Music

The RIAA has decided to cease prosecution of file sharers directly, and instead force ISP’s to become the new copyright police.

The RIAA wasn’t even able to truly determine if people were sharing music, so a ginormous ISP is supposed to be able to figure it out?

I have BitTorrent loaded one one of my machines. I’ve used it to make large files of my own creation available to people who need it (most notably my work on adaptive technology) and used it to download similar materials. I’ve also used it to retrieve a working copy of software that I own but that the CD has been damaged.

Is ATT, my ISP, going to know I’m using BitTorrent legitimately, or are they going to assume that because my music library also exists on the same computer that is running BitTorrent, that I must be an illegal music file-sharer?

This isn’t helping anyone; the RIAA is just trying to find more effective means to catch people doing what may be legitimate work. It just gets scarier, doesn’t it? My BitTorrent machine is offline right now, not because of this, but because we are having new flooring put in the room where it resides. I’m debating on a complete uninstall of BitTorrent before I put that machine back on the network.

As the holiday season approaches, I’m starting to look at technology toys as gifts. Since I have teenagers, and a barely-technologically capable husband who want the same fun toys I have, I’m currently looking at ways to give them the toys without the expense.

I’m cheap like that.

I’m also a practical thinker. If I bought them all $300 iPods, they’d all be broken within a month and I’d be out quite a bit of money. But if I can go cheaper on MP3 players, but still give them some of the features they are looking for, then if they break in a month, I’m not as bad off as I could be.

My 15 year old daughter’s old Creative Zen bit the dust last week, and my 18 year old son’s relatively new Creative Zen is showing signs of death. My husband thinks podcasts are cool and he wants to have his own player so he won’t have to listen to them on the computer. What’s a geek-girl supposed to do?

Go out and snap up some 8 gb Sandisk Sansa players. At less than $150 apiece, these are a reasonable and functional alternative to my more expensive iPod. For a geek like me, 8 gb might not be enough, but for my family, who only want to listen to music and carry around a few photos, 8 gb is plenty.

There are other cheaper alternatives out there, and most these days feature at least a display screen, and some even have video features. Here are ones I’ve found, in no particular order:

The Sandisk Sansa Fuze. 4 gb of storage, plays videos, has a voice recorder, and a built-in FM radio. Retails at about $100

Creative MuVo T200. 2 and 4 gb models, color screen for navigating, has a voice recorder and built-in FM radio. Plugs in like a thumb drive so needs no cables. Retails at $50 and $70, respectively (by size).

The war to free the music rages on…and we’re winning, folks!

Earlier today, Napster announced the launch of their MP3 store, which they claim to be “more than 50% larger than any other MP3 store and boasts not only the largest major label MP3 catalog in the industry, but also the largest library of independent music available anywhere.”

Napster says the vast majority of the over 6-million DRM-free tracks will be available at 256kbps bitrate and include high-resolution album art. Most MP3s are priced at 99 cents with albums running $9.95.  Napster’s on-demand subscription services remains unchanged.

There is now more DRM-free music available to the masses than before the demise of the original Napster. home.napster.com

This article was submitted by Matthew as part of a contest we are having on my podcast.

It looks like Q-Trax might be dead before it starts. This is a disappointment as I truly believe it could have been a service that was good for the music industry, artists and consumers. In a comment to my article Peter J made some good points about the impact to GNC if its content was available for free (i.e. without GNC advertising) through another source. If this happened it would indeed reduce the return to Todd as the people that consumed the content elsewhere would not come to GNC to see it.

This analogy does not work so well with music though, primarily because music (ideally) is art not information. While they are both to some extent intangible, art and information actually have radically different economic aspects. The value of the information is the information itself, once you have it you have it. While you may look at other sources for confirmation, you only need to be exposed to the information once to gain the full value you can from it. Thus it is important for a blog like GNC to tightly control its content in order to ensure that it receives the economic benefit of that informations consumption.

Art works differently as the value gained to the consumer is in the act of consuming. It is therefore common that repeated consumption will not reduce the joy (value) of consumption. Indeed the better the art the more likely repeated consumption will actually increase the value the consumer gets from the item. This is why record companies are willing to pay radio stations to play their songs, they know that repeated listening will increase the chances of a listener buying the single or album. What record companies actually sell is not the song, but the convenience of listening when and how you want.

