02007-12-26 | Copyright, Music, Reading
The Future of Reading (A Play in Six Acts) [dive into mark]
Libraries, though, have developed lending procedures for previous versions of e-books — like the tape in “Mission: Impossible,” they evaporate after the loan period — and Bezos says that he’s open to the idea of eventually doing that with the Kindle.
First go to the above link and read the whole piece. Afterwards you might wonder, as I do, how come that amazon seems to be getting such good reviews for the reader, when the attributes of the Kindle would create a bit of an outrage if applied to a music player. The Kindle is even more locked up than an iPod!
After talking about how music could be free via a universal subscription or music tax, let’s look at the above quoted idea. As I mentioned in Digital Media is not Stuff, the old form of lending does not apply, since the lender retains a copy on his harddrive. Applying the lending procedures libraries are developing for e-books, as quoted above, files lent to a friend would evaporate. If this was built into all music files artists and record labels generate, file-sharing would take on a completely different character. Suddenly a file shared just wets the appetite, because it evaporates in three days or a week. Sure some people will just go download another copy which will last a week, but many will simply want to buy/license the file so they don’t go to play a piece of music only to find that it has expired…
What bugs me the most about the Kindle is the same thing that sucks about the music-DRM currently available, and that is having the files tied to one machine or one brand. I think DRM should be tied to a person, possible using something like openID, and the person should be able to play the music file, or read the book, on any device associated with him or her. When the file is copied to a device that is not associated with that person, it changes to a “Lend”-file and evaporates after a specific period.
Somewhat similar, but totally different, this is why I love GrandCentral, which I mentioned here: the phone number is NOT associated with a particular landline or cellphone account. Any new or temporary phone number can be linked to the GC number.
02007-12-24 | Computer, Copyright, Music, Musings
This way-too-long entry refers to this post, which suggested a music tax mentioned the EFF subscription model.
On December 21st Chris comments:
Ottmar, this is a frightening suggestion. I appreciate your desire to protect your industry regardless of whether I agree with your causation or not, but please don’t inadvertently damage mine in the process. Storing music is but on use of computer storage and an infinitesimal one in comparison to the ever growing usage of computing in society. I buy tickets to every show when you’re in town and have purchased a number of your CD’s. I greatly appreciate your music, but I really think I pay plenty thank you. I don’t think “taxing” my profession to fund yours is the answer. This really has been a disappointing experience, and I truly hope you rethink your position on this.
Your industry : my industry? What is your industry? Designing computers, making computers, selling computers? Software perhaps? Storing music and burning CDs is a huge part of the world’s daily computing. I would not be surprised if music and movie files take up the biggest amount of space on the average computer. Half the world’s population is under 25 years of age. What do you think is on their computers? Spreadsheets? A draft of an original novel?
Rip, mix and burn was Apple’s slogan in 2001. The BBC wrote in February of 2002:
The music industry has pointed the finger at illegal music downloads and CD copying, or burning, for a 10% drop in sales of compact discs in the US in 2001.
Before 2001 most studios had a CD burner, but they were expensive and not widely available. Suddenly every computer came with the ability to burn a CD. It would be interesting to look up CD-R sales in 2000 versus 2001 and today. My feeling is that sales of recordable CD media doubled between 2000 and 2002 and enjoyed a steady rise until the iPod came out. I have a computer in my living room that is only used for music. 230GB of music files. I don’t think I am the only person to use a computer solely for listening to music, ripping my CDs, cataloguing albums etc.
In any case, which hardware should be taxed – that’s the sort of detail that would be subject to much wrangling, I am sure. It’s for the lobbyists and politicians to figure out, I suppose.
Peter Gabriel spoke of musicians having lost on average about 50-60% of their income due to diminished album sales. Today Reuters had a news item about concert revenue being down by a lot. The music business is trying to figure out how to survive and we have to be willing to look at any idea.
On December 23rd ottmar comments:
@Chris: reading about my idea was a “disappointing experience”? I assume you don’t like the EFF’s idea either. That’s fine. But, disappointing experience? Really?
I still like the idea, actually. I spend hundreds of dollars on music every year. The EFF’s idea of paying $5/month sounds incredibly inexpensive and very exciting. Just imagine ALL music being available to a young person. The discovery! No more “I’d love to check that out, but what do I do with the CD if I hate the music…”
This would be something for a Yale or Harvard or Stanford business class to explore: to compare the taxing of devices that play or amplify music with the EFF’s idea of a monthly music subscription amount (different from a tax only in name). Projected revenue and all of that fun-stuff. Maybe a combination of both.
