Slashdot Mirror
Bowie Distributes New Album Using SDMI Format
Twink writes "David Bowie announces that his new album 'hours...' will be available to download via his website for the two weeks prior to its store release.
Interestingly he's using the 'secure' Microsoft Audio 4.0 and Liquid Audio. Both of these systems have been cracked and it pains me to see anyone endorsing SDMI, let alone someone whom I admire. I think, on balance, I'll wait for the insecure Compact Disc version. See the
official press release."
Long gone are the dys where Mr Bowie strutted and fretted his hours on stage. The mascara and glitter are now put aside for the serious nature of his retirement funds and of keeping the corporate entity know as DAVIDBOWIE.COM satiated.
So to will many groups and artist go into this great good future, not with a loud bang of rock-n-rebellion but with the dull whimper of press releases and sponsorships.
Another hero has failed me
He's a guest VJ on MTV
Jack's in his corset, Janie's in her vest
Lou's hawking scooters and American Express
Guys quote Michael Stipe in bars
To pick up girls who own their cars
While we renounce what we once loved
To prove that we can rise above
Too Much Joy
Its nothing new, its something old, the Biz of The Music Biz is BIZ!
Even the often touted Chuck D, who has done some great things in his time, has fallen to teh siren call of the False Tech. MP4 was a bad move at best.
Happily folks are begining to call the Emperor on his lack of New Clothes. TMBG, as has been pointed out on this forum, have been doing this for a long time. The bands on MP3.com, myself included, have been doing it and with a better biz model for a while as well.
You would think, though, that the PR folks would know enough not to make such statements caliming thier artist is the FIRST to do something long since done. I think it was Billy Idol who tried to foist himself ont he net early on and got the bums rush in return. Its a shame the record companys did not learn form that.
If your gonna front the net populace, at least do it properly.
I think maybe Mr Bowie needs to harken back to his own songs to maybe grabt he glam back some, to learn the leason he tried to teach the world of two decades past.
There's a Starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
There's a Starman waiting in the sky
He's told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie
David Bowie--Ziggy Stardust
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
How much do you think Bowie is making from Microsoft to push their tech for two weeks before the album is released?
---------- Hot Rats!
(allegedly) from the warez community:
Hey, thanks man. We'll have this cracked and available for download within the hour.
We appreciate your patronage!
--
Everyone's been assuming that just because the format is crackable, no-one'll pay for it. This is the same argument people used against shareware, and while certainly 90% of people don't pay for shareware, a lot do.
Of course, people are more inclined to give money to a struggling programmer than to a monolithic music corporation. However, if we were to wait for an uncrackable format, we'd wait forever. Internet music is very much happening now, and anyone who doesn't release -- in mp3, sdmi or whatever -- will be left behind.
But then I reread his comments:
"I couldnt be more pleased to have the opportunity of moving the music industry closer to the process of making digital download available as the norm and not the exception. We are all aware that these broadband opportunities are not yet available to the overwhelming majority of people. However, just as colour television broadcasts and film content on home video tapes were required first steps to cause their industries to expand consumer use, I am hopeful that this small step will lead to larger steps by myself and others ultimately giving consumers greater choices and easier access to the music they enjoy. Concurrently, the Internet, with its low barriers of entry will allow retailers large and small to compete on a level playing field. This can only be of benefit to the consumer"
While I know that Bowie was always sensitive to the vagaries of pop-culture-as-industry, and was always a competent and astute businessman, I get a sense of this extending to a "music as commodity" attitude that, to be honest, I don't feel makes for very good music. Even if the idea of artistic purity is a fiction, artists that subscribe to that fiction seem to produce better work.
Of course, Bowie is enough of a wily satirist that he may, in fact, simply have been aping typical press release rhetoric out of ironic instinct.
I wrote this email to the contact listed on the press release. Hopefully someone important will read it, but probably not.
Hi, I am writing to you in response to a press release from David Bowie's official website at this address on August 30th. The Outside Org website is listed to obtain more information at the end of the release and on David Bowie's page on Outside Org, this email address is listed as the contact. Forgive me if I am directing this to the wrong place and I would appreciate it if you could forward to the right person.
