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SDMI as Dead As DivX
Anonymous Cowpie writes "Rival predicts death for
SDMI - Bob Kohn, chairman of EMusic, says
SDMI's new spec won't dislodge MP3. He also says "In a year's time,
the SDMI standard will suffer the same demise as Divx. The
standard war is over today."" Fine by me. Wouldn't have
had SDMI on Linux for years anyway, and my MP3 collection
isn't going anywhere.
Ever heard of uuencoding? there won't be any binaries to strip if you uuencode. Just a thought.
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http://cheeser.blog-city.com
But then they will have some kind of a self-destruct device installed for the MP3 part, so that when you upgrade to "SDMI Phase-II", MP3s no longer play.
I have no idea why any developer would want to include SDMI in their player, especially if they are marketing it as an MP3 player. I guess we'll have to read the fine print. Something along the lines of:
Anyway, that's the plan, as far as I can tell. It would be a decent strategy, except for the fact that nobody but the RIAA wants SDMI.
rooooar
Are you sure? My understanding of "Phase 2" of SDMI is that in 2005 you're going to walk into a music store where they sell CDs, buy a CD, take it home, and your old 1999 CD Player from 1999 won't be able to play it because it's scrambled like DVD. Try to rip it, and you'll get binary snow. You'll have to analog-sample it, probably by holding a old microphone from 1999 up to the SDMI speakers.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
You didn't quite read what the guy said, he said MTV controls what we listen too. I think he mostly meant what is considered mainstream/popular.. which sad to say they really do. Then he went on to imply that he hopes MTV becomes obsolete, I assume by the internet.
BTW is that walkindude.. as in The Stand?
Try to implant mp3 players directly into browsers and replace midi, midi sucks anyway.
Um. Right. I think I'll go try to plug an MP3 file into my digital keyboard now. Then when the keyboard starts making all kinds of horrible noises and the neighbors complain, I'll tell them whose idea it was.
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Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
I wouldn't even worry about SDMI. Wasn't there a short lived vqf (vqx) or something like that? .mp3's success; small sized files, music on (your) demand by just choosing to play it, no need to rewind, no need to change MANY different CD's, no need for a CD disc changer (unless there is a 200+ CDR disc changer, damn! 2400+ hours of music!), portability, easy duplication, and of course, just the fact that you can get something for free. There are a lot more reasons why .mp3's are so successful on top of these. What the record industry has to realize is that they should stop selling us music at ridiculous prices. My suggestion for them is to drop the prices, add more extra features to each album/single, and to realize when they've lost.
There's a whole lot that contributes to
$20+ for an import CD? Screw that. Most of the import albums that are selling have 1 or 2 new songs/mixes that I can really live without IF I have to pay this much for the disc. If I see it available to download for free, hell yeah. Come to me baby. Now if I saw the same CD selling for less than 10 bucks, I really would consider just buying it instead of downloading it. Now don't get me wrong, I support the artists and the fact that they should get paid for their talent, but the recording labels make it very, very difficult for me to give the ARTISTS what they deserve. I used to get really fed up with the rectangular, cardboard boxes that CD's first came in, but hey, at least that was a 'little' something extra. Give us music that can play on CD players that can be read from movie files containing the videos for the songs and maybe even interviews, and heck, I'm all for the $13.99 price....but not a penny more.
It seems many people have a misconception of what SDMI is.. /SDMI will follow the rules and will only play first generation copies or something like that (I kinda forget how these rules work or how they are digitally enforced). Now somehow the RIAA has got to force all players to support the SDMI standard, which they may just do, suppositivly the new RIO'S will use SDMI as will most other players, possibly even winamp. So if we want to fight this initiative we need to start using and supporting players that do not care about SDMI, most of these will oviously be linux/free(not beer nessesarly)/GPL software.
From what I've figure out SDMI is more of a watermarking technology, meaning all new CD's and online music will be watermarked with SDMI (note there is a difference between this and encrypting of scrambling (spelling?) old CD players will be able to play this SDMI music (though if you play it backwards and really slowly you will hear a voice in the backgroud saying "do noot copy.. or satin will have your soul" accually this is fairly accuarate except its a binary message for the computer to read instead of you). Even if Ripped from CD to MP3 this watermark will most likly still be there. The important difference comes in the players. The players that support watermarking
My ISP carries all those alt.binaries.* pr0n newsgroups, and it seems to mean that at least somebody on the administration staff likes them, which means they are around to stay. In any case, it won't become irrelevant because the people who run ISPs still read newsgroups (I'm hoping). So nothing is going anywhere, I'm pretty sure.
-S
Actually, you can go over to VQF.com and download a client binary for free (encoders as well). Good quality, smaller file sizes, good for modem-rate streaming too. The problem with its widespread adoption seems to be Yamaha's lack of haste in finishing and promoting it (they seem to be blissfully ignorant of the concept of "internet time"). And, of course, they still have the ever-popular "What's a Linux?" attitude, when last I checked.
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=8^
Nothing like a good business tack to get the juices flowing. My question is why everything has to be reduced to petty business interests. I say have everyone just have little recorders attatched to their lapels and send a group of oh? about 10-15 pre-arranged people into concerts to be at various locations. Then have all the data that the recorders use be uploaded into high capacity lines in a foreign country. Then take all the data that is similar to each other and merge it into a spanking new sound and release it. 100% clear. and works 100% of the time.
And here's the kicker there's not one thing anyone could do about it. No one can track several hundred people from across the USA or any other country at all.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Answers
1. No although I have used them before on machines with sound cards quite nice and beats having to purtchess a CD
2. Well it just might slow down replication a bit due to some problems getting past the encryption although nothing a little good programing can't solve.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Yeah "Neptune" like the planet. Cold, sterile, and totally unhospitible to and form of life quite fitting? huh?
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
That's the basic gist of SDMI, instead of moving to a very low cost wide open distribution model. Those in power of music want to keep it that way. The RIAA is all about maintaining a monopoly (split 5 ways). They will try to convince people that listening to MP3 is theft, and charging $15 for a CD isn't.
Their last thought is about how to expose the most number of people to an artists work, instead trying to get the highest return per listener. Big business and art shouldn't mix.
I see a veritable battle brewing and I'd like to think that enough people will learn of the evils of controlling information (Secure DMI) do nothing but limit the choices of consumers (see M$, Catholic Church).
Beware, AOL already owns winamp and shoutcast. Someone else (don't remeber who, but a big media guy) owns MP3Spy and GameSpy. If AOL joins the SDMI (and they want to play with the big boys) then WinAmp will soon check your MP3's before they play. Watch the legislation, making free things illegal is a great way to charge for them.
