controlled like a mixer board. So, for example, I could play the song with the voice part at 1/2 volume for sing-a-long (at home, not needing an ASCAP or other license). Maybe a guitarist could play the song with the lead guitar at low volume to practice playing the song after first working it out with ONLY the guitar part playing. Anyway, I can think of probably a dozen uses for having it in completely separate tracks and I'm not even very inventive.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Lumpy]

It is! the OSS version is available in the http://lame.sourceforge.net/ project on sourceforge.

Honestly, a properly set up lame encoder can generate a MP3 that even a audiophile listening on his $89,000 speakers going through the virgin gold plated no oxygen directional speaker wires can hear the difference.

I have some 320kbps VBR files made from a SACD rip of Supertramp Crime of the century that are absolutely incredible, they sound better than a standard CD of the same album.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[sageres]

My apologies, you are absolutely correct. Ogg is a container while Vorbis is a codec. But while mp3 is two and more functions put together (with different possible barely compatible codecs to boot).

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[thehostiles]

so?

the "extra information" they're offering is of absolutely NO value.
we can get tour dates, album artwork, interviews and other goodies anywhere else free of charge.

this changes nothing. You're actually going to end up getting a normal music file that takes up a bit more space on your hard drive.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[BeardedChimp]

I like the quote from the guardian article:

Their imagination is their only limit If MP3s were the cassette, MusicDNA will be the CD."

Lets hope this crashes and burns.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[fluffy99]

I'll bet it will include information on who originally purchased the song over the internet. If they find an mp3 on a file sharing site with your personalized serial number, then they can claim that you made it available for distribution. Of course, all the popular sharing sites and software will quickly learn to strip that out.

No different than watermarking in movies sent to the theaters. I wouldn't be surprised if NetFlix or other pay-per-view streaming media sites are doing this already.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[mhajicek]

MusicDNA was developed by Norwegian firm Bach Technology, the company that also created the MP3 file, in an attempt to combat illegal file-sharing

Sounds like that pacifist Gatling and the gun he invented hoping to make war to terrible to wage.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Compact Dick]

You're right, but sageres used the correct terminology in the first place. Ogg Vorbis is the accurate name of Vorbis streams enclosed in Ogg containers.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Hurricane78]

I think the coolest format is actually Matroska. Cover, a playable album in one file. Alternate versions / remixes, lyrics, and free metadata / attached files of choice.
Of course, ID3 & co can already do most of that.
But I would love to see more files ending in MKA. :)

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

i dunno. i like the idea of embedding lyrics and tour dates. if it's left up to my control as to what is shown, this could be nice. after all it's not DRM.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Have Blue]

Actually, it has everything to do with demand. If the distribution of music collection size works out so that you've covered the majority of the audience at 16GB, and the vast majority of them at 32GB, there's not that much money to be made chasing the ones left over with yet more product lines. Someone will still do it, obviously, which is why e.g. Apple still makes 160GB iPod Classics, but that segment is not exactly the low-hanging fruit.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[TubeSteak]

The shrinking size has nothing to do with the size of media files and everything to do with flash memory having larger profit margins than hard drives.

You forgot vastly superior seeks times, power consumption, and size.
Limited production capacity is the only thing propping up prices on flash memory.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[nine-times]

I'm not sure I even see the point of that. What if I want to copy one file from the album to my MP3 player? Do I have to copy the whole file, or do I have to split the individual file out somehow?

I guess I don't even understand what the point is. What's the benefit of MKA files over MP3?

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

More interestingly it's market driven. There are precious few people who actually fill their 80GB iPods. Those that do (like my girlfriend) are the type who spend the entire 15 min trip in the car looking for a song, rather than playing one.

We live in a world that is constantly connected to a computer of sorts. Even the iPhone charges via USB. What's the need to keep all of your music collection on your device, rather than just loading a few GB of stuff on for the following week. My 2GB iPod shuffle playlist provided entertainment for an entire international flight from Australia to Austria without a single repeated song.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Virmal]

If you purchase within the next 10 minutes, not only will we send you the lyrics to the song(s) that you just downloaded, but we will also send you coupons to the wonderful resorts that Band X visited in the past so that you can enjoy first hand the same creme-de-la-creme treatment...Operators are standing by, Call now!

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Briareos]

Contrary to popular belief, Apple still produces 160GB iPod Classics - as long as you don't use the hideous mess of crap that is iTunes you should be good to go with one of those...

np: James Horner - Gathering All The Na'vi Clans For Battle (Avatar: Music From The Motion Picture)

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[AmonTheMetalhead]

I'm intrested in your lame settings, care to share?

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Lord Byron II]

Saying it has "no value" is like saying that Wikipedia has no value because there already exist print encyclopedias. I think, done correctly, this could be fairly unobtrusive and beneficial. Imagine, you download a single you like and it already contains Amazon links to buy the full album. Or it lets you know when the band's next release comes out.

I for one welcome this idea. Instead of penalizing the legitimate buyers of a product with DRM, they are attempting to reward the buyers with additional content. Our relationship with the content industries is always going to be one of a carrot or a stick, and I much prefer the carrot.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Frank Dreben]

Not to pick nits, but 320 is the *maximum* bit rate for mp3, so technically you have a 320 kbps cbr file or (more likely) you have a a vbr file encoded with the -V0 option that probably includes many frames encoded at 320.

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME

That said, I don't get the point of this new format, to me it has the qualities needed to make me avoid it. It seems like a security hole waiting to be exploited.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[mister_playboy]

The fact that the disc is SACD is irrelevant. Your rip came from the normal CD-audio layer.

Sounds better than the CD? Please.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[spikesahead]

Could be the fact that hard drive based players are so easy to kill, leading to a lot of warranty returns.

I had a hard drive based player, the iRiver H10, and I loved it up until the day it fell out of my opening car door and became a brick. I can drop kick my current player across the room without it missing a beat because it's flash based!

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

Information has value to me if it is:

(A) What I want to know
AND
(B) Delivered when I want to know it

Even if some ad informs of of a concert I want to see (meeting criterion A), if that datum appears at the wrong time, it will likely have a net negative value.

I listen to music exclusively when I'm also doing something else: reading, coding, driving, etc. These are activities that demand my attention. Ads delivered during this time will have extreme negative value, likely outweighing the value of the music itself.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Nyder]

My old player was 80gigs, but when I needed to buy a new one last month I was hard pressed to find one larger then 32gigs, with many being around the 16gig size.

The shrinking size has nothing to do with the size of media files and everything to do with flash memory having larger profit margins than hard drives.

ya, well, i think your problem might deal with the main 2 brands doing 80+gb mp3 players are Apple & Microsoft.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer to think of my relationship with the content industry as one of a Spanish galleon heavily laden with gold, or a frigate bristling with guns, and I much prefer the frigate ... except when you actually steal the gold, you find that it's not as advertised, just brass and rusty iron.

Ok, I'm sorry about the shit analogy but THEY STARTED IT!

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[icebraining]

So you instead of typing the music's name in Last.fm you can have it integrated in the player.

Provided that you use *their* proprietary format, which unlike MP3, is only supported by their player.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[icebraining]

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t57215.html

And FLAC is supported by decent players, including some hardware ones, unlike this new proprietary format.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[icebraining]

As they say in their FAQ:

Q: What is the advantage of using the .mka file instead of the original audio formats, like mp2, mp3 etc?
A: In many cases there is not a reason to store audio only files in MKA. If you have an audio file with a single track, or "song", that you don't intend to edit.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[PopeRatzo]

I have one word for you:

"Video files are huge".

OK, that's four words, but still... We're going to look back at the 16gb players of today like we do the 512mb Sansa players of years gone by.

But 160gb is always going to be 160gb. It means I can put a movie on there to watch on the plane, or carry my entire music collection in flac.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[PopeRatzo]

But if there's demand for "vastly superior..." then why is there limited production capacity?

People were perfectly happy buying 80gm iPods. You can't tell me there was great public demand for less storage capacity.

Sure, they want "skinny", they want long battery life, but nobody but nobody was asking for less storage.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[ArundelCastle]

Why would I want to store a video in my MP3 file instead of as its own video file?

Yo dawg, we heard you like music videos, so we put video in your music so you can watch while you listen!

Basically it sounds like a multimedia PDF. How novel.
Maybe they can embed novels in audiobooks too.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[negRo_slim]

It almost sounds like botnet tech.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Rysc]

Of course id3 "can" do these things, but it's mostly useless. Some players and editors b0rk tags they don't understand, or break on tags they don't understand. Most players support one or another way of storing this or that... but there is little consistency in terms of features and less in terms of expected format for those features.

I have mp3s with BPM set by some player, but I cannot read it properly in any player I have. Album covers set in one app don't show up in another. The list of problems goes on endlessly.

At least with mkv you're pretty sure that if it's supported the format in the file is consistent such that apps don't break it.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[nine-times]

Well it's not too unreasonable to include video in your music file so that you can watch while you listen... it's just a video file then. MPEG4 container files are great, and I have no objection to the existence of video files. I'm just not sure I see the point of confusing audio and video files by trying to embed a video file into an audio-only format.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[nneonneo]

...to be quickly crushed by downloadable music. Oh, the irony...

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[ZosX]

My sansa fuze supports flac and ogg! Lossless FTW!

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[dangitman]

I for one welcome this idea. Instead of penalizing the legitimate buyers of a product with DRM, they are attempting to reward the buyers with additional content.

What makes you think this new file format won't have DRM?

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[nneonneo]

ID3 is horribly broken in its current state: for starters, there are four (common) incompatible versions: 1.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4. On top of that, some programs (*cough* iTunes *cough*) can't even agree on the tagging spec (in iTunes' case, it produces ID3 v2.4 streams that are incompatible with other players, resulting in much anguish).

The idea of putting metadata into an MPEG stream, then altering it to remove MPEG sync bits speaks to the fact that MP3 was never intended to hold metadata; a better solution is really needed.

I'm a big fan of extensible formats like MKA, Ogg and MP4 (m4a), since these allow metadata to be stored much more effectively and in a properly interoperable fashion. Any of these three container formats really deserves to unseat MP3 as the format of choice, if only because the metadata situation is far better.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[TangoMargarine]

So are you saying you'd rather try your luck with non-legit music files that pay for legal songs encrusted with DRM? And you're saying the DRM'd music is sucky a lot of the time anyway?

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Lumpy]

my rip did NOT come from the audio layer it came from the data stream out the Toslink into the PC from the SACD player, The great part is that linux ignores the stupid copyright bit.

Just because you have no clue how to rip SACD or DVD-A audio directly does not mean everyone else does.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[kevinmenzel]

And having mixed a few albums, I can think of a few reasons why this wouldn't work. First and foremost - rarely is the finished product a result of merely the addition of separate tracks or instruments. There are all sorts of plug-ins and devices which - even at the mixing stage - make the one instrument dependent on the other. Maybe it's a compressor on the overall instrument mix that keeps the volume steady as more and more layers come in. Maybe there's some side-chain compression in the mix dropping the acoustic guitar automatically when the lead vocalist starts singing. Then you get to the mastering stage, and there's probably some overall volume compression going on, potentially some multi-band compression to make sure that certain frequency ranges don't interfere with each other. There's also probably some EQ that's been applied on the final mix - maybe some reverbs that have been applied on instrument or vocal groupings - etc. There's an incredible convenience and practicality in the mixing stage of NOT running a whole bunch of effects in parallel simply so that somewhere down the road, someone can arbitrarily decide to change levels of - practically, groups of tracks at a time (as there's probably more than one layer of vocal, more than one or two guitar layers, etc). There's almost a necessity of mastering engineers working on complete mixes - it's what they, in their years of training, with incredibly expensive and accurate equipment, are paid the big bucks to focus on. And all of that means that... your Rock Band or Guitar Hero tracks, which have the ability for certain layers to "turn off" if you don't play, or hit a wrong note - aren't going to sound the same as the CD, and in the end, the CD is probably going to sound better (not always, cos the music game guys that come up with those mixes are good...) but yeah.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Lumpy]

incorrect....