While I certainly believe that digitally downloaded music is the far, if not near, future of music, I am disappointed with David Bowie's (and/or his record label's) decision to release his album in only Liquid Audio and MS Audio, encoded with SDMI. I, along with many other consumers, would have preferred the open and flexible MP3 standard, which started this digital music revolution. Because anyone is free to write an MP3 player and anyone is free to write an MP3 encoder (as long as they do not use a patented algorithm) without paying licensing fees, there is a much wider selection of MP3 players for a wide variety of computer systems. Personally, I use the open source Linux operating system, for which I believe there is no Liquid Audio or MS Audio player. A quick search on the de facto website to get Linux software (Freshmeat), reveals no matches for "SDMI" or "Liquid Audio" (I also looked at Liquid Audio's official site which only has players for Windows and Macintosh), while almost 100 matches for "MP3". This includes MP3 players, encoders, and graphical frontends which make it simple for people to create MP3's from their own purchased CDs. Without a doubt, an MP3 release would enable many more people on different hardware to have access to David Bowie's music. Not only is it wrong to force people to deal with one or two companies (in this case Microsoft and Liquid Audio) as the sole source for a certain format, it is also bad business. While the technically superior Betamax was held tight by Sony, the open VHS standard won the consumer war. I expect that formats such as Liquid Audio and MS Audio (and maybe even SDMI, though it is open) will fail in the same way.
There is a concern growing in the traditional record industry that downloadable music is more subject to piracy than normal purchased CD's and that a secure, encrypted standard that only allows play only on one device is necessary for commercially released music. This is wrong for, at least, two reasons. First, most of the music available illegally in MP3 format was not originally downloaded from a website. It was originally purchased on a CD and then encrypted to MP3 and put on the internet. There is no way to stop this from happening. If you release your album on a CD and it is popular, it is subject to being encrypted into MP3 and put onto the internet. In fact, if you ever intend for music to be listened to, then it will always be technically possible to copy it. Secondly, as fast as new "secure" formats are being created, they are being unsecured. Read this article about Microsoft's WMA format being cracked for evidence of this.
While there will always be some people who insist on pirating music, the majority of consumers simply don't have the time for it. It usually takes more than $15 worth of effort to find a CD that you would pay $15 for in MP3 format illegally on the web, especially if you want a certain CD in particular. When given the choice between affordable, easy-to-use, downloadable music in a popular format from reputable companies and illegal, hard-to-find from who-knows-where, _most_ consumers will pick the former. By using non-open standards to release digital music, such as Liquid Audio and MS Audio, and using encryption such as SDMI, you are simply making it harder for consumers to get and enjoy legal music.
There are also some interesting "facts" about David Bowie's involvement with digital music and how he is the "first" to do this and the "first" to do that. He is most certainly _not_ the first major recording artist to release an entire album online (some have even made some albums available _only_ online). Check out Emusic for this. Some of the more notable artists are Frank Black (former lead singer of the Pixies and a guest at Bowie's 50th birthday bash, where he performed with Bowie on stage at Madison Square Garden) and They Might Be Giants. But press hype is what it is. I suppose I should expect it.
Despite of this, I am a very big fan of David Bowie. I will buy his new album, though not online, because I couldn't listen to it even if I did. I will wait for the CD and encode it myself into MP3 format so that I can listen to it through my computer and on a portable MP3 player. I hope that in the future he will realize the demands of market and use an open standard that is available to everyone.
I'd be surprised if Bowie wasn't pushed towards a "secure" audio format by his record label. So far, major labels have been cool at best towards the idea of digital distribution.
Bowie probably has enough economic clout (and willingness, and tech savvy) to force a lukewarm reception through to completion. However, a non-secure format would have got the corporate knee jerks going and the project stopped from the get-go.
--
--
There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
It may not have killed the PC game industry, but it at least contributed to the death of other less popular platforms, Atari comes to mind.
In the same way, music won't hurt the wildly popular artists and groups, (Britney Spears, Spice Girls, Ricky Martin, etc.) you know, the ones that you can't stand.
It WILL hurt the ones who are much less popular, that don't have mass-market appeal, the ones who live from album to album. In other words, the ones that you probably like.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
There Fripp goes, blowing my mind again! That man _rules_.
Fripp on industry practice:
What is a "real" record company? A "real" company seeks to take as much from the artist as it can. It does this firstly by paying as little in royalties as it can. It has become harder, following the abolition of legal slavery, to pay scandalously low rates, like single figures. So today a new artist might get 12-14%. This is paid on 70% of CD sales, because the technology of CDs is "new technology".
Q. But CDs aren't "new technology" any more.
A. You're quick. But this is company "standard practice". Then this figure is itself paid on 90% of sales, because of damage to the shellac or vinyl.
Q. But CDs aren't made of shellac or vinyl.
A. You're very quick. But that is also a "standard practice" from the time of 78s breaking in shipment to the stores. Then, that figure in turn is paid on 10/14ths of the money the record sells for.
Q. Why?
A. Because company policy (in this case Virgin) determines that record shops in the UK sell the record for £10.
Q. But your CDs sell for around £13.99.
A. Now you're really getting up to speed...