It's really an us vs. them battle. Consumers vs. Business. Who wins in the Free Market.....we shall see.
Stay Alert, Stay Alive, Stay FREE
+&x
Right on even if that were your real address you could just deny everything. Without solid proof of any illegal activity not even the eff bee eiii or the NSA could stop you.
Interesting Image:
CFG Spender from Xfiles (Smoking Man)
*knocks on door*
Mr/Miss/Mz/Mrs blah I believe we need a word with you. *snaps fingers*
....
3 days later the body is turned up in a field in Montana?
Not much of a chance but I guess it could happen if the govt wanted to stop anyone.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
I understand that both DVDs and this new SDMI format use some sort of encryption. But, as we have seen, seemingly unbreakable encryption schemes have been broken by the likes of distributed.net. I really don't know the technical details of the encryption schemes used by DVDs and SDMI, but, given Moore's law, how long will it be before we can decrypt these files in a reasonable amount of time on an ordinary computer? We're only a few months away from 1 GHz Alpha processors, remember, and only a year or two (hopefully) from a "reprogrammable" Transmeta chip that could theoretically be reprogrammed to just crack codes. So I am asking those of you with any sort of knowledge about cryptography and specifically the encryption scheme used by DVDs and SDMI what the outlook is.
UMM I'm pretty sure that they meant endorced as in a proper copy. Like the artist endorces your CD but not that copy you burnt and gave to your friend.
corporations don't support mp3 like they did for DVD. Thus, SDMI has no _real_ entrenched competitor. Also, even DVD had Macrovision, and basic encryption, so studios could rest easy that no one would hax0r (crax0r?) filez off of dvds and post them. mp3 has no such feature. I think SDMI will win, but they will learn from divx's mistake.
(first?)
Heh. Consider some of the dumb things Joe Consumer is known for doing. The market consists of the kind of people who, upon receiving document in Word97 format, buys a new version of MS Office, a new version of Windows, and a new computer that is fast enough to run it. Sad but true.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
So MP3 will last just as long as it's the best choice. As soon as something demonstrably better comes along, it will be pushed aside like a used plate at dinner. But be aware, "better" doesn't just mean clearer sound, or better compression, or freer code--it's a set of factors that must all come together at once. Can I predict them? Worse luck--I was one of those convinced that ZIP would never fly. So don't listen to me--use your own lessons from history.
More code to write, see you fine folks later.
"Why all of sudden has the United States become so concerned with privacy? Privacy was never a concern before the Web."
We have always been concerned about privacy. It is more along the lines of "Why are there suddenly so many privacy invasions and disregard for everyones basic want for privacy?"
The suit gods fail to see that mp3's main attractor is the fact that it's free. Sure, it sounds decently like a CD (not audiophine herion, but a very good sound) And it's small, another plus. But we could always just hurl huge files in other formats around. Would you like other formats, say wave, to cost anything? I don't think so.
Unless they were to keep every person from ripping the track they love from the CD, or from exchanging files in a format that's not prohibited in any manner, it'll never happen.
Besides, it's just a watermark, embedded signature in the data. Given enough time I'm sure it can easily be bypassed. Like sticking a needle in a haystack, you're bound to find it eventually.
Sure the mp3 standard will die someday, as all standards do. But the idea of giving the public a pay alternative is kind of nuts. That's like throwing a pair of knitting needles at a junkie and hoping they take up that and kick the habbit.
(sarcasm)
Yep, that's all we need, we can kill this pesky open source software thing like that too! Just throw a pay "fake-standard" at em and hope they jump onboard. Then again, Microsoft's been doing it for years..
I disagree and hold myself in contempt, what blashphemy!
All that matters now is the artists, the recording engineer, and MTV. The artists to make the music, the engineer to make it sound good, and MTV to tell us what to listen to. The record companies are totally irrevelant. Hopefully soon MTV will join them.
The suit gods fail to see that mp3's main attractor is the fact that it's free. Sure, it sounds decently like a CD (not audiophine herion, but a very good sound) And it's small, another plus. But we could always just hurl huge files in other formats around. Would you like other formats, say wave, to cost anything? I don't think so.
Unless they were to keep every person from ripping the track they love from the CD, or from exchanging files in a format that's not prohibited in any manner, it'll never happen.
Besides, it's just a watermark, embedded signature in the data. Given enough time I'm sure it can easily be bypassed. Like sticking a needle in a haystack, you're bound to find it eventually.
Sure the mp3 standard will die someday, as all standards do. But the idea of giving the public a pay alternative is kind of nuts. That's like throwing a pair of knitting needles at a junkie and hoping they take up that and kick the habbit.
(sarcasm)
Yep, that's all we need, we can kill this pesky open source software thing like that too! Just throw a pay "fake-standard" at em and hope they jump onboard. Then again, Microsoft's been doing it for years..
I disagree and hold myself in contempt, what blashphemy!
What about Usenet? People post MP3's to Usenet, and since there are a number of Usenet servers that don't track who posts to them, how are you going to go after the people.
What about IRC? Does anybody ever log IRC??? So we have yet another distribution mechanism that is untouchable by the RIAA.
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Otherwise we'd all be paying cash for everything, and not get discount cards. And NOBODY would be a Costco member :)
If you are so concerned about MP3 quality, just use a higher kbps setting. I do mine at 256 kbps then burn them to a CD. Excellent quality, and far less CDs to deal with... Besides, SDMI is just a proprietary standard attached to the compression scheme. No benefits, just added size of the data, and who knows what else.
Consumers these days fall into a couple categories: high-end consumers, collectors, joe-consumer, and those with ethical agendas.
Let's reorder these:
Joe Consumer
This guy cares mostly about two things: widespread use and low price. Ease of use would be another plus. Joe-consumer also makes up the largest portion of the market. By widespread use, I mean - how versatile is the thing. Can his VCR play all the latest movies? Can his OS play all the latest games and are all his friends using these? VHS and Windows became market-dominant because of Joe Consumer.
High-end consumers
These people drive their purchases based on quality. Money is often not a significant factor. These people jumped on the laser disc format early. They probably owned the first CD players which were horribly expensive. They also represent a much smaller chunk of the market than Joe Consumer.
Collectors
They want market items true to their original form, which hold their value, or represent a rarity. A collector would want something that preserved quality (i.e. if a tape format provided slightly better quality than a CD, he would still probably go for the CD because it is longer-lived).
People with ethical agendas
Alot of the Slashdot crowd falls in here. They want open source, even if it sacrifices quality sometimes. This ethical agenda could be totally off the wall though. For example, not buying Ben & Jerry's ice cream because you support the NRA and you know that they are vivid anti-gun lobbyists. Although you like their ice cream, you refuse to buy it.