Non-standard bit rates up to 640 kbit/s can be achieved with the LAME encoder and the freeformat option, although few MP3 players can play those files.

My alpine digital media car stereo plays them just fine. as well as my Crestron AAS up to 480kbps

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Merls the Sneaky]

Sounds like advertisement to me, personally I hate advertisements.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[ctishman]

When in recent memory has ANY industry, to say nothing of any content industry, not taken an opportunity like this and not crapped all over it with advertisements and their partners' advertisements? These companies don't understand the concept of limited and non-intrusive ads.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[ctishman]

Not not not You know what I mean.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

What sample rate do you get? How many channels and how many bits per channel? What I am wondering is - do you get HD audio out via TOSlink?

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Frank Dreben]

Well if you're going to be non-standard, then everything goes out the window. 320 is the highest allowed by the mp3 standard.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[macslut]

Saying it has "no value" is like saying a paid membership to a mirror of Wikipedia has no value. Your examples don't show any added value. "Imagine, you download a single you like and it already contains Amazon links to buy the full album." Like iTunes and any other software (and even hardware) not only can do, but do so effectively now using the meta data? "Or it lets you know when the band's next release comes out." Again, totally doable now. There are tons of apps (free) that allow you to get all kinds of information, or make purchases based on the meta information in the song file. Heck, Shazam does all these bells and whistles just by listening to a few seconds. Don't introduce a new file format unless it truly provides value. In this case it doesn't do anything except for the people who "created" it.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[AmberBlackCat]

This isn't going to take off because it won't play on an iPod.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[EdIII]

I fervently pray they include such watermarks all the time. Not only will it encourage people to understand it and strip them out, but watermarks in content will only speed the development and implementation of large and anonymous file sharing networks.

What good does a watermark do them if they can no longer attach the distribution to an IP address, which ultimately leads them to an individual to sue?

That's why I wish the RIAA was better funded, could have sued more people (not less), and generally, did a lot more damage. It's the only way we will grow and protect ourselves effectively. When there is a real pain in the pass making us do it.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[wiredlogic]

TFA was lacking in any real info but I would surmise that the extra content (at least the video and dynamic content) is not being embedded. Rather, I suppose that there is a signed payload unique to the owne... licensee that is stored as a tag and that can be submitted to a server to gain access to the extra content. If your file is found floating around the internets they can invalidate that tag on your copy and lock you out for the copyright violation.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome this idea. Instead of penalizing the legitimate buyers of a product with DRM, they are attempting to reward the buyers with additional content. Our relationship with the content industries is always going to be one of a carrot or a stick, and I much prefer the carrot.

Knowing the music industry, they'll bend you over and use the stick to ram that carrot up what many consider "exit only".

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[gedw99]

The idea of incorporatin lyrics and thumbnails into the music file format IS smart.

Also as far as opening up the music biz to independent artists the idea of having the artists web page in the music file format is also good.
This allows any users to be able to go to their web page to check tour dates etc.

everything else is pointless.

But a singel file format with this extra meta data makes perfect sense.

It can ALL be done as part of an extension to the ID tags specification of cource easily. and is the best open standard way to to it

ged

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[mdwh2]

Indeed, this was one of the things which kept me from buying an mp3 player for so long. The original Ipod was 20GB, more than enough for me - but I didn't really want less

Years later, can I get a 20GB player for a cheaper price? Instead, I see the choice is a 160GB player at the same price, with lower prices limited to at most 8GB. And the larger flash based ones are as expensive, if not more, than the 160GB player! (Usually because they then add in crap like Internet and video which I don't want.)

The insane thing is how few flash based players accept memory cards - just about every other gadget supports them, even when it's not really relevant, yet here is the one place upgradeable storage would be useful. Especially as memory cards are getting cheaper/larger all the time (16GB for microSD, and 32GB will be out soon).

Thankfully I found the Sandisk Sansa Clip which does do this - the player is cheap on its own (8GB for £40), and you can just shove in whatever memory card you like. Admittedly you'd have to wait a bit before it can do 80GB, but it's fine for 24GB now, and will soon be capable of 40GB.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Dan541]

That's what you get for trying to do the right thing.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand the point of incentivizing legitimate downloads [...] If they really want to incentivize legit downloads [...]

OK, I really don't want to be a linguistic prescriptivist, but still, can we please keep these management buzzwords that the suits spew from seeping into actual tech sites as well?

The proper word is "encourage".

Thank you.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[dintech]

And let's no forget, it's an 'opportunity' to rebuy all your MP3's as MusicDNA. You know, the ones that replaced your CDs that replaced your tapes that replace your vinyl.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[guruevi]

Where "Additional Content" will quickly turn into spam, ads for viagra and other stuff we never wanted as GP mentions. Eventually some company will figure out how to push pop-ups through and before you know it you'll be having to 'complete this offer' to play the music you bought.

Sure it's a good idea, but why not embed it like iTunes LP instead of having it linked to an online ad server?

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is more the relationship of where they stick the carrot.

Re:Sounds like features I need from an audio file

[wwphx]

I just spent a few days downloading album artwork from Amazon and other sources and cleaning up my library, deleting dupes, etc. The iTunes automagical Get Album Artwork did not work for most of my albums. One of my reasons for doing the artwork update was so that my iPod Touch would look spiffier. Naturally this slows down my laptop sync, also increases my backups a bit. Which, for a one-shot update, is ok. But if my library is constantly receiving updates, then it's going to be a constant increase in sync time and backup time and space.

This does not appeal.

Extra content

[e2d2]

Given that one of the main reasons for buying music over simply downloading it is art work, lyrics, and extra content, this might not be a bad idea. IF you can truly restrict access. Otherwise you're just giving more reason to pirate the format.

Re:Extra content

[plague3106]

I buy mp3s from amazon; they already include the album art embedded in them. My zune picks it up just fine.

Re:Extra content

[Lonewolf666]

With the spam factor that other posters have already mentioned, this only means the right time to pirate it is once artwork and lyrics have been added. At that point, any further "content" is likely unwanted.

This said, if the copyright owners play it smart, they might be able to delay the inevitable rise of pirate editions by a few months. Release an album with the bare minimum of content, then keep adding bonus tracks and more artwork for some time. That gives a reason for either buying it or waiting. People with "must-have-now-syndrome" might buy in that situation.

Re:Extra content

[PopeRatzo]

Given that one of the main reasons for buying music over simply downloading it is art work, lyrics, and extra content

That's just industry nonsense.

The main reason for buying music over simply downloading it is six-figure fines if the RIAA goes after you.

Re:Extra content

[Wuhao]

The counterpoint to that would be that in exchange for excessive restrictions on my bought-and-paid-for music, I am now also getting excessive restrictions on my bought-and-paid-for music, liner notes and artwork.

Most of what they're saying not only has no place in the file, but is easily found for free on the Internet. I can typically find all the tour dates, lyrics, band photos and interviews I want between the band's website and the first few hits on Google. MusicDNA seeks to aggregate all of this information for me, which might be of some small convenience, but at the cost of tremendously reduced portability.

Not only will I be giving up my ability to put it on whatever device I please, but I also have to worry about space on my phone -- if I put a MusicDNA-based album on, will it be 10 times bigger because it's crammed with a bunch of ridiculous interviews that I'll either never care about, or -- in very rare cases -- watch once?

I realize that competing with free means all sorts of ideas have to be considered, but as a legitimate customer who has a bunch of DRMed songs he can't listen to anymore, I can say that the only acceptable format to me is one which is unencrypted and well-documented. No amount of bloat is going to change that for me.

Re:Extra content

[betterunixthanunix]

Or if you want lossless encoding for some reason; it is pretty rare to find FLAC files on file sharing networks.

Re:Extra content

[aix tom]

On the other hand, would people with the "must-have-now-syndrome" buy something when most of the content in it is delayed for month?

Re:Extra content

[Hurricane78]

IF you can truly restrict access.

Which is by definition physically impossible.

Otherwise you're just giving more reason to pirate the format.

Stop drinking their kool-aid. This has nothing to do with stealing shit on the high seas.

Re:Extra content

[Anonymous Coward]

the hell you say

Re:Extra content

[mister_playboy]

No, he's right. You have to dig pretty hard to find consistent FLAC uploads. Several of the best sources are on Russian websites.

Re:Extra content

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is you can already get all that extra content and more by just knowing the ID3 info. Most modern music players (FooBar & MediaMonkey, but even the common ones like WMP and iTunes) can download album art for you. There are third party addons and plugins to find lyrics for you automatically as well. Even showing tour dates isnt uncommon (iTunes + TuneUp will do this, as does songbird).

So basically theyre just trying to take what we all can do already on our own and charge us to have it done for us. No thanks.

Re:Extra content

[MrNemesis]

The corollary is that I buy almost all my music online, mostly through bleep.com. But half the time I find myself pulling down the same .torrent a week later as it'll unfailingly come with more artwork, higher resolution scans and a plethora of other gumpf that almost never makes it into most MP3 stores. Some are better than others, but it's only the fans that seem to be able to consistently put together really comprehensive album "packs".

And when it comes to rarities, B-sides, live albums and the rest... well, it's not really a question that needs answering (although bleep are pretty good in that regard). I'd love there to be some magical way for $label to option some scene release but there's always some indeterminable rights issue in the way so nothing cool ever happens. Don't get me wrong, I support my chosen artists with money whenever I can, but I'm sure alot of those same artists would acknowledge themselves that the quality and thoroughness of some scene releases are frankly awesome.

What? Why?

[DigitalGodBoy]

This was dead before they wrote the first line of the spec. The MP3 genie is out of the bottle and there's no amount of wishful thinking that can be done by the record companies to stuff it back in.

Useless

[No-Cool-Nickname]

This is right up there with the bonus content downloads with a Blu-Ray.

Re:Useless

[sopssa]

However, bonus content with movies makes a lot more sense than with music. I do enjoy the extra content, but theres not much of such you can have with music. Maybe a cappella, no lyrics or remix versions of the songs, but those would most likely just be pirated just as as the main music files too.

Re:Useless

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Maybe a cappella, no lyrics or remix versions of the songs, but those would most likely just be pirated just as as the main music files too.

Maybe versions of the song before the vocal track was processed with AutoTune. When people get to hear the real "talent", the record companies won't have to worry about music piracy ever again (or sales for that matter).

Re:Useless

[Bynrdskynrd]

Be careful with that mindset.... To steal an idea off of Bill Hicks for a moment: There's not that much babysitting money going around these days to buy (insert precious, talentless tone-deaf artist here)'s album, is there?
Hell, I can hear how bad Britney Spears' was back in '97. Now she has more money than Midas, and you're telling me that no talent stops people from buying albums?

No thanks, Bach

[mcgrew]

Just when the patent on MP3 is set to expire they "update" it with DRM? WTF? This will ensure that the old, soon-to-be free file format will stay around.