Once you realise this it becomes obvious why what the RI is doing is so idiotic. They need to be looking at any way they can increase the amount of free listening that potential consumers can do, striking a balance between this and restricting the methods those consumers can use.  Things like the Qtrax service, Internet radio, podcast/vidcast backing tracks are all perfect for this.  Then the product they actually sell should be as convenient as possible to allow them to realise the most value.  Instead they try to limit interaction with the art at every turn, and try to limit the convenience of the consumer that pays them money to gain convenience.

They are a bunch of morons and their inability to grasp the basic concepts of their product and market is the main reason their profits are shrinking at a time that there is more money being spent on leisure than ever before.  RIP big label music, you are about to miss one of the best opportunities to revive your market available and we will all be better off when the small label becomes the force in the music industry again.

Sony could not help but hear the commentary on its decision to release DRM free music in the worst way possible, just about every media outlet and blog panned them severely. Less than a week later they have announced they will be also releasing DRM free tracks on Amazon.com. If I was Best Buy, Target and other retailers I would be a bit annoyed (to say the least). It is a better move by Sony though.

While I am not rushing out to get the new Britney Spears album, it is again annoying that they have released to a store that is US only.  If they want to limit themselves to only 25% of the market when they could scale with miniscule-to-no incremental cost then far be it for me to call them crazy.  It does bring to mind the whole iTunes or Amazon decision the big labels seem to be making.  My question to the music industry is:

Would you sign an exclusive contract for your entire catalog with a single, or limited number or retail chains to sell your CD’s?

Not in a million years, so why do that online?  If you told the product manager of Sony PlatinumPass that he could only stock those cards in one store he would laugh at you and call you a moron, yet the actual product it represents is limited in its available channels.  Oh irony, thy name is again the recording industry.

Your product needs to be where your customers are, not where you want them to be.  If the customers are on iTunes you need to be there.  You bent over backwards when WalMart presured you on price because you realised this but are blind to it online.  In the context that the last decade since Napster started this is not an unexpected thing.  The story of the recording industry over that time has been about them trying to control a market rather than serve their customers.

I hope everyone that was celebrating holidays had a great time. With 42C heat New Years in Melbourne was as much an endurance event as a celebration (110F for the unmetricated). The music industry did not enjoy a Merry Christmas with revenues down 20% over the last holiday season. The reasons for this will surprise no-one. A move to online purchases has been accompanied by a decline in album sales, with people more likely to cherry pick the good songs out rather than pay for the poor filler songs quickly put together to fill up the album by the release date.

The smaller and boutique music labels may still strive for the album nirvana of “All killer, no filler!” but in the world of the pop charts, there is no focus on making a good album. Writing a good song is not easy and in a short sighted world it is not economical to waste those resources on a single new artist. Better to give them one or two “hit” songs and fill up the album with cheaper material. If the artist manages to make it past the first album and get a big enough following they can put more effort in to a known return from a bigger fan base.

I say in a short sighted world because although it has given record companies more control over their artists (and hence the money) in the short term, they have changed the dynamic of at least part of the industry. The relationship with the artist is what drives people to purchase everything they produce, and that is created by the emotional connection between the person and the music. It is hard to do this with a single (although definitely does happen) and much easier to do this with a well thought out, artistically crafted album that you can play over an over.

I am probably starting to sound a bit like a grumpy not-that-old-yet man. I discussed this infomally with somem friends as we sweltered through the new year, and while we remembered some of the hit songs from our youth they did not bring back the memories of the time like the albums. We recalled artists like The Knack, Carl Douglas, Toni Basil and The Buggles we wouldn’t dream of buying anything more than the one memorable song each of them put out. Meanwhile most of us spoke of a concert that we had recently attended or planned to attend of an artist that while aging had touched us in our youth through one or more albums. The Cure, Neil Diamond, The Police, Black Sabbath, David Bowie and even one mention of Bon Jovi, although most of the bands we wished would tour are not likely to. All the people in this group were Gen-Xers, but if you have a similar discussion with your own friends I am sure you will get similar discussions with sligthly different bands.

Art is an emotional thing, and does not sit easily with commercialisation, and cannot be built on an assmbly line. In trying to control the industry the record companies have messed with the art and alterred the connection between artist and fan. This is starting to effect their sales and will likely continue to. The problem for the industry is that the top 100 is where the youth enter the market. Boomers and Gen-Xers continue to buy music today because of their emotional connection to the medium. If the current generation do not develop that bond, where will the music industry get its growth from in the future.

And realise that fighting your customers is not good for business.  Warner Brothers now joins EMI and a limited Universal in recognising that the goal of a company should be to make their product easy for customers to use, and allow them to use it as much as they can.  Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman claims the music industry was wrong to start a fight with consumers.

Reports from PC Pro and TechCrunch.