So, with SDMI, I believe this article is totally off base. I truly wish MP3 would hang on as THE standard. But I fear it will not because:
- SDMI will get the titles. Just as VHS did, SDMI will garner the support of the artists because their labels will not allow them to support anything else. (score 1 for Joe Consumer)
- SDMI will probably have quality. Microsoft's new format really does have better quality that MP3. I didn't believe it until I tried it. Both on low and high bitrate streams, too. (score 1 for high-end consumers and collectors).
- SDMI offers copyright protection. (score 1 for collectors).
- SDMI won't be free. (score -1 for ethical agendas)
- SDMI is coming on the scene late. (score -1 for high-end consumers who already have a large amount of time vested in MP3 collections)
Will SDMI win? I believe it will at least get a strong foothold because Joe Consumer drives a large portion of the market. But I'd love to hear discussion and see what people think of my points above.
- Speed
it's beacuse while the web (and the net) open up vast posiblities to is users, it also opens up vast posiblities to violate privacy. On the web, privacy needs to be protected more then it does in 'meat space'
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
actualy, I was readin in the latest issue of roling stone that most *artists* arn't aganst MP3s. when was the last time you hear an *artist* come out against MP3? i don't think I ever have. Its beacuse the record companys gett all the $$$, for the artiest *most* of the money comes from ticket sales, not records.
infact its the exact reverce of what you are describing, only the largest bands make money off records.
next time get your facts straight before posting.
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"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
..
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
This guy isn't really in a position to make such a claim. He seems to be making this statement in hopes that he gets his way.
But the people who create the music are the ones who decide in what format that music is distributed.
And then to top it off, if the music creators can convince Congress to extend the Copyright law to extend beyond music recording devices to cover MP3... the war is lost.
*shrug*
- coug
Why mp3 will go the way of DIVX (and other four letter acronyms such as the DODO):
0 1.html
First, it was developed without the input of the target community. Not only is it attempting to dislodge a beloved standard firmly entrenched, it was developed behind closed doors. The people that really know wtf is up will never embrace some arbitrary, overbearing standard decreed by some faceless association. Those same people are the ones with T1/cable access who collect these files and manage the ftp servers.
Secondly, it is not a "nuetral" format as described by the chairman of SDML. It is in fact an aggressive security wrapper. I read an interview on WIRED where he talked about how it's security info was inconsequential to people like you and me. He claimed that although it does actively collect device, system and personal info on the user performing the encoding operation, the ordinary user would not be talented nor interested enough to decipher the data. Bullshat, give me an hour...
I could go on, but. This same chairman then goes on to explain that he feels file formats should be 'agnostic', that's when I quit reading... Check out the URL http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/206
Thanks! That is very interesting (and scary as hell!)
You didnt have to pay for a VQF player.. get kjofol at kjofol.org it think..it does mp3 and vqf...
Standards do get entrenched - go search for mp3s there are millions out there and millions coming... It is like the qwerty keyboard - it may suck but everyone uses it so hey, lets use it too. Kinda like WinBloze maybe.
Excactly, SDMI is a securityu 'wrapper'. Any format can exist underneath, .wav, .mp3, whatever... But they can't encrypt CD's without facking up backwards compatibility. The only time that the watermarks (is that even really the correct term?) come into play is when you encode it with an SDMI compliant encoder. An mp3 player will not give a shat about the security placed for SDMI.
technology is like a roaring freight train with no brakes. Once a technology is out and accepted, there is no going back. and unless something better than MP3 comes out (and SDMI aint it), than MP3 isnt going anywhere.
When will corperations realize that music is art and deserves to be free? Look at great groups like phish and the grateful dead that actually encouraged bootlegging and recording at concerts and because of that their music lives on and will live on forever.
my 2 cents
-Z
I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.
Cd's will be no different than from before. You cannot add some new encryption without screwing up backwards compatibility with millions of CD player in existence. SDMI is only a tag placed within the track. You can still encode it in the same manner we always have. The 'watermark' only comes into play when it is encoded with a SDMI compliant app. It restricts the file to certain devices or certain access instances. It is bullshat and will, eventually, eat itself. no worries.
When I first heard about DIVX I laughed at the person for being scared of it. I knew that even if all of the movie industry took to crusade for it that the computer industry would destroy it as being a silly idea, if it didn't die do to lack of support. Well it died due to lack of support, but it was the idea that it wouldn't survive. This may seem similar but it really isn't.
.wav's, kill .au, kill midi, and replace with mp3. Try to implant mp3 players directly into browsers and replace midi, midi sucks anyway. Send e-mail as attached mp3's, even if you have to use a crappy speak and spell type device on you computer.
Right now the major supporters of mp3 are a large relatively unorganized group of people. I don't think any major corporation is going to champion the mp3 because they know that they will get the daylights sued out of them. There is a lot of support from the music industry because they know that if they don't do something they are screwed.
On a dual sided, dual layered DVD using mp3 compression such that it is roughly 1.5 megs per minute you can get ~190 HOURS worth of music. That is nearly 8 DAYS of continuously playing music. At 1 meg a minute it comes out to ~283 hours, or nearly 12 days. On a single sided single layer DVD with 1.5 meg/min it is still ~45 hours of play time, or ~67 hours at 1 meg/min. They are scared of that. The movie industry will still survive quite easily because they still sell tickets at movie theaters. With the introduction of online radio, and DVD burners the music industry WILL die. They know that, they aren't dumb. They have a lot of money and they will fight mp3 full force.
If you want to keep mp3 alive then don't take this threat too lightly mp3 may be entrenched but it is not invicible. WE are the people who have to fight this one, because no one else will.
If mp3 could be turned into the sound file for Linux we would have more leverage. Kill
That is how we will win. Scoffing will do nothing!
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
1. Is there some sort of tool that allows music to be converted to pulses or notes on various frequencies on a pc speaker. Like row, row, row your boat. I am aware of the pc speaker patch for linux however it is really crappy compared to simply representing the music as notes. There are two ways to get sound out of the PC speaker, witch can be ether 'on' or 'off' The first is simply 1-bit which sounds pretty bad.
the other way is to modulate the pulses at a very high rate, so that they change faster then teh speaker can move, so each change only moves the speaker a little bit.
I once found a pretty cool DOS demo that did this, it was pretty cool.
None of this stuff is anything that you could do without doing assembly coding yourself though.. I don't know about any linux libs
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The problem with SDMI is simply one of Mathematics, not of consumer rights or privacy or the big bloated music industry. In an information age, what can and can't be done with information is controlled by math and only math. I can send a private letter to you because encryption is mathematically possible and explored, but you cannot send me a file that I can only read 3 times. Controlling information like that is simply not possible (short of implanting a chip into everybody's brain).