I hope Ogg doesn't think since MP3 has this cruft they have to too. Of course, MP3 may be playing catch up with Microsoft; WMA files have had DRM for a long time. The DRM was in fact (and still is) a security risk.

I'll stick with OGG and even better, SHN and FLAC.

Re:No thanks, Bach

[Sir_Lewk]

Don't worry. "Updating" MP3 like this will not extend the coverage period of the patents on the original MP3. The patents on MP3 will still expire on schedule, though I can't say I actually care enough to look up when that may be.

Re:No thanks, Bach

[mcgrew]

That's true, but they'll do their damndest to make the new format the new default.

Re:No thanks, Bach

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. I'm sure they'd like that. And I'd like Scarlet Johansen to slob my knob tonight. The probability of the two happening are about the same.

Re:No thanks, Bach

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the patents on anything Disney?

I'm sure the patents on MP3s will be extended to nigh-forever right before it expires. Can't let that cash-cow go dry, after all.

Re:No thanks, Bach

[Zerth]

The patents on MP3 will still expire on schedule, though I can't say I actually care enough to look up when that may be.

In the US, December 2012 at the earliest, their main submarine patent surfacing in 1995.

There's some others that might last until 2017, but they were put in well over a year after the mpeg standard was published(and thus technically void). Won't keep them from suing, but you might win if you aren't crushed by your own legal costs:)

As for other countries, damned if I know. A bunch of other companies copycatted a lot, so there might be other patents in play elsewhere.

Re:No thanks, Bach

[afidel]

2007-2017 in the US, so in 7 more years give or take the patent protection runs out, though it may be as soon as 2012 since some of the patents were classic submarine patents which have dubious legality under current patent law.

Re:No thanks, Bach

[Sir_Lewk]

You are confusing patents and copyright. Disney had the copyright period extended to the absurd but patents are, and have been, 20 years. They have a copyright on Mickey Mouse, not a patent.

Trust me, bigger people than the people behind MPEG have had far bigger reasons to try extending patents.

Re:No thanks, Bach

[adolf]

*shrug*

So long as we still have LAME and near universal playback, sign me up for the "I could give a fuck about these particular patents*" list.

(*: This sentiment goes back to the middle 90's somewhere, in a time before even mpg123, wherein the best way I could find to play an mp3 reliably was to "overclock" my Pentium 100 from 66x1x1.5 to 60x2=120MHz, and use a strange concoction of Fraunhoffer's l3dec piped into a ring buffer FIFO like bplay.)

Re:No thanks, Bach

[Anonymous Coward]

December 2012...
Mayans?

Wrong Audience?

[Nemyst]

Maybe I'm really bad at marketing, but this seems like it's targeting the wrong audience. Those who download illegal music probably do not care about going to concerts or reading up on interviews - they only want the music. This will at best be another marketing tool for the most hardcore audience, at worst a total waste of time and money.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I don't know if anybody cares about interviews; but research tends to demonstrate that pirates are, as a body, more enthusiastic about(and bigger consumers of) music than non-pirates.

Now, if anybody actually thinks that this magic new format will be able to distinguish between the evil and the good when it comes to updating with exciting new stuff, I have some very exciting prospects in the field of bridge-related real estate to share with them.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you are correct.

This is a perfect example of a techies invention looking for a solution.

Sometimes things like this takes off and other times it doesn't. I think this is a dead end as far as an into-piracy technology. OTOH, I see this being used by the recording industry to increase profits - in the meantime, the RIAA continuing with its anti-piracy legal system shenanigans.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[odin84gk]

Not really. I don't pirate, but then again I don't go to concerts. (I really don't care that much about music).

However, my friend who downloads a bunch of music goes to concerts and buys CD's. (He loves music, but can't afford to buy everything that he wants).

So, in my mind, it is an appropriate audience.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[Korin43]

Actually, pirates are the music industry's more valuable customers. It turns out that people who download the most music actually go to the most concerts and buy the most music also. It's still a terrible idea though, since it's basically mp3's with built in ads. I'm not sure where they will find people willing to pay extra for that.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[tacokill]

since it's basically mp3's with built in ads

Right. That, and the fact that this isn't an MP3 and it's an entirely different format. But yes, aside from that fact, you are correct it's just like an MP3.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[mcgrew]

I get all the free RIAA downloads I need from the radio! Just like I used to tape the radio, now I sample it. The only internet downloads I need now are indie music, and they WANT me to download their stuff.

If the RIAA didn't have radio they'd be tickled pink to have you smple their wares from the internet, too. Their true enemy isn't "piracy", it's legitimate competetion from the independant artists, who have discovered that the majors are no longer needed for anything except getting your work on the radio.

If you're in St Louis, KSHE plays seven albums every Sunday night, uncut and uninterrupted and have been doing so for decades. I had Ted Nugent's Stranglehold album on cassette a full week before it went on sale, thanks to KSHE.

This new format does solve one interesting problem -- how to extend the patent on MP3, which is set to expire soon. Too bad copyrights aren't as short a length as patents, and a good thing patents don't last as long as copyrights. If they did, technological progress would be as slow as artistic progress is today. Like science and technology, art draws on what has come before.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[Aeros]

it sounds like it. Will it still play in regular mp3 players or will new hardware be required? This will increase the file size with no doubt. If they offered something like sheet music of the song I could see that being beneficial to some people.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[mcgrew]

What you say is true, but torentfreak isn't a good citation, as it has an obvious bias. How about the Guardian?

Study finds pirates 10 times more likely to buy music
According to research, those who download 'free' music are also the industry's largest audience for digital sales

Everybody knows that music sales have continued to fall in recent years, and that filesharing is usually blamed. We are made to imagine legions of internet criminals, their fingers on track-pads, downloading songs via BitTorrent and never paying for anything. One of the only bits of good news amid this doom and gloom is the steady rise in digital music sales. Millions of internet do-gooders, their fingers on track-pads, who pay for songs they like - purchasing them from Amazon or iTunes Music Store. And yet according to Professor Anne-Britt Gran's new research, these two groups may be the same.

Wisely, the study did not rely on music pirates' honesty. Researchers asked music buyers to prove that they had proof of purchase.

The paper's conclusions emerge just as Sweden's Pirate Bay trial comes to a close. Pirate Bay's four defendants, who helped operate the notorious BitTorrent tracker, were sentenced to a year in jail and fined 30m SEK (£2,500,000) in damages.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[betterunixthanunix]

You are mistaken, actually. I know of plenty of people who love concerts and follow the lives of celebrities...and then download music from file sharing networks. The real problem here is that there are plenty of other sources for the information they are planning to embed in these files, and I doubt anyone is going to pay for it when they can get it at no cost just by watching a music marketing channel (ahem MTV).

Re:Wrong Audience?

[bennomatic]

That full-album thing KSHE does sounds cool. A few years back I thought about writing a system that let you record music from an analog audio source (i.e. a radio), and it would recognize segments that were near-identical (i.e. the same song playing multiple times with different DJ lead-ins or different songs overlapping at the beginning or end, and), and then use an error correction algorithm to remove overlapping songs or lead-ins.

But then napster came in and everyone just started sharing music for free, so I figured there wouldn't be enough return.

But KSHE's solution appears to solve that problem as well :)

Re:Wrong Audience?

[CannonballHead]

He loves music, but can't afford to buy everything that he wants

I have never understood why this this makes sense to people as an excuse... except that the current generation appears to think they have a right to whatever they want, whether they have the money for it or not. Apparently, I'm of the older generation. If I don't have the money for it, I save and wait.

Now it seems to be ... if I don't have the money for it, I use a credit card and walk away from it, or I pirate it, or I steal it, or I [insert something here].

Re:Wrong Audience?

[BattleApple]

Something odd someone pointed out in the comments of that article - Mark Mulligan says he never spoke with torrentfreak
http://twitter.com/Mark_Mulligan/status/8074993556

RT @flypapertv Pirates are most valuable customers. http://vf.cx/jlB $$ Only problem with my quotes: I didn't even speak to the journalist!!

Re:Wrong Audience?

[BattleApple]

Yes, replying to my own post. Ernesto from torrentfreak sent me the email conversation he had with Mark back in November. It's possible he just forgot. I guess I can sympathize... I can barely remember what I did last weekend.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[AntiNazi]

I don't think this is the case at all. I have plenty of shirts and ticket stubs (not literally...) from bands I don't own music from. In fact I often buy extra stuff (buttons/patches/another shirt) that I don't really need/want when I'm at shows just because I didn't buy the cd. Granted I care little about interviews and don't have any interest in this feature (flac+cue please) so I agree that it's a waste of time/money.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[T Murphy]

If you haven't heard a musician tell you to go download their music, you haven't been to many concerts.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[mister_playboy]

You just have too much faith invested in money as the determiner of value. True value comes from your enjoyment of the music. The supply is infinite, so why not get it if you want it? The idea is made stronger by sharing, as Thomas Jefferson pointed out.

Humans existed before there was a concept of money=value, and they will exist after it has passed into the mists of history. This is perhaps the most unhealthy aspect of our collective thinking. It is treated as religion, and /.ers are just as much adherents to it as any other group.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[CannonballHead]

No, money doesn't determine the value; that's obvious. I can pay money for something valuable, and I can get something valuable for free.

What I'm arguing is that doing something illegal because you want it but can't pay for it is... a lame excuse. If you want to really go through the effort and convince me that pirating music is ethically ok even if illegal, then go for it; but excusing your piracy because you couldn't afford it is ... well, lame. :)

Re:Wrong Audience?

[icebraining]

If I don't have the money for it, I save and wait.

And you provide exactly the same amount to the artist as if you pirated all the music that you didn't buy. "Pirating" is irrelevant. If you can pay X per year, artists/labels/etc don't gain anything from your "musical abstinence".

You may feel better inside if you don't download it, but you haven't helped anyone doing so.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[dangitman]

I don't know if anybody cares about interviews; but research tends to demonstrate that pirates are, as a body, more enthusiastic about(and bigger consumers of) music than non-pirates.

That only applies to sea shanties, not music in general.

Not a quarter! Arr, he'll be dancin' for hours.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[StuartHankins]

It's because they still have money because they didn't buy the albums...

Re:Wrong Audience?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes especially since rar and zip files were invented ages ago and is used buy theese crowds already.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[amazeofdeath]

Torrentfreak should read their source (the survey linked in the article) before going into their own conclusions. Page two of the survey paper shows that "music sharers" spend the least on music, and by a large margin.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[CannonballHead]

Unless, of course, "I can't afford it" isn't an actual can't-afford but don't-wish-to-afford.

but you haven't helped anyone doing so.

True. I may not have helped anyone by following the speed limit or not doing marijuana, either.

Making your own laws, essentially, based on what you see helping/hurting or not-helping/not-hurting may not be the best way to go about it... and deciding not to follow a law simply because you don't feel you hurt anyone by not following it is an interesting take, as well.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[icebraining]

Unless, of course, "I can't afford it" isn't an actual can't-afford but don't-wish-to-afford.

True, but the fact is you're not buying them either although you want to, so it's seems clear you can't.

I may not have helped anyone by following the speed limit or not doing marijuana, either.

Breaking the speed limit obviously raises the probability of a crash, which could very easily injure or kill others. It's a simple and valid reason.

As for smoking marijuana, no, you're not helping anyone by not doing. That's why some countries including mine have decriminalized it. And you know what? Usage has dropped since the law has passed.

