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Mp3 Albums and Players Supported by Stars
Plinth writes "The BBC are running an article on MP3, and how it's being taken up by big rock stars, such as the ever current Pete Townshend. (CT:still waiting for his new live album to arrive)
The meat of the story, however, is that Bill Wyman (of Rolling Stones fame) has released an album complete with mp3 player, which of course can be used to play other things as well." Its interesting cuz its got its own copyrighting system but afaict it plays straight MP3s
too. I'm curious to learn more about this one.
What the music industry wants to be able to do (all of this IMHO) is to limit the amount of music that is out there. Thus they can concentrate their advertising, payola (the growing practice of paying radio to play songs), and cut overall producing costs by making less music. This increases thier return and makes stockholders happy.
Spice Grrls, Ricky Martin, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, if these are forced down your throat long enough (anybody listen to radio or watch MTV?) then you like them and buy them, repetition works, radio execs know this. Witness the recent CBS/Viacom merger (radio + MTV). This gives one company VAST resources to force millions to listen to the same music. It's not nefarious, it's designed to make money (remember that whole capitalism thing)
Along comes the Inet and smashes their whole game. They are scared of tech they don't understand. They are scared of AOL, IRC, and ICQ where their products (and others, gasp) get huge distrubution without thier compensation. I think this is a good thing, Why? because it's obvious that the record companies wield WAY to much power. Look at the contracts nobodies have to sign to become somebodies. Remember the article on Sony "owning" artists URL's "for life"!
MP3s help promote the Artists, they help promote variety in music, and bring cut throat competition to an industry that makes people think Britney Spears is anything other than a hottie.
$.02 (or $2 if I was getting paid by the hour)
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Thats probably because the artist's will make the money back when the people who got their MP3's come to their concerts, which, BTW, the Record label doesn't profit off of, they make money when its played on the radio, or sold in a music shop, so, an MP3, hurts their sales.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
How hard is it to negotiate a decent recording contract? Very hard. Have most artists been screwed by their labels in the past and wish to screw them back, selling direct to the fans and pocketing as much of the proceeds as possible? Yep.
Direct sales of MP3s (if any cheap 'Net wankers would pay for them rather than pirate everything...), images, etc. would make it easier for musicians, artists, etc. to actually make a living at their first-choice profession of making beautiful and/or interesting works for public consumption. It could help the artists break free of a fairly repressive media system which rewards only a few superstars with mega-wealth for their efforts, and lets the rest languish in both obscurity and relative poverty. Very few performers get rich off their talents, direct Internet distribution COULD help more artists earn at least enough money to keep making their work, IF people were willing to pay rather than expect that everything be free.
Many programmers who release their software for free make money off of consulting or supporting the software, or have other programming jobs. There are much fewer similar options for musicians and artists...
However, the Internet public seems to be showing that they're almost as willing to screw the artist as the major media conglomerates... which is too bad.
o/~ we are pissed, we are pissed, we have to resist... o/~ - ec8or
Gee, isn't this the concept that the Dead used for so long?
Allow (even encourage) taping of the concerts. Then, allow free distribution of the tapes. The Dead created a huge demand for their concerts and they charged for them. Most fans didn't mind paying high fees (in reality, they weren't that high) because they had so many tapes and wanted to give something back to the band (and to peruse the drugs of course!).
IMHO, the GD were so successful because they realized this! It is too bad that not every artist realizes this.
Justin
P.S. Which band allows free distribution of MP3s? =)
Mu. P.S. The address you see is real. =)
Here are some thoughts on MP3 and the music biz, which I sent to Nua's Trendmuncher list a while back, which may be of interest.
I saw a strategy report about the "information superhighway" and its impact on the major labels which fell off the back of an ad agency a friend worked for. It basically discussed disintermediation and the opportunity for artists to go direct once they'd gained exposure via the labels. Labels have very little brand equity - the consumer doesn't care whether their favourite band is on Sony or PolyGram. The report recommended that labels take ownership of the musical brand, and to increase creation of "talent-independent brands", which I thought was pretty amusing.
What happens to talent in this scenario? Niche markets are getting bigger, sure. These niche, virtual markets have always existed in some sense. The various forms of dance music take this to a new level, relying on home-recording and word-of-mouth marketing, and they're building new musical economies which operate outside the record industry distribution systems.
But I don't think the labels are shaking in their boots around MP3. Sure, a large part of their business model is based on controlling distribution, and MP3 doesn't allow that. But neither does audio cassette tape. There's a lot of music in the world, and the labels have a powerful, vertically-integrated infrastructure (label-publishing-magazine-TV-Radio-retail-games-e tc.) for defining a consensus musical reality around a small part of that world of music. Working in music retail taught me that most music consumers do not want to filter through everything that's there to work out what they like, any more than they want to configure their computer operating systems or customise their car. Another factor is that music consumption is often a social experience - you want to be able to talk to your friends about the music you like, especially if you're a young person using music as one of your forms of subcultural differentiation. That requires consensus reality.