So, with Mathematics against it, formats like this have to rely on proprietary closed systems, control over hardware, and legal methods to keep us from cracking them right open.
That is the problem.
oh I forgot theres a program called 'fasttracker' for dos that lets you play .xm files though the speaker. I used to have a large colection of them, they can sound as good as an mp3(these are 100% "computer" music though, you would have to recompose somthing in order to have it playable, you can't 'encode')
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Others correctly appeal to the "entrenchedness" of MP3's. This is a better argument--but it is here that we lose.
MP3's are entrenched, but only on the Internet. By far far far the vast majority of music is not Internet-delivered MP3's, it is RIAA-controlled media (CDs and whatnot). Also the vast majority of the market is not able to take delivery of Internet MP3's (because they are not connected, connected by a 28.8, or just plain unaware of the technology).
What this means is that the RIAA can saturate the non-MP3-using-Internet-geek market with SDMI.
Only two things can save us:
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SDMI will fail for exactly the same reasons MP3 in general has flourished: People want a high quality, OPEN digital music format.
.au file and hard drives grow. If a format is more rrestrictive but smaller than MP3 and i have a 300k connection, I'll just spend the few extra seconds to get the MP3. This has been one of those wonderfull occassions when the _people_ actually get what they want.
It has been said that MP3 is already dead. That new compression formats are about to enter the fray that will lure users from MP3 to something new. Well I certainly hope so! Sure MP3 is great, but we ALL want MORE dont we?
However no format will overtake MP3 unless its every bit as OPEN as MP3 is. Sure people want smaller files, but this need is diminishing as bandwidth restrictions go the way of the
The RIAA has lost this time. And im sure that now (as the end draws closer) they see the error in their ways. Had they reacted in the beggining, had the forseen the coming onslaught, had they actually done something similar to SDMI 3 years ago it might have actually worked....and the recording industry would have kept their tight grip on music distribution for another few years.
SDMI will fail for another, more basic, reason: It is too little, too late.
wtf, I hate to flame, but..
you are as dumb as a sack of hammers. Quit encoding at 128 KB/s or buy some decent facking speakers. I encode everytning at a minimum of 160KB/s, usually higher, the quality of the sound continues to amaze me. I get sound quality that rivals CD raw at 1/8 to 1/12 compression ratio. Open your eyes, boy.
MP3 isn't established. I hate to do it, but, MORON! Compression formats are quite standard, even the ones that should be scrapped. MP3 stands for MPEG, layer 3. I will garuntee that MPEG will be around in five years, in whatever incarnation. I am reasonably certain that it will exist in ten years. Look at zip files/tar files; old school. MPEG, and to a lesser extent quicktime, are their equivalent in the day of multimedia.
One word of advice, think before post.
you could patch your kernel so your sound driver writes the samples to a file. Or just delete /dev/dsp and put a fifo there.
But it will always be an open standard, and we will continue to use it.
Markus
If my rio can play these files, fine.. If not, well screw that. I can continue to encode in mp3. There'll always be a converter, even if I have to go from a new format, to wav, to mp3. I am sure I'm not the only person on earth who is happy with the format, and who has the technology to use it, so why not?
Sounds very ominous... what does he mean by "licenced"? Presumably "cryptographically signed as licenced by a means controlled by the RIAA".
I.e., if you're an independent artist and want to put MP3s on the web, you either tithe to the RIAA and Big 5 and get your MP3s signed (for a fee), or you are branded as a pirate, and your site is automatically shut down.
As a creator and consumer of non-label music, this worries me.
I almost positive that there is a plugin for winamp and wplay (two players i wish would emerge on non windows platforms)
that allows you to play vqf
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
People have already proven that a better product has not always grown to a general used standard.
:)
For example, take os/2 from IBM. U certainly wont deny that it is better than windows, but it was no succes because MS is just all around.
Take VQF, ever heard of ?
It is smaller than MP3, it gives you a better quality, but it never got as big as MP3. Why ? There where not enough songs in VQF (you can find MP3's everywhere).
For now, I stick to MP3, if someone decides an other standard is better, and the songs are widly available in that standard, I will probably switch over (but I will always keep my current collection).
Thank you
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Well, first point is to your idea about free books... It's already happened, mostly.
Project Gutenburg
And to make a new thread or first post, there's a bar underneath the story segment. You should see a drop box for score:posts, threading or not and order, then buttons "Change" and "Reply". The "Reply" button starts a new thread. Changing the subject does not.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
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~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
Wrong. Take Windows 95 (Pre- MS Media Player (new edition), and some early releases of Windows 98 (same thing). These OS's DID NOT support MP3 with their media players. So, what happened? In comes WinAmp, in comes a few other companies, and boom, you have MP3 support WITHOUT Microsoft's support.
When (IF) Windows 2000 Media Player decides to drop the MP3 support, what will happen? Will WinAmp suddenly go out of business? Will the rest of the MP3 supporters go out of business, just because Microsoft doesn't support it? Nope. For proof, see the beginning of this article.
Your probably hearing the stuff in the attic being chopped. (Which if the sampled properly don't need to cut off) I haven't analyzed the output of the franhoff (sp) encoder so I don't know how that one does. I can barely hear the diffrence between the wav and mp3 so I would need a plotter to see the diffrence :)
One thing in all this arguement about SDMI versus MP3 has missed is this: SDMI data compression will most likely benefit from knowledge of how to do better digital compression of high-fidelity audio gained in the years since MP3 was released.
In short, it's very possible that SDMI-encoded files will offer superior sound quality AND will require less disk storage than MP3 files. That plus the fact every record company is behind the technology means that SDMI will make fairly substantial inroads in the online music market, whether we like it or not.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
SMDI == DIVX I think you mean SMDI is equivelent to DIVX not SMDI get the valud of DIVX. At least in C syntax.
Those percentages (crude as they are :) )don't work for the World, they work pretty much only for the States. I'm sure that the vast majority of, say, India or Africa doesn't listen to music that comes from the major record labels. Thats what, 1.5 Billion people right there? Just a thought.
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i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
Discuss
Oh, pardon me, but you forgot that the largest music-listening audience is teens.
Without cash.
They're the ones who are using MP3, not Joe Six-Pak. They're the ones the RIAA can't convince to buy CDs.
And they like the PRICE of MP3.
Will in Seattle
Will in Seattle
Not that it makes any difference in the final percentage or the point you're making, but you might want to replace the term "Earth" with something like "industrialized countries of the world" and adjust the numbers accordingly. Start with, say, 2 billion instead of six billion.