Making your own laws, essentially, based on what you see helping/hurting or not-helping/not-hurting may not be the best way to go about it... and deciding not to follow a law simply because you don't feel you hurt anyone by not following it is an interesting take, as well.

Laws should serve to protect people from other people. Not for imposing random restrictions on people's liberties.

"If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not carry out the order that he had received, which one of us would be in the wrong?" the king demanded. "The general, or myself?"

"You," said the little prince firmly.

"Exactly. One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform," the king went on. "Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable."

Re:Wrong Audience?

[CannonballHead]

Laws should serve to protect people from other people. Not for imposing random restrictions on people's liberties.

Fair enough. Not allowing free distribution of my creations (music, video, whatever) if I choose not to distribute it freely seems like it protects *my* rights. If you can't afford to buy my music/video/whatever, I don't know that that negates the law. Yes, it restricts you... but I'm not sure that's a Bad Thing.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[icebraining]

We were talking about downloading instead of buying. You're now referring to uploads.
But if everyone does the same as I do, you are not affected in any way either; everyone will spend the same amount as they can.

What will happen if you restrict the distribution is that I wont download your album, so I will remain unaware of your music, and I won't ever give you any money. Why do you think that file sharers usually spend more than non-sharers?

If file sharing were to end completely, what would happen is that my music budget would be all spent in the music I would know, by each I mean, "Radio" music, that have the money to pay for publicity.

So you would be hurting both the consumers (who would be able to listen to less music with the same budget), and the great majority of artists, who may be great musicians but don't have the money to pay for publicity. So music quality and diversity would suffer.

In my opinion, the right of artists to be heard by people based on their quality and not "funds", and the right of people to have access to more culture despite their music budget trumps the right of the few that want to keep the status quo.

Why do you think the great opposers to file sharing are the large labels and "big" artists (*cof* metallica *cof)? Because they know that if they had to sell based on quality and not based on economical power, they would lose.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[CannonballHead]

I was referring to downloading specifically as well as protecting the right that I have, I would hope, to restrict access to what I have created.

The arguments for allowing free access can certainly be made. I'm a composer, not a recording artist, and I do offer at least some free PDFs. I also tend to sell cheaply, and I provide the entire PDF, not some fancy "you get this many prints" thing. And all I ask is that you buy the sheet music for yourself or for your group. (In other words, please don't print off copies for all your friends and all the other brass groups, it's only $5 and I let you copy it for everyone in your group or even in your choir, etc). I think that's fair, so that's how I did it.

I agree that the greatest opposers are the large labels and whatnot, and that many "indie" artists seem to somewhat be ok with it. What my big thing is, I think it should be up to the artist. Sure, he may be hurting himself, but I think it should be up to the artist to allow downloads of his music. And if he doesn't want to allow it, that's his decision. His business decision. I think he should have that decision protected. Same goes for software, for that matter. If I want to sell my closed-source software, I think I should be protected in that. I think keygen programs (in the case of Jeff Vogel's shareware) shouldn't be legal as it circumvents the very minor attempt to ... well, make money. Heh.

Unfortunately, those that have no problem doing the keygens drive the price up for the honest people that actually want to support the shareware programmer.

Re:Wrong Audience?

[CannonballHead]

Enjoying the conversation, by the way. Thanks. :)

Compression?

[gearloos]

So much for the nice, small portability of MP3. Even a 128k (which already sound horrible) will be huge now.

Just what I want embedded in my mp3s...

[FooAtWFU]

Yes! Embed video interviews that are 10 times as big as the mp3 itself, because that's exactly what I want to squeeze onto my music player's limited space.

Re:Just what I want embedded in my mp3s...

[Rockoon]

MP3 players have not had what would be described as 'limited space' for a very long time. Most people have MP3 players that can hold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of music, and those are the small ones.

Re:Just what I want embedded in my mp3s...

[treeves]

"hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of music"

Measured how? If you actually had to hire U2 or the Berlin Philharmonic to come over to your house and play for you?

At $.99 per track, I can have on a good sized player, *maybe* $10,000 worth of music, assuming I pay for everything, and compress it more than I'd care to. I have a moderate sized CD collection of a couple hundred CDs and I can't put a majority of it on a 16GB player. I have to pick and choose. I guarantee that I didn't spend even close to $10,000 on all those CDs.

Re:Just what I want embedded in my mp3s...

[NotBornYesterday]

So? If I paid for a 16GB player instead of a 8GB player, maybe that's because I want to hold 16GB of audio, not a couple gigs of audio plus 12GB of spammy marketing drivel.

Re:Just what I want embedded in my mp3s...

[Rockoon]

Are you paying $0.99 cents per track, or are you buying CD's? Pick a theory.

If you are paying $0.99 cents per track, then you dont get them encoded with extreme bit-rates. You know that, right?

If they are CD's, did you know that the average album length is only about 45 minutes?

I think that you have seriously underestimated the amount of music that you have pirated, because you would know that 200 actual CD's would fit on that 16GB player which is the low range these days (can't retail a Touch with less than 32GB, even the Nano is 16GB now, the smallest Classic is between 80GB and 160GB, and the smallest Zune is now 16GB)

There are more than a few mp3 players with 160GB now, which will easily hold 2500 average length CD's at 192kbps VBR, which is less compression than I suspect that you are encoding at.

Re:Just what I want embedded in my mp3s...

[treeves]

I said I had a 16GB player. I didn't pirate anything. I compress at 192 or 256 kbps sometimes VBR, sometimes CBR. So no, that's not less compression. It's a little more on average.
  At $.99/track, typical CDs cost $10-15, so I don't have to pick a theory -- they match. How much do you pay for CDs?

Oh, yeah, I predict rapid widespread adoption . .

[mmell]

Of FLAC, OGG and (probably to a huge extent) LAME. After all, Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder, right?

Comical

[rbrander]

...a "successor to MP3", which removes the most popular feature of MP3, the ability to control your own purchased copy of the property. Yeah, that'll bring back the customers you chased away with the last 3 attempts at controlled digital content.

It can be "updated"...who wants to bet that one kind of "update" is like the Amazon "update" of their sale of Orwell's '1984'...total deletion.

Do not pass "Go", do not collect millions of customers...go directly to the ash-heap of computer history.

Re:Comical

[DigitalSorceress]

Exactly what I was thinking.

Users who give a damn about their fair use rights will stay well away from anything that even HINTS at the ability to make it UN-content.

What I'm eagerly awaiting is a complete sea-change in musicians/artists where they start realizing that the former barriers to entry no longer exist and go direct to self-publishing. /now that we're agreed that we are living in the future, where is my flying car?

Re:Comical

[canajin56]

You don't know for sure that's how it works. Take an MP3 file, put a unique ID and a URL into the metadata. Add a special codec to WMP to play the "new" file format. Now when WMP loads the file, it checks with their URL in the usual DRM way. If it finds you're authorized, you can stream the extra videos and play them straight from WMP, and it could also use the info bar at the bottom that normally just says the track# and song name, to show upcoming concerts, album releases, and other updates from the band and/or publisher. And I'm sure, so that info is there with or without your net connection, those RSS-like updates could be stored in the metadata as well. Meanwhile, it's still basically just an MP3, so any MP3 player will still play it, minus the extras in the metadata.

The format I just described matches their description, if you assume their description was a bit loose with the term "embedded", since the videos would be "embedded" as links, not as in the entire video clip crammed into the file. This reading makes sense, in that they say that the file, if pirated, would sit there static, without the extras. My "scheme" would do just that, file still plays, still has whatever announcements were cached, but the DRM servers won't push you any new updates, and the links to the "embedded" video clips wouldn't play. And as for your statement about the option to erase the file, well, I think the DRM window is supposed to be sandboxed, so it can't get at your file system, only tell WMP what changes to make to the metadata. (though, of course, virus writers get around this all the time, and DRM writers don't seem any more scrupulous).

Of course, I'm just assuming that the "illegally downloaded" copy of the file would still play as a normal music file. Since they say the extras don't work, I think that implies the music itself still works, else they would say the file doesn't work at all, rather than limiting their statement to the extras. But you know what they say about assuming. Cynically, this interpretation makes too much sense, and wouldn't be horribly intrusive and obnoxious, so it seems pretty unlikely.

Re:Comical

[maccodemonkey]

AAC is also DRM free, if you follow the formats specs. And it has better compression with better quality. Yes, Apple had their own DRM'd version of AAC at one point, but they've since gone to using the pure DRM free spec.

I'm really surprised they didn't go with AAC. Most players support DRM free AAC already, and it's the far superior format.

Oh.. okay, no problem.

[Adult film producer]

I'll just keep ripping cds to .flac and distributing them so others can convert them to whatever audio format they prefer. Seems like a reasonable compromise.

Re:Oh.. okay, no problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

You use flac? The quality is unbearable. Flac may be a lossless codec, but it is still limited by the recording equipment. A true music lover locks his favorite bands in the basement to get the whole experience of the music.

Great.

[Gerafix]

Now I'll have music DNA smeared all over my HDD? Like having DNA smeared all over my keyboard wasn't enough, thanks Corporate Overlords!

Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Attila Dimedici]

Using the new technology, music labels and bands will be able to send updates to the music files – with tour dates, interviews or updates to social networking pages

They forgot to mention that this would also provide an exploit for malware writers to use to get into people's machines.

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Monkeedude1212]

No more exploitable than downloading a file from anywhere ever would be. Less exploitable than those who download music for free off of torrents and P2P apps.

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Khyber]

Umm, are you serious?

They can update the file with new information at their whim if you opt-in.

That's a HUGE potential exploit. Outside access to modify files? How long until someone figures out a way to use this to gain write access to root?

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Attila Dimedici]

No more exploitable than downloading a file from anywhere ever would be. Less exploitable than those who download music for free off of torrents and P2P apps.

The difference being that when I download a new file, I know there is a potential that it will be malware rather than what I am looking for and can take steps to minimize the risk. With this new format, I have a file on my system that can be "updated" at any time by someone remotely, what makes you think it will only be "updatable" by authorized people?

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Monkeedude1212]

Outside access to modify A file, if you choose to.

In order for the file to be modified it has to come from the authenticated source - probably the band, which means it'll have to come from a server owned by the band - or the band will entrust it to a music company.

In order for someone to exploit this not only do they have to spoof their way into making the MP3 file - but they have to magically make it so that they can access root by the limitted permissions within the one file they can edit.

How many people have gotten infected by an RSS Feed? Not any that I know of, and thats exactly what this new deployed system is, a glorified RSS feed that merely archives itself onto the MP3 file you own.

On the other side of the fence:
How many people have gotten back door rootkits by installing pirated versions of Photoshop? A lot. More than I could count on my fingers and toes using binary.

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Monkeedude1212]

The difference being that when I download a new file, I know there is a potential that it will be malware rather than what I am looking for and can take steps to minimize the risk. With this new format, I have a file on my system that can be "updated" at any time

When you want it to be - you by no means HAVE to receive ANY updates AT ALL.

And if its "updatable" by unauthorized people, then it would be prone to "Creed Sucks!" and all the other opinionated Crap flying around the internet. There is obviously some system in place to make sure that it is actually the band's newsletter or RSS feed or Twitter Feed getting put through to the file.

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Xeleema]

Go ahead, Monkeedude, keep arguing that this is going to be some sort of Secure(tm), Well-Thought-Out(tm) implementation.

It's not like local software clients or network protocols have ever been exploited

Keep that chin up! One day we'll all wish the bad people away!