Labels don't "discover talent" and release it. They supply well-defined and segmented markets with a measured stream of product. Sometimes talent exists with that product half-there, requiring only a bit of tidying up. Other times it's easier to sit some pretty girls down with a songwriter, a producer and a video-maker and generate it that way. Sure, not everything makes money, and occasionally something crashes into another market segment (like Gorecki). But generally the labels have a well worked out procedure for getting people to like and buy stuff, which isn't very "talent-dependent".
I see popular music and MP3 as kind of analagous to cinema and video. The video revolution allowed wider distribution for a lot of new forms of "film-making", and even the opportunity for distribution of pirated home-taped versions of big name movies. But people spend more than ever on the experience of seeing a piece of Hollywood cinema when it comes out.
The major labels and other big media companies understand that experience. They may not understand the Internet very well, but then neither does your average music consumer. Even if the labels take a year to get SDMI (or something like it) working, they've got enough mass properties locked up in tight contracts to make consumers want to pay for the experience of their product.
My dad's fond of the expression "there's little in the world which can't be overcome by brute force and ignorance." The labels still have the brute force (global brand creation). They're starting to lose their ignorance.
Danny
Internet Commerce -- http://aerial.icvp.com
This isn't offtopic - Rob himself makes mention of waiting for his CD (presumably from CDNow, since some of us are supporting his "Who habit"). Oops, I guess that makes this something of a rip on a /. sponsor. I didn't start it, tho'...
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E2 IN2 IE?
Actually, from what I have heard SDMI watermarks will be audible, ie people with good equipment and hearing will take note. The point is that overwriting them will make an even larger degridation of the sound (of course, if you overright watermarked frames with a high degree interpolation it should make it sound better, but I don't know exactly how it works).
And remember, these watermarks are not only going on downloadable music, but on all future CDs as well. If I was a Hi-Fi nut, I would be worried sick about this.
Hardware devices will probably (at the very least) require that songs are signed by the RCIAA key (of course, SDMI has to be exportable from the USA, so we can just put distributed.net to cracking that
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There's already a way to make money off MP3s: charge for them. In the situation you described, it sounds like the problem had nothing to do with money, and everything to do with the contract that Mr. Petty signed concerning distribution rights.
So I'de say this: MP3s will not be commercially viable until artists decide to increase their profits, instead of donating most of their profits to mass media companies.
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Have a Sloppy day!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Check out the album, Long Tall Weekend, and radio station at:
TMBG on emusic.com
The player looks nice...it's about time that record comapnies and musicians in other countries stop worrying about piracy.
Their US counterparts, however, are so worried about losing revenue that none of them are willing to release their music (legally) on MP3.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
As the subject says, I remember when Tom Petty released some of his songs on MP3, but his record company forced him to retract the MP3s.
Overall, in the music industry, I believe that the artists do not feel threatened by MP3s (in fact, most probably love the concept), but it is the record companies that are scared to death of them.
MP3s will not be commercially viable until someone can come up with a way to make money off of them. Until then, they will remain the currency of the underground.
Justin
Mu. P.S. The address you see is real. =)
Check out the specifications and press release
- Seth Finkelstein
As nice as this device seems to be (damn it looks cool) I simply don't believe that we will ever again see a good, free, mp3 player on hardware. Because hardware can only be designed and manufactured by companies (read litigation targets) and sold by distributors and outlets worried about retaliation from the sdmi bunch, it is doomed to all for their awful ideas of apropriation of information.
Even this article talks about using encryption to safegaurd against piracy. Since when can encryption safegaurd against piracy? Encryption can keep a secret between to parties that WANT to keep it, the nature of piracy is that one of the parties wants to spread the information.
What you can do through digital signatures and watermarks is mark WHO the original party spreading the information was. But from there you have to go the legal route...
So, more laws, more lawyers, more easy ways for kids to commit serious crimes, more arguments for infringing on our freedom, and more kids going to jail.
Don't fight with Mathematics. Its a really bad idea...
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I hate to be argumentative, OK so I don't but here goes. Most of the general populous does not give one shit about what happens to the artist or how much control they have over their music. The Backstreet Boys, Mariah Carey, and Spice Girls are proof of this. It is a very limited number of people who care about anything more than maybe requesting the latest Spice Girls song on the radio. The record companies will always be around, they will find a way to absorb MP3 and still keep the atrists under their thumb. Hate to break it to you, the artists themsleves are at fault for signing the contracts, the companies would not be in the position they are if the artists didn't play dumb when contracts came around.
Plus, not all labels are "bad" or in any other way microsoft-like, just the huge and disgustingly overgrown ones. There are a lot of indie labels out there (ask your local college radio station) that love MP3 and anything else that makes it cheaper for them to get music out there. (Well, that and the fact they love anything trendy. :> )
-Chris
As nice as this device seems to be (damn it looks cool) I simply don't believe that we will ever again see a good, free, mp3 player on hardware.
This is why the lawsuit over the Rio was such a big deal. They already established that it wasn't the hardware's fault about how it is used.
I submitted a C|Net article about how the partners in SDMI couldn't move as fast as the market and consumers don't want to wait for privacy protection (because it isn't in their interest), they want their MP3. Either way if somebody release one that limits what files you can play, and somebody else release one that doesn't (and is cheaper because it doesn't have extra layers), which would you buy?
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