It just bugs me when people assume that North America/Western Europe/Japan etc. is in any way representative of the way the vast majority of people on this planet live.
infact its the exact reverce of what you are describing, only the largest bands make money off records. next time get your facts straight before posting.
As someone else pointed out, if they're in Rolling Stone, they're one of the brand names to which I referred -- they have a vested interest in the humongous revenue streams that a big label provides them, via promotion, even if the royalty deal could be better. If they're for MP3, fine, but I don't think they're in favor of the business model the previous poster outlined (go take a look). They're no doubt in favor of the free-MP3-as-promotional-single angle; they're no doubt in favor of the MP3-as-free-publicity angle, especially if their career has stalled. But they still expect their royalties, whether from Big Brother or from a New Deal, whether from CD, DVD, MP*, or whatever.
But I wasn't really referring to them, anyway.
OK?
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=8^
I'm not pretending I know what I'm talking about, but I thought MPEG layer 4 (MP4) was some sort of mix of video and audio?
Are we just 1% of the population?
Only people I know that don't take advantage of the fact that they can get free, CD-Quality music, are those that just dont know about it, don't have access to it, or have the money to throw around to pay for it. If we are such a small minority, why are these distributors and artists so threatened by us?
oh, and those mp3 players kick ass..
Microsoft won't be interested. They have their own format that works with their media player. If you look at the media player page, it mentions that diamond is doing a deal with MS to sell portable players similar to their MP3 versions to play this format. It also mentions that there is an option with their format to apply a copy-protection to the media files. If they dont have the technology yet, they will just replicate it with their own proprietry format. Then they'll have the market.
This is obvious competition to both formats.
However, many of my CDs are not even from this decade as I started out around 1985 lulled in by the hype that they last forever and sound much better, both which aren't true. Now I always buy a vinyl record if I can get my hands on one with music that I like, but it is unfortunately getting more and more expensive and more and more difficult to find a decent quality vinyl record.
A lot of you are saying that the MP3 standard will die because Joe Sixpack goes for ease of use and he doesn't really know much about how to use his computer.
Well Joe Sixpack is not driving the MP3 standard now. Most of the MP3's on the net right now were ripped from CD and encoded in MP3 format, and Joe Sixpack (according to you) does not have the technical proficiency to pull this off. I contented that MP3s ripped off CD will continue to be the biggest source of MP3s on the internet, and they will continue to be readily available, no matter what happens with SDMI.
Now all Joe Sixpack has to do is download a MP3 player. There are lots of them out there and they're all easy enough for Joe Sixpack to use.
Microsoft could include a SDMI player and a SDMI player ONLY in their OS and maybe a few people would not go download a MP3 player as well. But at the moment there are millions of MP3s and 0 SDMI format tracks, which is a huge incentive for Joe Sixpack to download a MP3 player. Either way, MP3s will still be here, whether he does or not.
Okay, so my CRUDE FIGURES are WAY off. Even if something like 1 million or even around 10 thousand people shows up in the last figure, it's still enough to say that MP3 won't die just because the companies say it will.
It'll only die because we say it will. And we aren't about to say that yet, are we?
MPEG is for multimedia, and supports audio as well as video, but may also be used for only one or the other: there are MPEGs without audio, and (you guess it) MPEGs without video. From version to version the encoding got better. MPEG version 3 (shortly MP3) has an excellent audio compression, so it is used mainly for compression of audio files.
Markus
Fear my wrath, please, fear my wrath?
Homer
We apologize for the inconvenience.
The business models of "give away the phone, sell the service" and its offshoots are certainly viable for the cellular phone market -- you have no real point in having a phone you can't use. but to adapt this for music? i, and many other people i know, have yet to purchase a shirt with a band's name on it.
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i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
Discuss
If I'm an artist, and I set up a web site on which customers can download mp3 (or higher quality successor) files of my latest CD for $10, will I lose by piracy compared to if I continued on my same deal with the record company?
Probably not. After all, I understand that artists make about $ 1 per CD. So each download would have to be transmitted to at least ten people who would otherwise have bought before I'm losing money compared to the old system.
Many people want to support artists, in the same way that people who buy an "official" Red Hat or SuSE CD want to support Red Hat or SuSE. I cheerfully pay SuSE $ 50 for their Linux distribution for the convenience of getting an "official" copy and to support their work; the same will happen with music.
This, in my view, is why artists aren't afraid of MP3. They know that they'll gain substantially while record companies lose.
It's going to be a long time, though, before direct reproduction becomes a feasible marketing strategy. Vanessa Daou, a favourite artist of mine, tried an "internet only" marketing approach for her circa one year old CD Plutonium Glow. She subsequently released a conventionally-distributed version, so I have to assume the direct marketing was not as successful as she would have hoped.
D
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Check out the latest issue of Seattle Weekly for their article on privacy.
http://www.seattleweekly.com/
Will in Seattle
Will in Seattle
Want quality? Get a good ripper & encoder ... most people don't use quality tools. CDParanoia (for Linux only AFAIK) rips CDs digitally (not using the sound card, but raw off the drive) to avoid skips, etc. and BladeEnc gets better audio quality at higher bitrates (168k+) than the other compressors.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
VQF is a propriety format, created by Yamaha. Anyways, it had better sound quality for treble, and 25% smaller files, (i dont know about how long it took to compress), but it was deemed as "too little, too late."
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It's what Minidisc is to CDs (at least here in the states) -- People just say "Hey, I just converted my stuff to MP3s(/CDs), why am I going to change to VQF(/MD)?"
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
Discuss
Actually, MP3 is quite good for Joe Sixpack ... I know people who can't remember which switch is Power and which is Reset that use, create and trade MP3 files on the Internet. I used RealAudio format for my friends' CDs (Hey, can I borrow that?) for a long time before using MP3 because I already had a realaudio player and real encoder is free ... Mp3 is just easier now because there are so many tools. Sure, Joe sixpack who buys a new computer tomorrow may not use MP3 ... but in a month he will :).
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
There should be no problem as long as people keep making mp3s like they always have, and as long as we don't care about the stiffies who feel it necessary to go try to ruin our fun with encrypted formats. I mean geez, whose bright idea was it to pursue this SDMI thing anyway?
Insert mind here.
Just a quick question: does anyone really believe that it will be that long before there are cracks to bypass the security features in SDMI? I highly doubt that we will all have to wait too long before there are apps to translate secure SDMI files into our beloved mp3 format...
As others have said prior to my post: as long as my CD-ROM drive is operating I will continue to rip my CD's and trade them with anyone who wants them. I guess thats why I love Hotline servers....
why bother? cds aren't going anywhere anytime soon. i think dvds aren't expected to completely overtake vhs for another 15 to 20 years. these things take a really long time, i'm hoping in 20 years that the riaa doesn't even exist anymore. actually i hope the riaa dumps a fortune into sdmi, and that it fails, and then they go away.