How many people have gotten back door rootkits by installing pirated versions of Photoshop? A lot.

Hm...and noticed it? I'd wager a slightly smaller fraction that the one's that caught a rootkit when they bought a legitimate audio disc from Sony....

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Monkeedude1212]

It's not like local software clients or network protocols have ever been exploited

I just think its ridiculous to bash a protocol that hasn't even been released when the alternative is to download a file from a complete stranger.

I'm not saying this is an amazing idea. I'm not saying its going to revolutionize the way people look at music downloads.

All I'm saying is that the idea isn't terrible - and it could fly (not soar) if done right. And since its not done yet, keep your stones to yourself.

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Grishnakh]

Why should they care about that? It's not their problem.

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Zerth]

RSS feeds can contain HTML, some RSS readers use IE to render, IE is insecure, therefore RSS feeds can carry harmful payloads.

To say nothing of an RSS feed containing links to an infectious site, but I wouldn't call that an RSS infection.

As for the file itself, perhaps you forget the windows WMF hole that allowed MP3s and other "data" files to carry executable code? If the new player software has a buffer overrun, then this new file can be infectious if the server is suborned or spoofed.

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Attila Dimedici]

obviously some system in place to make sure that it is actually the band's newsletter or RSS feed or Twitter Feed getting put through to the file.

Sure, there is some system in place, but do you really think these idiots will have good security on that system?

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Attila Dimedici]

I just think its ridiculous to bash a protocol that hasn't even been released when the alternative is to download a file from a complete stranger.

No, the alternative is to download an unmodifiable format file from a reliable source (like the band or the record company or Amazon), but instead this company wants those sources to go to an inherently less secure file format.

Re:Just another avenue to spread viruses

[Khyber]

"In order for the file to be modified it has to come from the authenticated source"

I could spoof that pretty easily by buying one MP3 and watching my traffic logs for IP and (if set up) MAC address.

"In order for someone to exploit this not only do they have to spoof their way into making the MP3 file - but they have to magically make it so that they can access root by the limitted permissions within the one file they can edit."

As if a modified file format hasn't been exploited in one form or another through some security hole found in it.

"How many people have gotten infected by an RSS Feed?"

BitDefender offers the ability to get updates directly through an RSS feed, I can see that easily being exploited. Hijack an RSS feed, put in a malicious link to hijack drive-by site, you're fucked. Any other questions?

"How many people have gotten back door rootkits by installing pirated versions of Photoshop?"

That's what you get for downloading random shit without checking the source like any smart person would do, yea? Keeps us in business, though!

And exactly how will this succeed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see any reason for this to become mainstream.

Lyrics: I'm not sure if you can add those to an mp3 file but you can add them in iTunes.
Videos: Why not just use a video file?
Album artwork: iTunes has it.

What's so great about this?

Re:And exactly how will this succeed?

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

I don't think this is supposed to be 'great' for consumers. FTFA: “I think the music industry has got a great opportunity to open up completely new revenue streams”

Oh Great!

[pm_rat_poison]

More expensive DRM-laden adware music! This is JUST what we need to change our minds about NOT CARING about music enterprises! Making the lives of the pirates easier compared to those who pay for the content is such a great idea! It's worked before, hasn't it?

Out of touch?

[Anonymusing]

FTA:

Only last week it was reported that the first file-sharing trial in the UK had ended in acquittal. Alan Ellis, the founder of large-scale pirate music website Oink's Pink Palace, was cleared of defrauding thousands of pounds from record labels and musicians on the grounds that Oink did not host any music itself, but simply indexed the files users had available on their computers. “All I do is really like Google, to really provide a connection between people,” he told police officers.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is now preparing to launch civil proceedings against Ellis, claiming that the verdict was a “terrible disappointment” which shows that “the law is so out of touch with where life is these days”.

If the law is "out of touch with where life is these days," how can we possibly describe the distance of "out of touch" that truly reflects the recording industry?

• "The recording industry is practically prehistoric compared with where life is these days."
• "The recording industry is like a coprolite from the Mesozaic era compared with where life is these days."
• "The recording industry should be called Homo Moronus compared with where life is these days."
• "The recording industry is _____________________ compared with where life is these days."

What say you?

Re:Out of touch?

[betterunixthanunix]

The recording industry is to modern life as Nazi Germany was to France: aggressive, invasion, and unwelcome.

Oh, wait, computer oriented website...The recording industry is to life these days as the powers of 3 are to the even numbers; they will never be in touch.

Re:Out of touch?

[lyml]

Uh what? 2^3 = 8 which is even.

Also 3^(ln(2)/ln(3)) = 2 which is also even :P

Re:Out of touch?

[betterunixthanunix]

Funny, the way I learned it, the "powers of 3" are numbers of this form: 3^n

Yes, you can raise 3 to an irrational power to get an even number, but when one speaks of "powers of 3," they are usually referring to the integers. Sometimes they are referring to a finite ring, but I have never heard of people referring to "powers of 3" in the real numbers (what would be the point?).

lost

[bikefridaywalter]

You mean people are still using lossy formats? Duh.

Re:lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the hearing of some and the output devices of most listeners, there was nothing lost.

Will this

[rossdee]

be compatible with my existing MP3 player(s)

Thought not..

Re:Will this

[Grishnakh]

Why should it be? You just need to go out and buy a new MP3 player that's compatible with this new standard. If you don't, you're obviously one of those greedy pirates.

new MP3 format

[godrik]

use a regular mp3 and put a unique identifier to the music in the id3 tag.
Do you think I can patent my update to mp3 ?

Combatting Piracy

[whisper_jeff]

The best way to combat piracy is to stop spending money on tighter controls that are cracked a week after being released into the wild; stop spending money on formats that users don't want; just generally stop spending money on things that don't work and don't have value and instead spend money on good song writers and good performers and make good music. People are willing to pay for quality.

And, more specifically, the best way to combat piracy is to realize you're not going to succeed and instead find a new business model that works. You'll notice that the bands who are highly profitable have figured something very important out - CD sales are not the road to riches - concert tours are where you make truck loads of money. The _experience_ of music is something people are willing to spend a LOT of money on. Listening to music just entices them to spend $200 a ticket to see the live performance on stage. Once more music people figure this out - once more music people figure out that the old way of becoming rich in the industry is dead - the better off everyone will be.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Croakus]

Listening to music just entices them to spend $200 a ticket to see the live performance on stage.

Holy shit! Do the bands you go see shoot gold confetti out over the audience or something?

I can't think of a single person I know who has $200 to spend on a concert ticket.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[LWATCDR]

You left out drop the price.
Really folks when a song is less than 99 cents it isn't worth my time to pirate it. If I like it I will buy it.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[whisper_jeff]

http://www.geg.ca/en/show/pressrelease/1348

One example. $250 for the best tickets for U2. Those prices are not unusual any more. Celine Dion did about two dozen shows in Montreal where the best tickets were similarly priced. $100+ for "average" artists is entirely normal. When was the last time you went to a concert? They've become _EXTREMELY_ expensive in the last couple years as bands have realized you can pirate a song but you cannot pirate the experience of going to a live show. That is where the money is to be made.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[godrik]

instead spend money on good song writers and good performers and make good music.

But that's difficult to find. It is easier to spend money on crappy engineers.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[c0d3g33k]

I agree with your opening statement, but ...

And, more specifically, the best way to combat piracy is to realize you're not going to succeed and instead find a new business model that works. You'll notice that the bands who are highly profitable have figured something very important out - CD sales are not the road to riches - concert tours are where you make truck loads of money. The _experience_ of music is something people are willing to spend a LOT of money on. Listening to music just entices them to spend $200 a ticket to see the live performance on stage. Once more music people figure this out - once more music people figure out that the old way of becoming rich in the industry is dead - the better off everyone will be.

This will last until people can record binocular video and binaural surround audio of their surroundings using body mounted nano- cameras and microphones that aren't easily detectable (or until "personal experience capture for digital life archiving" is protected by law so 'life recording equipment' doesn't have to be hidden), and social crowdsourcing sites allow people to combine a montage of different perspectives from everyone in attendance so equipped into a nicely edited concert video. The latter hitting torrent sites will spell the end of "live concerts" as the scarcity-du-jour guaranteed to make truck loads of money. I guess "business model technology hopscotch" is a good short term strategy, but ultimately I'd like to just see business models develop that are based on an equitable and fair exchange rather than depend on artificial scarcity. Give people a good reason to pay and give them value when they do. This may not always translate into 'truckloads of money', but it might be a way to enable more people overall to make a good sustainable living creating music, art or whatever.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[mcgrew]

Listening to music just entices them to spend $200 a ticket to see the live performance on stage.

Lining the pockets of ticketmaster, an entity possibly more evil than the RIAA labels. In 1976 a ticket to see ELO, Journey, and Golden Earring together at Kiel auditorium in St Louis (all three bands, one after the other) cost $5 -- and those were the expensive seats. The cheap seats cost $3. That was the going price. Googling shows the price of bread four years later at fifty cents; I pay a dollar now at County Market. Here's a chart.

Why has the price of bread merely doubled while the price of a concert ticket has soared to four hundred times what it was then?

I'll stick to local bands, thanks; I may be a nerd but I'm not Bill Gates and I can't afford $200 to see the Rolling Stones, especially when I paid three dollars to see Blind Faith and Yes. And the local guys are not only as talented (well, some of them aren't) but I can drink a beer while listening and I only pay a $3 to $5 cover charge.

The only thing I know of that has shot up in price like that is medical care and illegal drugs. These people don't need guns to steal.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Jaysyn]

Holy shit! Do the bands you go see shoot gold confetti out over the audience or something?

Blue Man Group?

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Lumpy]

No but the last Rammstien concert I went to shot something all over the audience....

What were those big things they were wearing in front of them?

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Lumpy]

Pirate going to the show...

Let's see.... stand in line for 4 hours, check.
Get herded like cattle for 1 hour, check.
Sit in tiny seats crammed in next to a sweaty fat guy, or a fratboy that wont shut the hell up, check.
now spend the convert standing and not being ableto see the stage, check.

Get beer spilled on you, check.

I'll rip my buddy's dvd of the bands concert and watch it in my home theater on a 150" screen with a better sound system than the band has.

Only thing I'm missing is getting assaulted by drunks, and seeing some ugly chicks show their boobs.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Croakus]

Fair enough. Guess it's been about 10 years since I bought a ticket to a show. I really didn't realize they were charging that much these days.

Nice to know the pirates have made music more accessible by driving up concert ticket prices.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1976 a ticket to see ELO, Journey, and Golden Earring together at Kiel auditorium in St Louis (all three bands, one after the other) cost $5

Overpriced by about 20 bucks, I'd say.

Only joking, Journey had one good song and so did Golden Earring.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[mcgrew]

Indeed; a 45 used to cost $2, it had a song on each side, was very high fidelity, and the media was relatively expensive to manufacture. A single these days is effectively distributed for free, but they want a buck for it.

Their own greed is what's killing their industry.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Hurricane78]

More like <0.99 per album. Cause if the artist gets 2/3 of that, that would still be more than he gets today, for a album CD!!

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

No but the last Rammstien concert I went to shot something all over the audience....

You kind of expect that from Rammstein though. On the other hand, when it's the sodding Jonas Brothers spraying their mainly tween-aged audiences with massive hoses of foam... more than a few people have commented on the, uh, somewhat dubious imagery. :-O

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe, but there are two caveats to that which come to mind:

1. Suppose the type of music a pirate listens to is an artist who does not do concerts, or they do not tour where the pirate lives (For example, a pirate in California listening to, oh let's say Swedish Drum and Bass), the artist doing the concert wouldn't receive any income anyway.
2. The prohibitive cost of going to ONE concert is magnified when you consider that a sizable portion of pirates are those of lower-bracket incomes, who would probably only go to a concert for an artist they REALLY like (Which I mean is the pirates don't make a regular habit of going to a concert).

Basically, It goes like this:
Download a U2 mp3 = Free
Attend a U2 Concert = Fifty to Two Hundred Fifty Dollars for tickets + The several hours spent going to, attending and coming back from the concert + additional purchases (Drinks, T-Shirts, ... Gas for the car, etc.,) = $$$

From an economic standpoint, Piracy wins out, even if you factor in the monthly bill the pirate pays to their ISP. Now I'm not saying that all pirates are like this, but making the concerts expensive as hell is probably keeping away more potential fans then it is bringing them in. Just my opinion though.

(Posting as Anonymous Coward because I don't have an account on this thing and I can't be arsed to just for one bloody comment).

Re:Combatting Piracy

[indiechild]

Used to cost $2, but did you account for inflation?

Love how you dismiss the costs of bandwidth. So how much would you sell a song for, and when will you be launching your service?

Re:Combatting Piracy

[ThatsNotPudding]

The best ticket for U2 would be an iron-clad promise never to hear that sanctimonious bag of Irish wind ever again.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[mcgrew]

I don't think a download should cost more than ten cents. Bandwith isn't expensive, look how much slashdot uses, let alone Google.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Love how you dismiss the costs of bandwidth.

Oh yes, let's consider the bandwith costs per 99c track.

1 Track on CD approx 30MB
1 Download track, hi-quality, approx 10MB.
Now let's suppose I was distributing this on a really crappy retail cost home connection.
I could probably upload 5Gb/month for $20 - 4c.
Allow for commercial bandwidth rates? Less than 1/2c at worst.
That's why you ignore bandwidth. It's barely worth mentioning on a per-track basis and most importantly irrelevant compared to the 99c cost.

Re:Combatting Piracy

[Croakus]

You do realize that it costs money to create and market an album, right? It also costs money to put a concert together. You can't loose money on both or there's no show anymore. So if nobody's buying albums and concerts are still selling out then ticket prices are going to go up until such a point where they find the highest price while still selling exactly the number of seats available.

This is high school economics.

Tried and true methods

[Anonymous Coward]

At least its not too difficult to utilize the internal mic and record a track as a good-old-mp3 file.

What CDs?

[tepples]

I'll just keep ripping cds to .flac and distributing them so others can convert them to whatever audio format they prefer. Seems like a reasonable compromise.

Do the record labels even make Compact Discs anymore? I thought they all switched to non-conforming discs compatible with some CD players.

Re:What CDs?

[kipling]

Do the record labels even make record labels any more?

Re:What CDs?

[proxima]

Do the record labels even make Compact Discs anymore? I thought they all switched to non-conforming discs compatible with some CD players

The backlash against those copy-protected discs was strong enough that I haven't seen one in a while. The CD these days is still the best way to get a non-EULA encumbered, lossless version of the vast majority of music. The loss of "first sale" rights may be one unfortunate consequence of moving to online distribution. I prefer my music to come without a license.

Re:What CDs?

[jimicus]

Do the record labels even make Compact Discs anymore? I thought they all switched to non-conforming discs compatible with some CD players.

I haven't bought much new release stuff but the Killers album Day & Age is definitely a normal CD.

And they don't seem to be remastering older stuff to DRM'd CDs.

Re:What CDs?

[RobertLTux]

the funny thing is the folks that have the "rights" to the Compact Disc Audio (aka redbook) format sort of nailed them to the wall because all the stuff resulted in a noncomplient disc.

you can't do that stuff and still have the CDA logo

Re:What CDs?

[tepples]

Which is my point. After Philips raised a stink, the record labels just dropped the "COMPACT disc DIGITAL AUDIO" mark from the packaging and continued on their DRMing ways.

Re:What CDs?

[dangitman]

After Philips raised a stink, the record labels just dropped the "COMPACT disc DIGITAL AUDIO" mark from the packaging and continued on their DRMing ways.

Except that they, you know, didn't.

You'd be hard pressed to find one of those "DRMed" or "noncompliant" CDs in a store these days. They were a very brief anomaly.

Re:What CDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they all switched to non-conforming discs compatible with some CD players.

Essentially this was snake oil sold to the record companies at some expense. After a while I guess they realized that either they got CDs that were a bit tricky** to rip but also wouldn't play on loads of CD players (e.g. car players that actually 'rip ahead' for the necessary buffering), or they got CDs which most ripping software could cope with anyhow (possibly with an occasional software update for a new class of 'protection'). Either way they had to pay a per-cd fee or a fat bulk-license fee for the 'anti-rip' software, with no evidence of any return on investment. After a bit I think they decided they'd rather keep that money than throw it away.
I don't think the Sony root-kit farce helped much either.

** For a short time anyhow.

Personally I've bought about 400 CDs and there was a time when some of them stopped diplaying the CDDA logo, but every single one ripped OK with grip/cdparanoia. Some of the ones that *may* have been 'protected' ripped a bit slower than is typical. Only unrippable CDs I've got are three with 'CD rot' (hold up to light and see the pinprick holes).

You are not the customer

[Archangel Michael]

Both you, and the grandparent post miss the point. You are not the customer.

File sizes do not matter. Spam does not matter. You are not the customer.

You only have one choice, to realize that you are not the customer, or ignore the problem.

Why would you buy something when you're not the customer? Would you buy a McDonalds Hamburger, if what you got was a Spamburger instead? On the other hand, you might prefer spam to McDonalds Hamburger. I know I would!

Except I'm Kosher. ;)

And I figure this is cracked in 3 ... 2 .. 1.

Re:You are not the customer

[PopeRatzo]

You are not the customer.

Welcome to the Corporate World Order.

We are no longer consumers. We are consumables. Corporations don't exist to sell us things to fill our needs. We exist to feed their machine.

Re:You are not the customer

[Anonymous Coward]

The customer is the root node of the money supply.

If I don't buy the music, they don't get the money. If a lot of us don't buy the music, the advertisers don't give them money either. And then they have no money.

This should not be so hard a concept for you to understand.

Re:You are not the customer

[Firewheels]

The problem is, a significant percentage of the music-buying public would have to disappear in a very short span of time for the advertisers to notice, let alone pull out. Voting with your wallet is a valiant ideal, but the reality is that the vast majority of music buyers *arent* reading ./, they're reading TMZ (et al).

To paraphrase the troll,

The market is the root node of the money supply.

The customer is just a very small part of the market.

Re:You are not the customer

[Sponge Bath]

We are consumables.

Combined with a form of fusion the corporations had found all the money they would ever need.

Re:You are not the customer

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not the customer.

Welcome to the Corporate World Order.

We are no longer consumers. We are consumables. Corporations don't exist to sell us things to fill our needs. We exist to feed their machine.

"Needs" are often manufactured (for lack of a better world). Madison Avenue learned this many decades ago.

Re:You are not the customer

[HermMunster]

We may not be the customer but we are the chosen consultants to the customer and hence our word speak loudest.

MP3s are fine. The only reason these entities are considering a replacement format is to combat piracy under the guise of added content which will most certainly result in ads, etc., within the files. If they aren't subtle they'll be blatant and annoying. This is an underhanded slimy attempt to control the public by the RIAA. The author of the format itself should be unbiased and disassociated yet that author isn't. Clearly he's under the influence of one fo the centuries worst entities, the RIAA.

The new format will fail, because we consultants to the customer will educate them.

Re:You are not the customer

[khellendros1984]

Regardless of the effect on the distributors and advertisers, there's one massive benefit to boycotting the music encumbered with ads....*I* don't have to deal with them. Just because something gets made doesn't mean that I have to buy it. If a company produces things in a way that I don't wish to consume them, I'll find myself another source.

At least they got the direction right

[marcosdumay]

It won't be sucessfull (who wants that stuff?), and even if it were, it wouldn't reduce piracy (what is stopping people to pirate the new content, every time it changes?). But it is at least a step on the right direction. The way to fight piracy is offering added value at the legitm copies, not subtracted value, and they got that right.

Re:At least they got the direction right

[b0bby]

The way to fight piracy is offering added value at the legit copies, not subtracted value, and they got that right.

Except they didn't, because the DRM subtracts more value than the extra content adds.

Um, bonus?

[roc97007]

> "Using the new technology, music labels and bands will be able to send updates to the music files - with tour dates, interviews or updates to social networking pages - while illegally-downloaded files remain static. ..."

So, if I'm reading this correctly, if I buy a legitimate copy of the file I get spammed mercilessly, but if I download the file illegally I don't?

Cool!

Re:Um, bonus?

[natehoy]

Actually, given the quality of music of late, I wonder if I could just download tracks of static. At least that way, I'm not breaking the law, and I know the tracks will remain static.

Until someone copyrights white and pink noise, then I'm screwed.

Re:Um, bonus?

[canajin56]

Spammed? All depends on specifics they don't give. My (generous) interpretation is that it'll basically just be an RSS feed. You open the file, you get a pane in Windows Media Player with all kinds of announcements, if you want to see the video (if there is one) click it and it'll stream to your player. (There's no way they are stupid enough to try to embed multiple 10-100 mb video files into an MP3 file!) Yeah, if it can trigger popups, instant fail. If it's just a little RSS pane, that's not spamming, and lots of people would find it legitimately useful. I'd also assume (though you know what they say about assuming) that you can turn it off, or at least hide the "updates" pane.

They forgot the most important embedded content

[wizkid]

They didn't mention the most used implanted data. Rootkits and virus's...... This won't keep the Russians happy.

Eh...

[Pojut]

......I could be wrong here but the kind of people so interested in the extras noted in TFA they want them included with their digital purchase are likely the kind of people who abhor piracy anyway, or at least wouldn't pirate the music of their favourite artists. Also, it is worth nothing that the extras they mentioned are all things that could be found elsewhere online. I don't really see how collecting that information into one place and adding to the storage space required for a music collection would help stop piracy.

MP3 with embedded lyrics? Irrelevant.

[GreatBunzinni]

If you happen to be one of those lucky persons who happen to have adopted a media player such as Amarok as their media player of choice then you can simply open Amarok's script manager and install the LyricWiki plugin. That enables your media player of choice to just dish out any particular words to a song you wish to access. The beauty of this plugin/site combo is that you can get any lyrics you wish for any obscure artist and perfectly independent of any corporation, media player and even format in which your songs are stored. And album artwork? You already get that by default in Amarok.

So where exactly is there a need for an encumbered, defective, unsupported and obscure format to be able to do exactly what countless people are already doing at this very moment?

Re:MP3 with embedded lyrics? Irrelevant.

[Kral_Blbec]

There is a similar plugin for WMP

uh huh

[koan]

Sounds like a perfect vector for malware, and (glances at watch) it's hacked....next!!!

Easiest solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Put an URL in a ID3 tag that links to a website that requires you to log in with your account you used to purchase the mp3.

Reduced Price?

[HockeyPuck]

I hope it's cheaper to buy the ad/interview/cover art/lyrics free file since it'll be smaller. I have no interest in downloading a 20MB .mp3.