-matt
Peter
204 Million listen to MP3's, and never buy the actual thing.
Do you really think so? Most people using the internet live in the US and there are only 260 million people in it. How many people do you think spend hours downloading a song?
As mentioned, the leading problem with cracking the DVD Content Scrambling System is that the algorithm is secret. It's not even clear that they use a real encryption algorithm, though it may just be called "scrambling" intead of "encrypting" for political reasons (for sales in countries like France).
It will eventually be broken.
The key is either a leak from an insider, or reverse engineering of a software DVD player.
If I wanted to break it, I would find a way to run a software DVD player under a debugger. Leading candidates include Wine (with some additional DVD driver support, it might work) and VMware (I haven't looked into it). The other option would be to simply disassemble the binary, though that might be more work.
Personally, I don't want to see it broken until DVDs are outselling VHS tapes. Until then, cracking CSS might slow down adoption of DVD (if fewer titles are released).
> Compression formats don't get established - they get
> tossed in favor of anything that offers better
> quality, performance or file size.
Right... so zip isn't established? Neither is gzip? (Even though bzip2 seems to be faster and more effecient)...
People don't often move to something for better quality, performance, or file size.. (If the did the *nix market would be much bigger).. They want to use what they have been using...
"What? WinAmp won't play this? Forget it..."
SDMI is fighting a losing war. Rather than fight a losing fight the RIAA needs to change their approach. Give away the music, but sell the T-shirst, the concerts, the theme parks, etc.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
As long as there are CDs, and I still have my computer, I'm going to be ripping my CDs and sharing the MP3s with friends, who also share theirs with me. No introduction of another format can stop this. You can't put the bullet back in the gun when it's already gone off.
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This debate keeps going in circles around what is really at the heart of this whole matter - the music. Most of the comments in this and other digital music strings seems to center around file format...why? Who cares? That's exactly where the jerks from SDMI want the debate to stay - in the realm of the technology and not the content.
In the interview with WIRED, Leonardo Chiariglione from SDMI made this passing comment, "...These are rules set up by the man who has the rights to the content..." This seemingly insignificant comment cuts right to the heart of the matter - the rights to the content, in other words who owns the music. SDMI could give a shit about the exact format the technology will take, and would love to see us go 'round and 'round arguing about which format is better. They don't want us to start talking about what lies beyond that - the rights to the content.
The record companies would like you to believe that they have all the content that you desire, and all these mp3 trading sites do nothing but further that belief. Instead of spending time trading your TOOL mp3's for somebody else's Celine Dion mp3's, let's use this awesome technology to take away from the record companies that which makes this all possible - the content. There are thousands of incredible bands on the Internet that are trying to get some exposure using this technology so that they don't have to cave in and sign with a label just to make a buck. Why not just give in and buy the damn TOOL CD - pay the twelve bucks and get on with it. If you are going to spend time and effort making CD's from mp3's, try finding some new artists that could really use the exposure. Every band is a unheard of until they're heard of. How many people had ever heard of Creed three years ago? Not many. Does that mean because they had little exposure they somehow sounded different than they did after they were signed?
Spend time supporting the sites that support the unsigned artists rather than depriving the signed artists of the income they've earned. Remember, they're under contract - they've sold their soul already - why add insult to injury. All but a handful of bands make next to nothing from their contracts, so if you like their music, why not support them.
Let's focus our efforts in trying to help the future Creed's of the world get some exposure rather than wasting half a day downloading, formatting and burning a CD from a signed band just to save a couple bucks. If we give the unsigned artist an outlet, we take away the content from the labels. If we take away their content, then who gives a shit what format they come out with - it won't matter if they don't have the rights to the music.
The real shame of this whole debate is the fact that what gets lost is the music itself. Musicians work hard writing songs - I know, I am one, and the point of a lot of these comments have one underlying premise - lets get it for free. Well that's great for you, but now who's worse SDMI and the lables, or you? You're both bending us over...expecting us to work for your enjoyment for nothing.
Why on earth would anyone want to stop using the flexible MP3 format in favor of an inflexible SDMI? And even if SDMI starts pressing onward, who's to say I can't rip my CDs into MP3 files? The ripper will still work. The players will still work.
One of the funniest things about the whole article is this quote from "an Internet manager at music label BMG" who said: "My gut feeling is that 90 percent of consumers would rather pay a sum of money for music that is endorsed by the artists." If, in fact, 90 percent of consumers feel this way then there is no practical need for copy protection.
Hmmm...
SDMI, I think, will be pushed to the limit of all use. The RIAA isn't looking to nicely on MP3 (like it ever did), and if the RIAA is still against MP3, so will the Big 5 recording labels follow. DVD, on the other hand, had many supporters from big studios from the beginning. DIVX had relatively had none.
You can't see this if you have sigs turned off.
er
MPEG3 = MPEG version 3
MP3 = MPEG version 1 audio layer 3
At least I think so...
The artist doesn't make any money anyway and usually ends up sunk deep in debt for the privilege of playing the game, so who cares? :P Yes I do mean the one on the cover of Rolling Stone. Go talk to Nuno Bettencourt, or any of the charming innocents on the pop charts. Better yet, go talk to Steve Albini.
make digital distribution disapppear?
How?
As long as I can hear music, I may also be able to digitise it, and hence save it in MP3 Format on my harddisk. There's no technical possibility to avoid that someone will distribute this new song in MP3 format.
No, guys, there's no way back.
All other formats will die, as no one will want to use them (besides the distributors, but we are the ones, who actually listen to the music). Long live MP3.
Markus
Artists pay for their own promotion. Did you really think the record company _pays_ for promotion? It's a loan- against royalties. Damn... do some research. Even back in the 80s, labels provided no such humonguous revenue stream to artists. If you wanted to break even then you had to go at it very much with the mindset of providing a huge amount of support, promotion and facilitation _up_ _front_ on your own dime, and if that worked then you had a chance at that amazing one and a half percent which is what you end up with after the dust settles. I hardly think things have gotten _better_ here at the end of the Nineties...
Sorry: you're buying into a worldview the labels want you to see. Try talking with some musicians, or indie producers, or people who hold seminars to teach you how to actually break even. Your mind might snap, but better that than to get eviscerated by your own naivete.