Sending data to files?

[Overzeetop]

The article was particularly thin on the mechanism for this push technology. It sounds a lot like you'll need to install their rootkit^Wmaintenance program which will spend endless resources on your machine and network indexing your files and listening out for the mothership to apply updates. This could add up to a lot of data traveling about. I've got a modest collection of about 8500 tracks - all ripped from CDs I've purchased. Now, of course they're not in MP3 format - I got fooled once ripping to a lossy format and did my "archival" rips with FLAC. Still, with hundreds of artists all trying to stream advertisements^Wcontent to my server, that could get annoying. Of course, that doesn't even address the security issues, or the presence of (as I like to call them) "rented/borrowed" content saved along side my "owned" library.

Bach mp3? no-way

[McNihil]

It wasn't Bach it was The German company Fraunhofer-Gesellshaft that did mp3 in the first place. Extremely shoddy article.

Re:Bach mp3? no-way

[alvieboy]

I already posted a comment on their site depicting that. Guess - the comment did not appear so far.

"Your comment might take a while to show due to technical reasons"... sure.

Nice thinking

[Angst Badger]

So the idea is to discourage piracy trying to sell people additional content that, by the very act of pirating music, they have indicated they can happily live without?

Marketing people aren't just idiots, they're idiot-savants. If a planet-killer asteroid was entering the atmosphere at this very moment, they'd be scheduling a meeting for later in the week to discuss how to put a banner ad on it.

phone home

[phrostie]

and to make this work does the mp3 phone home or does it require a new player that phones home.

Just what I've always wanted!

[Kral_Blbec]

Another 10,000 files on my computer regularly sending autoupdate requests and using my internet connection at random times without my knowledge!
I HATE autoupdate functions that run an applet in the background (java, acrobat reader, etc). Is it really too much to ask to only do a version check when I run the program, or put it in the task scheduler to run an applet occasionally rather than keep another process alive at all times?

The irony .... and, shove it.

[unity100]

the irony is that the company is named after the father of western classical (and therefore rather, contemporary) music, father Bach. but they, in lieu of his generousity, openness and productivity that ushered in a global era of music, are trying to make music closed. shameful. despicable.

and as we all very well know, your format is as good as its acceptance. if the 'internet and digital community' does not accept your format, and players and sites support it and propagate it, you can only shove a format up your ass.

and thats what going to happen.

Re:The irony .... and, shove it.

[charliemopps11]

Did you know that Bach only ever charged a fee for 1 song? And he felt guilt for the rest of his life for charging for that song. The rest of his works he did for nothing more than room and board. In his eyes all music was for the glorification of God.

Sounds like a good reason to pirate music

[thetoadwarrior]

I buy my MP3s from Amazon now. They're high quality, cheap, lack DRM and it has what I want in the meta data, the title, album, track no. and album art. There are a lot of unnecessary fields already, like lyrics that I find no one uses and for good reason, it's an MP3 and no one cares.

It's bad enough Amarok has decided to put a big freaking wiki window in the middle of the player making me uninstall it, I certainly don't want blogs, videos, tour dates and, rest assured, security risks in my music.

Anyone that has seen the joy of WMA and WMV files polluting porno on P2P networks knows this is a bad thing We don't need a platform independent version of shitty media files.

Without a doubt if this format took off I would quit paying for music until it dies.

who cares

[micromuncher]

Really, who cares. mp3 is pervasive. Companies have been bslapped for not supporting plain ol' mp3s. (Sony AAC only devices... die quick deaths.)

Semi-Obligatory

[The Redster!]

"Ahhhhh, Bach!"

Except...

[IANAAC]

Except that all this can be freely had with many of the media players out there.

I don't know if iTunes player does this (don't use, but I suspect it does), but both Rhythmbox and Amarok can get all this information automatically through plugins.

Re:Except...

[nneonneo]

There's a "Get Album Artwork" option built-in to iTunes, and there are also 3rd party plugins that will update tags on your music from pretty much any music service.

The "Get Album Artwork" has never worked well for me, but that's probably because 95% of my library isn't available through the iTunes store.

Bach Technlologies? Who are they?

[sageres]

Ok the article states:

"MusicDNA was developed by Norwegian firm Bach Technology, the company that also created the MP3 file, in an attempt to combat illegal file-sharing."

(emphasis mine) Ok well I am sorry but I do not understand. According to ematch.eu:

Founded in March 2007, BACH is a new and fast growing music technology company. BACH has achieved a strategic partnership with Fraunhofer IDMT, an internationally proven and trusted institution in the music industry. In December 2009 BACH finalized it's first major investment round. Shareholders include Karlheinz Brandenburg (one of the inventor of the MP3 algorithm), 247 Inc. (the company of Shigeo Maruyama, the former Sony Music and Sony Computing CEO) and the German VC b-mt.

So, how is the company responcible for mp3 format, because Karlheinz Brandenburg was responsible for one of the mp3 algorithms? And, he is just a shareholder. By far, he was not the only one who brought it about, and his implementation was one of several that made it into market. But as you can see -- the major shareholders are the music industry, specifically 247 Inc, the arm of Sony who are interested in it. In short Bach Technologies are overstating their credentials. They did not create MP3 and this was done for no other reason then an attempt to bring more DRM into the fold of the market.

Re:Bach Technlologies? Who are they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies LOVE to do this: acquire another company or technology, then claim it as their own. The company's barely three years old yet they act as if they invented the damned format! Asshats...

capcha: rejoin

Re:Bach Technlologies? Who are they?

[MSZ]

An ex-Sony CEO?

So free bonus rootkit is in the works! Yay!

I'll pass, thanks

[holiggan]

I've been using MP3 since the dawn of the format (for some reason, I've never quite hook up with OGGs), and I don't intend to change it to anything else soon. I also use FLAC, for the lossless backups of my CD collection.

I couldn't care less about "value added" content. Heck, I don't even want lyrics on my music files! If I want "value added", I'll just go and watch the artists live. Now that's "value added".

Meanwhile, I'm sticking with MP3s and FLACs, and I can't think of a reason to switch to another format.

Seriously, I can't.

The REAL (secret) marketing plan.

[vlm]

You guys are missing the real, secret marketing plan. Those files will be available P2P. The "album art" will not be the tiny little CD cover, but a goatse. Fans of music that would like a goatse will get a different yet equally offensive picture. The "social networking" will not "friend" you to the band, but to alqada or some other james bond-ian villian. Instead of the web integration making the band your new homepage, it will make 4chan your new home page (assuming it isn't already, of course). You get the idea, basically it'll be trash.

And those "bad" files will be widely distributed P2P by the music middlemen themselves, to poison the well. I can see the whiny public service infomercial now... "remember when you could download music safely? Well those days are over, now a simple music file and totally screw up your computer and ipod. But on the good side, you can pay a mere $2 per track for one of our guaranteed SAFE music files at our new web store."

Re:The REAL (secret) marketing plan.

[xycadium]

You're modded as funny but I see a very scary type reality to your prediction. I bet some RIAA execs somewhere are saying "oh shit, someone's on to us and is saying it publicly but luckily they think he's just being funny .. feww".

Use better sites!

[msimm]

As a person who's probably paid for 3/4 of a rather large collection let me point out that for artwork and extra content scene releases usually trump paid releases. And it really makes sense because labels could give two shits about the content of their product while the people involved in the scenes are often actual music fans.

Classic comment: cue the pipe organ...

[Anonymous Coward]

[ahem, cough, cough...]
I think that Bach hopes tocatta lot of piracy out with this format und yet I think that fugue i's are gonna go fo it. All in all, I rate the idea d-minor.

Re:Classic comment: cue the pipe organ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I laughed, AC. I laughed. Next time don't post anon...

Who makes the updates?

[businessnerd]

When I see that this new format will be updating itself with new content, I'm wondering where exactly is this file looking for this new content? Is this a closed protocol run by either the format's creators or some other corporation bestowed witht he responsibility? Or is it an open protocol where there may exist multiple sources for this information that the application I use to play/manage these files can specify where to find the data, much like with CDDB? If it's closed, then my concerns are the same as with DRMed music files. If the company stops providing the service, do I know lose the functionality? Do I stop getting updates? If I paid a premium for a file format that promised regularly updated premium content, then I'd be pretty mad if the premium content stopped coming. But if it is open, then anyone can potentially host information. Maybe I'm interested in a specific niche that one source may cater to.

Honestly, though, I still buy CD's (bought one a few days ago in fact). Why? Because CDs do not have DRM and the ambiguity over what is considered Fair Use is has not yet been settled. If I buy a CD, I can rip it to my hard drive in the format of my choosing. I can share it across my network. I can put it on a portable device. There is no limit to the number of copies I can make. I have the collection backed up, but at the end of the day, I still have that physical copy and is indisputably legal. Yes I get artwork and lyrics, which is good for the first day I crack open the jewel case and start listening, but then it goes in the CD drawer for the remainder of its life. Now I know that these days legally downloadable music can come without the DRM, like from Amazon. But now I have to go to extra pains to protect my purchase from loss in the ways of ensuring that all is backed up properly. Yes I can burn CDs with the same amount of effort it takes to rip them, but those are now on generic blank discs with no "authenticity" to them.

I'm not that old, so I can't necessarily say if this is a case of "Get off my lawn!" Maybe its because I had been an avid CD buyer up until college (that's when I got my first high speed internet and I began downloading like mad) and I have recently began buying CDs again. I have amassed this great collection, physical artifacts of my money spent, that would like to continue to hold on to and grow. Maybe it's because I'm such a fan of a good Album. When I listen to my collection on a computer or mp3 player, its so easy just to keep it all on shuffle and hit play (and I do this a lot), but when you pop in a CD (or even cassette or vinyl) you are making a commitment to the album. I listen to the whole thing all the way through. The album sets and sustains a mood. If the mood changes, you are carefully transitioned. The track ordering on an album is deliberate. Some albums you would never realize have an overall "concept" if you just listened to the popular singles. A good example is the latest album by Muse. I'd heard some singles, liked what I heard. When you listen to the whole thing all together, you realize that each track continues a story. The singles on the radio are like movie trailers. You get some of the great highlights, but if you never see the movie, you miss out on a lot of great stuff. Of course, the trailer might have the only parts worth watching, but we call that a bad movie, and as well, we should call them bad albums.

Ok wow, this really turned into a ramble...I apolize folks. Just felt like getting some of my latest thoughts down. Thansk to those who hung in there.

Re:Who makes the updates?

[BoiledNotScrambled]

I was thinking of "The Resistance" when you posted this. It's a fantastic album.

Thanks, but no

[Arancaytar]

I'll be keeping my "static", spam-free music, thank you.

But can you imagine the impact!!!

[tjstork]

If a planet-killer asteroid was entering the atmosphere at this very moment, they'd be scheduling a meeting for later in the week to discuss how to put a banner ad on it.

Can you imagine the impact of that advertisement though. DODGE TRUCK, BUILT ASTEROID TOUGH

yo dawg

[Anonymous Coward]

I herd you like videos, so we put a video inside your mp3, so you can watch videos while you listen to mp3s

I want lossless compressed music.

[tjstork]

I think MP3 is ok for casual use, but if music companies really wanted something to perk up people's attention, have a site where you can download stuff losslessly compressed. Why on earth would I spend thousands of dollars on digital communications in order to have a media format that chops all the data out of a song has an element of craziness to it. If you want to sell music, sell the music.

MP3? People still use that?

[eples]

Come on now, MP3? I've been listening to MPEG-4 encoded audio for what, 6 years now? Even Microsoft (Zune) plays MPEG-4 audio.

In short, who gives a shit. Next.

Still not living in reality. Not even close.

[Hurricane78]

There is no such thing as an “illegally downloaded file”. I’s a file goddammit! Not a physical good!
And stop “admitting” such bullshit that is never true. It’s like “admitting” you murdered someone you never did, because you got tortured to do so.

The whole base of the design of that format is complete and utter bullshit. And therefore the format is too.
Besides: Can you see the music bosses rubbing their hands and making up a new subscription-based model to keep the data updated?
Also: What is there to update? Who would even want the files to change? They should stay the same. That they do not change, is kinda the point!

Conclusion: EPIC FAIL
Nobody will ever care about that format. We will share MP3. People who know/care, will share OGG/Vorbis, MPC or FLAC. And that’s it.

My new updated boxer shorts

[realmolo]

These new boxer shorts have a special coating that makes them immune to "treadmarks". They come in a variety of fashionable colors. Another great feature is that they slowly dissolve your balls, which gives a "roomier" fit.

Oh! Goody!

[Grand Facade]

MP3's with built in spam!

Where do I sign up for that!

Revisionist music, anyone?

[Firewheels]

"Using the new technology, music labels and bands will be able to send updates to the music files – with tour dates, interviews or updates to social networking pages – while illegally-downloaded files remain static. "

It seems to me that an unspoken option to the above is that not only can content be added, it can also be removed or changed. Imagine having an 'Enhanced' MP3 with explicit language that you've paid for. Two weeks later, some parents' group sues the record publisher over the content of the track. The very next time you listen to the track, the original language has been replaced by a reference to warm puppies.

I'll take my music unchangable, thank you.

And nobody cared

[shutdown -p now]

Customers have already standardized on MP3 as the format of choice. Meanwhile, distributors seem be backing AAC for the sake of DRM. All bases are covered already.

The Dying Illusion

[Velska1]

This illustrates how they try to hook you to their format, their view of what you buy.

This is like leasing a car. They'll service it and add new features when the feel like it; as well as removing features when they feel like it. Like, they may think you don't really need a steering wheel — you'll enjoy your videos so much it's better you not be driving; and since you're not really driving, let's take the engine out, too.

It's "your" car, but you have nothing to say. Remember those Kindle eBooks from Amazon, that were deleted from the Kindles — Amazon used their own back door to remove the eBooks they found out they didn't have the legal right to sell.

All this gives us a new perspective of "owning" things. You know, I remember, when you bought your vinyl LP, and you could do any stupid thing you wanted with it, in addition to just playing it with any player that played anything else. Then came the C cassettes, and recorders, and Record Companies started complaining; it's only gotten worse in 45 years (or was it 44).

Ideas yearn to be free.

Excellent!

[Nerdposeur]

Wow, this just takes MP3s to a whole new level!

Why MP3s are great:

1) They work on every device

Reasons to use these new MP3s:

1) They don't work on every device
2) They can do stuff that web sites and email already do better
3) They compromise your privacy and possibly your security
4) Like all DRM, they can misidentify you as a thief and disable your music

Wait, something is wrong with that second list...

Frack that

[AmonTheMetalhead]

I don't want this, i don't want this at all, i refuse to pay for a mere file download, no matter what fancy bells and wistles they add to the file. The only music i pay for is the one that comes on shiney disks (or other physical medium).

I collect (good) music, and that includes the cd's and their (physical) cover art, plus, how the hell am i going to get an MP3 signed by this or that artist at a concert?

They can add all the content in the world, i ain't buying it, and if they stop making shiney disks, well i guess i'll stop buying music alltogether

More industry collusion

[zogger]

Just more cartel and collusion efforts to keep the prices of digitized bits extraordinarily higher than what a true market price would be, based on costs of making new copies. They have been so afraid to try a real market based approach, and make their money on migh higher sales, that they keep coming up with all this DRM nonsense and getting new laws and restrictions on the books, etc. This is not advancing society, it isn't anything for them to be proud of, and goes against every other major technical breakthrough humans have ever come up with. They are killing off replicator technology on purpose, throwing huge restrictions on it, and it has been a major blunder of a precedent.

*Eventually* there is going to be a credible lawsuit and court challenge that sorts out this mass collusion and multi cross cartel price fixing for products that have price X to produce in the first place, then all the official legal offerings/copies are are a hundred to a thousand times X at legal retail, when the real cost of a copy is a small fraction of a small fraction of that. Playing make believe that there is a natural scarcity of digital products, that they are the same as a tangible manufactured product.. is simply..well, it is silly, stupid, pretty nutso, short sighted, flies in the face of advancing the arts and sciences, flies in the face of having any government of all the people in the first place, etc. We are being held back by this terrible practice.

car related analogy,not exact but close: If the price of oil was 50 bucks a barrel to produce it, and cost for a gallon of fuel at all the "legal" pumps was 5,000 or 10,000 bucks, I think people would notice that someplace in there there was some serious shenanigans and price fixing and price gouging going on. With digital down loadable products, with the ability to make incredibly cheap "new copies" of said product, no matter what it is, it seems to still be unnoticed by any regulatory bodies as to what "fair and reasonable" might be.

And we have legal precedent to do this, well established, and I bet thoroughly enjoyed with no complaints whatsoever from the same exaqct people who want to maintain those ludicrous price gouging prices for digital products. We have municipal water supplies that are regulated so as to remain affordable, reasonable, and as fair as possible. Just take a wonder there if it was totally privatized and was sold at "what the market could bear" price, which phrase I *know* will be the first bitch about what I am writing about. Really, what do you imagine the price of water would get to then? How about centralized electricity delivery? You may have a few choices on that bill, but you are also having an overall reasonable cap on the prices set by your public utility commission, and the providers must go before them and make a fair case on any price increases they want. If it wasn't regulated thusly, they could wait for the biggest heat wave of the summer and up your price to 1,000% of what it was previously the day before. Take it or leave it Mr. sweaty guy, take it or leave it. Sure, you could do that... Or the coldest day of the winter and up your natgas delivery price 1000%. Now how about if the natgas guys, the electricity guys, the fuel oil guys, all of the above all set their prices at the same time up a thousand or ten thousand percent higher? That's the situation we have right now tith digital products, across the industry. Would people really go for that sort of thing with those other products? How about if all the major grocery stores just one day decide they were going to quintuple their prices on everything? Would the market bear that price? Well, of course, you could "choose" to just not eat that week, and "wait for the market to sort itself out better". Kinda hard when they are all doing the same exact thing too, though..that's why it is called a cartel, and why when stuff like this happens, we have congressional investigations and so on, because we are civilized, and decided a long time ago that business needed some regulati

No thanks!

[Terminus32]

If I buy music it is vinyl - I do support the artists, but the music I collect/mix isn't released on CD or in digital format, it's always going to be wax!

And if I do download an MP3, it's usually in a mix anyway, otherwise it's all about ripping from YouTube even if you do get awful quality sound!
I wish OGG files would take off too!

Finally! Someone else gets it.

[NemosomeN]

I know this will probably not be well received, but I think this is genuinely a step in the right direction. Content owners need to accept the fact that if they want their DRM to succeed, they need to ADD value, not reduce it. And while I don't necessarily see this specific implementation is being too great (It doesn't add enough value for me), I think it's good that someone else finally gets this concept. I know I'm not alone in the fact that I am willing to pay a little extra for games that have good DRM. What is good DRM? Steam. One company has gotten this right, and they are raking in money because of it. They are even raking in money from other companies' flops and old titles, as well as a load of new ones. And knowing that I never have to keep track of a game disc again is nice. Of course, any company can (and will) fail. Steam won't be around forever. But the fact is, I'd rather buy a game on Steam than download a Steam-cracked version (Though I admit, I played Portal cracked - I do own it now though). This format is surely not the be-all end-all, in fact it's nothing special. If you took a normal MP3 or AAC file, you could write a program that would update it online. iTunes could have this feature added with no format changes - though it would probably leave more security holes with the file in the clear every time it's updated.

Well...

[Smooth and Shiny]

I have absolutely no interest in this "new technology." I am going back to my vinyl LPs. I shall invent the portable record player.

Norwegian newspaper: Automatic DJ-function

[maggern]

According to an article in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten[.no] the format also has extra cool features:

Rough cut'n'paste from google translate:
"- Unlike today, where you only get the disc and song titles, the Music DNA could provide descriptions of tempo, mood, energy and rhythm of the song. This makes the music file is extremely searchable"

If those features could be incorporated in a .mp3-format (non-DRM) then that would be great.

Links:
http://www.aftenposten.no/kul_und/musikk/article3483050.ece
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aftenposten.no%2Fkul_und%2Fmusikk%2Farticle3483050.ece&sl=no&tl=en

Someone needs a visit from the cluebat

[Rysc]

It's amazing that these guys still have no clue what they're doing. I kind of expected this behavior a decade ago when it was all new to these guys, but today? Honestly?

You mean that if I don't buy the DRM'd version I get only static audio files? Ones that only play audio? Ones that don't get filled with pushed junk at the money grubbing production company's whim?

Why on earth would I want that?

And then, to top off the insanity, these "fancy" MP3s will cost--get this!--more than the kind without all of the misfeatures. Don't these guys know that if you want your broken system to replace the working one you have to incentively people to switch to it?

When I get done laughing my ass off I'll take some time to weep for the lost profits of these morons. But, only a moment.

Reminds me of Sony's MiniDisc...

[ghostis]

A new format with technically sophisticated features that doesn't seem to be quite in tune (pardon the pun) with what most users want... I was reminded of this when I saw that someone had tossed a case of 7 mini discs into the recycling box today. There was no post on the company "for sale" board, even for free - they were simply deemed useless. I think there will be a "digital album format" eventually, since many think the general concept is nice, but it will take a few design rounds to get it right.

How can I get Matroska support?

[KWTm]

Does mplayer support Matroska?

I think, done correctly...

[symbolset]

I think after this one fails the recording companies should pay me millions for my wild DRM idea that won't work out. Because all the rest of you have had your turn.

bye bye bandwidth

[garatheus]

Ung, I for one thing this is a complete waste of time. Coming from a low-bandwidth high-cost for services country (South Africa), I can just see the fun that will ensue when my MP3 collection want' to update itself. Its not bad enough the amount of bandwidth I have to use on running application updates, but now having to update my MP3 collection too... No thanks. Guess it's time to convert everything to ogg!

Is that the right comparison?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really folks when a song is less than 99 cents it isn't worth my time to pirate it. If I like it I will buy it.

When it takes me just as long to buy a song as it does to pirate it, the 0 minutes saved really isn't worth my 99 cents.

That's all fine and dandy, but...

[vegiVamp]

Does the volume in the new format go to 11 ?

Trademark Violation - disambiguating musicDNA

[Anonymous Coward]

musicDNA is a trademark of Pensive in Belgium, who already has technology for music and music information on the market.
See musicDNA and the Pensive company site
. Bach are trying to use an established concept, developed by Pensive and their UK partners, CTU, and leverage it with some bought in technology from the german Fraunhofer Institute.
I guess it would be too much to ask for this company to act honestly on the market and come up with their own name.

srcrew this. i'm going ogg all the way

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not falling for their plan of dominance. I'm now in the process of re-ripping all my CDs into OGG and doing away with my MP3s. Enough is enough.