Are you kidding? Try maybe one and a half cents if you didn't know what you were signing and didn't have a good lawyer- and if you did, there are plenty of other artists out there who'll sign. There have been cases of _negative_ money, as in #1 with a bullet artists who incurred such heavy touring costs against royalties and gave away so many points that they ended up substantially in debt. It would not be very hard at all for a totally anarchistic MP3 underground to do as well by the artists as the record industry does. In some cases it would be as simple as not mugging the artist ;P hey, my debt for doing this art is not as bad as it was on a major label! this kicks ass, beavis! ;P
Not really- once you've repaid the studio time out of royalties, the promotion out of royalties, the fscking tour bus rental out of royalties....
MP3 roolz. Bootlegging droolz.
--GAck
3. Profit!
2. ???
1. On Soviet Slashdot, a Beowulf cluster of alien Natalie Portman overlords welcomes YOU!
For those of us that aren't as well attuned to music to differentiate a 160 kb/sec MP3 and a CD, or those of us who just want some background music for when they're on the computer, MP3 works well enough.
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I sure as hell can't tell the difference, so i'll stick it to The Man by getting pirated MP3s instead of paying $17 for a CD (and we all know how much of that money goes to the band.)
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
Discuss
Lase year (1998) was the first year in the history of the recording industry that music sales we down in the 17-35 (might have been 17-25 not sure) age group. I think it's pretty obvious that MP3s are to blame here.
How many people do you know with 1+ gigs of MP3s who haven't bought a CD in 6 months?
-harry
bzip2 faster? Not on my machines.. More effcient yes but not faster.
Could some please explain to me how it will not be possible to make an exact duplicate of a SDMI file or a divx file and the duplicate will not work... If you do an exact image I do not understand why that one will not run?
Here's some VERY inaccurate numbers:
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What percentage of people on Earth who have ears (or at least one ear) listen to the music EVER produced by the music industry?
Probably about 85% (the rest are either Amish, or don't have access to a radio deep in the areas of prehistory)
What percentage of those use computers?
Probably about 40%... remember, not EVERYONE is computer literate! How many of your great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, or babies under 2 even use computers? (I know some do, but most don't.) Also include the guy next door who thinks a computer is the work of the devil, and should be burned at the stake.
What percentage of computer users actually KNOW how to use a computer, enough to hear something?
Probably about 40%... and that's a bit high. If the private Liberal Arts college I work at is any indicator, we have about 50 students and about 10-15 faculty and staff who are even THAT literate. That's about 20% of the total college population. I say 50% to include all you home users.
Okay, and out of that number who can use a computer to hear stuff, how many are willing to listen to MP3's over buying the actual thing?
Probably 25% of those. I know that if I hear a song that's good enough, sometimes I go out and get the actual CD.
Okay, let's take the current world population, (6 billion) and put things together:
5.1 Billion listen to music
2.04 Billion use computers (now that's a high number!!!)
816 Million listen to their computers.
204 Million listen to MP3's, and never buy the actual thing.
Okay, so the music industry is losing income from, at most, 214 Million of their customers.
That's how much of the total world population?
A whopping 3.4% .
MP3 won't die, and neither will SDMI, of either sides complaints. They WILL die of people who don't use them.
Just see how many people are getting DVD's versus VHS, and how many people got DIVX versus DVD. The figures probably come out even less than mine did. DIVX's demise was that people didn't use it, so it became extinct!
At least a chunk of people ARE going to use DVD, so it will stay around, and eventually join tapes, CD's, VHS, ZIP (not for long), and floppy (who will kill them!) as media storage. I almost want to predict that DVD will become even more powerful, when both the audio, video, and computer industry use it... audio to get a MUCH higher sampling rate (as if current ones aren't good enough, soon our dogs and cats will enjoy our music!), video to get a much higher pixel rate, and more availability, and computer to get more storage.
MP3's dying? Not likely. SDMI dying? Well, let's watch the demand. DVD dying? Not a chance, it has a great future.
ERPbridge - looking at what might have happened if something occurred differently, in an alternate dimension.
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Morally, wouldn't sending the artist like $5 for the songs you ripped off the CD be very good? It seems as though $5 would be a lot less than what they would get off of an album sale. But, unfortunately, this doesn't work legally, although it should. Supposedly, we pay for the cost of the CD, plus artist's royalties. Yeah, right!
-- Terry
I'll promise you this: the day my ISP stops providing NNTP services is the day I find a new ISP.
-- Terry
... and because people's oh-so-old CD players won't be able to play the new format, they'll be less likely to adapt to SDMI.
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People ask around if they should buy the newest product. "I shouldn't buy Divx? Because it could violate my privacy? Alright" will turn into "I shouldn't get SDMI? Because I'll have to change my portable CD player, the car CD player, the home theater CD player, all for no good reason?"
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
Discuss
Really I meant more along the lines of the "media" its self rather than the codec or the software. Guess a should've picked my word a bit better =)
Really? Well then why are you even pursuing this "Secure Music Digital Initiative" if you're so sure the consumers want to pay? Hah! What an asshole. I hope this goes the way of DIVX, and fast. Let's make it so!
support gun control: take guns from cops
It's usually the absolute worst of music that achieves the sort of brand-name status that makes that kind of business model even halfway viable. There's thousands of bands that would starve if they had to live on the gate and the tchotchkes (have you seen gas prices lately?). It's as if you're asking McDonald's or M*cr*s*ft to just give away everything and make their loot off of some damn fine t-shirts. Yes, things will have to change vis-à-vis distribution, but hell no, most labels (and musicians) won't want to go your "let them eat cake" route.
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=8^
just ask yourself one question:
Who makes mp3's?
And then ask another one:
Will they care?
The answers are: everyone, nope.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
I remember the old days, downloading stuff to my XT, there was a compression format that was way better than PKZIP. It was called ARJ, or something like that. Anyway, when's the last time you saw a file compressed in ARJ format? Believe me, formats get entrenched.
Of course, you're talking about audio. So what about VQF? Didn't VQF have better sound quality, compress faster, and smaller file sizes (so I heard)? Sure, you had to pay for a VQF player, but you're probably going to have to pay for an SDMI player too.
Believe me, MP3 is definitely "established". As people get more and more bandwidth, MP3s will get encoded at higher and higher bitrates, and the quality will get better and better (well, to a point).
But what do I know. I can still tell the difference between a CD version and a 256 kbps mp3... hence I will never revert to only "online" music. I treasure my tunes too much.
rooooar
Also some years ago someone said, Unix will die. No, Usenet too, will not die soon. At least not for it being used as a conduit for illegal content.
Markus
Oh, you mean, like the Grateful Dead? This was their modus operandi for a long time. Sure, they sold albums, but they also encouraged fans to record and trade recordings of their live shows.
After I find an artist I like, I buy the CD. Depends on where it's cheapest, but I buy it.
So that makes me legit, I guess.
And you?
Will in Seattle
Will in Seattle
Everybody brings up The Dead. What percentage of bands since 1965 have succeeded by using that business model? How many people have bought, for example, Honor Role (great late-80's Richmond punkish band) t-shirts? Or 3 Teens Kill 4 (mid-80's NYC crappy artsy-fartsy band) posters? They "gave away" their music, in the form of promo disques sent to (college and community) radio stations; they sold LPs at rock-bottom prices at gigs. They probably wouldn't have minded the trading of tapes. Could they have lived on that revenue, plus their cut of $5 cover charges or $10 tickets? The fact of their non-existence and obscurity may be an indicator that they couldn't. You can't hang an argument on one San Francisco band's freak success story (one that, I might add, was aided and abetted by those Evil Dudes at Warner Brothers - had they not signed with a Big Label, one that worked to get them airplay in the then-burgeoning medium of FM rock radio, would the Free Thing have worked? I doubt it).
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=8^
hey, it's not like these people actually need a lot of money to continue their music. If they are making music because they love to make music, and not making music because they make a lot of money, then those are the kind of people that i'd want to hear. Other bands that rip off popular songs in order to make money will go and we will have people whose music is original and good. Look at sites like mp3.com, where everything is original, because it's free! We could see less repetitive rip-offs of other songs and more original music as lesser bands becomes established. I think that the music should be free, or pay only for the media (like 2 bucks for a CD, or download it for free, similar to the Linux distributions). If these bands make music for money, they don't deserve to be stars.
That's my two cents. Hope you spend it well.
or you could always unplug your speaker and plug it into 'line in'
:)
Wired News: "Does SDMI similarly allow for "fair use" of music by me, the consumer? "
Leonardo Chiariglione: "I don't think it is right [to apply the same standard] to an environment where you copy once, copy twice, copy a million times, and it is exactly the same as the original. So SDMI gives you the solutions: Content has an associated set of user rules. You are the author, I am the consumer, and we have agreed to these rules. "
This is the Executive Director of SDMI, personally I'm not very interested in using something that comes from a guy who cares so little about fair use and privacy.
The RIAA does NOT care about the 1% of the population who read Slashdot, use Linux, have the technological background to thwart copy protection, the time to surf the net for mp3's, use crappy handheld one hour portable players, etc.
They are aiming the initiative at the GENERAL population who would just like to go to CD-NOW and purchase a $1 single and download it to their computer.
Also, even though MP3's are popular now, people would much rather use a format that is secure, cost effective, and easy to use. I'm sorry, but the MP3 format does not fit the bill. MP3 is fine for archiving, but not as a distribution format. People still buy software even with WAREZ pervasive on the Internet because they are honest and don't want to break the law. I guarantee people will pay a lousy dollar or two for a song if it means they can easily download it and play it hassle free.
Lastly, this hardware deactivation feature does not mean that it will deactivate current mp3 players on your computer, only those players that support the new format.
When the general computer using population sees an add for $1 singles, they will go to their favorite online music store, download an SDMI enabled player, and the RIAA will have another user. The fact that it will initially support MP3's will simply be another feature for these users, but eventually the users will be weaned off of mp3's because SDMI songs will be so easy to buy, play and find.
MP3's are popular now because there is no alternative. People weigh buying a $15 CD with downloading a pirated song and right now, Pirating songs wins a lot of the time. People don't like breaking the law if they don't have to. Once the record labels allow people to make their own customized CD's, it will immediately launch whatever format they support to the forefront. MP3's will be MAINLY relegated to pirating users and for people's own personal use. The rest of us, will start purchasing SMDI collections because our time is worth more than a dollar or two.
As respects the quote at the end, about how we should be sounding the death-knell for MP3 instead, i give a big "BZZZZZT! Wrong!"
.99 cents to get a single legitimate copy instantly. The anaolgy with DIVX is quite apt: industry decides what it wants and what is best for them, customers decide that there is no benefit for them, they refuse to buy in, the business looses, and out comes a new industry...
It is true that consumers by and large may begin to prefer the legitimate distribution channels, but that doesn't mean a choice between whatever tripe 'standard' the music industry comes up with and the 'evil pirate' mp3. Musicians and customers will simply route around the distribution companies that fight mp3's, or whatever format comes along. Bands will begin to fight to release their own property ina way that benefits them, and consumers will continue to choose the method that most closely matches their desires.
The prez of Goodnoise made a valuable point along these lines: people might not want to surf an hour to get a song for free illegally, but would be very happy with just paying the
All economic models depend upon consumers doing what is in their best intrest, otherwise there is no way to predict behaviour accurately. Am I going to simply accept a system that limits and restricts freedoms I already have? No! Why would I? Instead, a new model must be found to deal with my new expectations as a consumer. Same goes for musicians and bands. They know the score, and are even less inclined to stick around with a sour deal since they're losing out on so much money already.
Check my Go-related blog for beginners: DGD
there is a interesting story from upside here that also makes the connection that SMDI might face the same fate as DIVX.
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... many sound cards available today offer some pretty useful tools in "acquiring" audio from already digital sources.
My SB Live has the ability to record whatever is being played (from the computer) without any DA conversions. So, as long as you can play an SDMI file, you can record an exact dupe as MP3.
Not to mention that MP4 is going to blow SDMI right out of the water, quality-wise. Unlike consumer electronics, open standards in the computer industry move a lot faster than the industry developed ones.
Plus, I don't think they realize the psychological reasons why MP3 will win. Most people (especially the computer-illiterates I know) tend not to see files/downloads as any sort of product. To them, it's not a tangible item-- they can't hold it, they can't throw it at the cat, they can't put it in their bags to show off to some friends. Therefore, to them, it has no real value. They're certainly not going to pay for something that they believe has no value.
I know that's not the attitude for many of the computer-savvy individual. However, there are many people out there who would never even consider taking so much as a candy from the supermarket bulk bins, but would gladly download the latest Will Smith single.
Which also brings me to my last (finally) point-- much of the mp3's currently available on the internet are the more popular songs-- usually singles. Since those songs are heard on the radio (sometimes a few too many times, ala Spice Girls) it doesn't really seem like much of a crime to get an mp3 of a song that has already been broadcast to the world. It's public domain then, right? Who would pay for something that's already free?
SDMI is dead before it's started. The music industry shouldn't try to mess with a distribution system that is already in full force, and is definately doing much more good than harm. How difficult is it for an emerging artist to encode an MP3? Dead easy.
How much will it cost to encode in SDMI? How many legal hassles will you have to go through? For many, it just ain't worth it.
And I won't say that MP3 and MP4 will win, because there is no challenge-- they won a long time ago.
- Greg.