On December 23rd Chris comments:
Ottmar: I greatly appreciate your music and your art in general. Honestly I find them inspirational. And it was disappointing to read your support for, what is to me a closed minded and short sighted solution.
With regards to the EFF idea, it has one key aspect that your suggestion lacked, voluntariness. Your proposition also disproportionately affected unrelated businesses rather than file-sharing individuals.
That being said, I love the EFF idea. I too spend a significant amount of money on music and would jump at the chance to increase my music consumption while nearly eliminating my costs. However the plan does seem true to EFF form, lacking in realism. Just one key point, missing in EFF’s equation is the cost of bandwidth. ISPs will not “love” to lay out significant and ever increasing costs without an expectation of significant returns. Further, the ultimate question becomes one of ownership? Can I theoretically pay a one time fee of five dollars download limitlessly for one month and forever own my new found music? If not, we already have subscription service and no one is interested.
The way I understand the EFF idea, the monthly fee would not be voluntary at all. That is, if you pay it, your use of free content is legal. If you do not pay, you are not only unable to access the big pools of content, but sharing files with somebody who does have access would still be illegal.
Ownership? Let me refer to my post “Digital Media is not Stuff”. All of the arts are rapidly moving to a license-model. That’s true for photography and the fine arts, but also for software, movies and music. The problem with existing subscription services is that they are tied to one subscription provider and usually to specific devices. That’s why no one is interested!! What makes the EFF model different is that music would be without DRM and would play on any device. Yes, it would be a subscription in the sense that one should not be allowed to pay $5 for one single month, in which one then proceeds to download every piece of music available – since all of the world’s music might fit in ones hand by 2015…
See this article:
“More importantly, if this trend continues, and the cost of storage continues to decrease, we estimate that somewhere around 2020, all the world’s content will fit inside an iPod, and all the world’s music would sit in your palm as early as 2015,” Cassidy surmised, “rendering the CD format unnecessary.”
Who will provide this music for free? Well, every single hardware manufacturer wants to have content for their devices. That was the reasoning behind Sony’s acquisition of Columbia Records in the Eighties and that would be the reason why all or most hardware manufacturers would maintain free content sites. This would also be true for stores like Best Buy or Circuit City. Buy a computer/mp3-player/stereo-system and get your free content at the same time. WalMart, Target, amazon.com – they might all provide free content.
Anyway, it’s just an idea. I think it’s a good one and love the thought that kids could have access to ALL music. But, I have little faith in politicians or the music biz to take such a radical step. By the way, in the 1920s, radio-broadcasts were not supported by advertising or listener sponsorship.
Wikipedia:
The stations owned by manufacturers and department stores were established to sell radios…
Meaning, there is a long history of giving away content to sell hardware. Also, please read Wikipedia’s histories of ASCAP and BMI – you will notice that the problem was very similar: radio, which started out with live-performances, began to play recorded music and music publishers were freaking out, fearing that sales of sheet music would stall. The performing rights groups, ASCAP and BMI in the USA, started charging radio stations a flat fee, which was collected and divided among their members. History! It does repeat itself. The only difference is that instead of radio stations playing a flat fee for content (that’s already happening for the better part of a century) it would now be the public that would pay a flat fee for content (EFF subscription model) or a music tax on music-playing devices.
I do hope that this post neither frightens nor disappoints you, Chris. :) Life is too short and precious. We are just exchanging points of view. I appreciate your comments, because they make me look at the problem before us in a different way. I am lucky, I have an audience that can sustain me at this point. The solo-performance at the beautiful Vilar Center in Beaver Creek was sold-out. But what about the next generation of musicians? What about the musicians whose work does not appeal to a lot of people? Van Gogh is a great example of a painter who was neither appreciated nor financially rewarded during his lifetime. Just because it is not very popular right now does not mean that it is not important. Let musicians have day-jobs, you might say. Most of us do. Only about 1% of all musicians can live from concerts and album sales… They say that the classical orchestras of the 20th century were the best orchestras in history. Why? Because they were professional orchestras and that meant that every musician played his/her instrument every single day. Bach played most instruments better than the musicians in his orchestra, because those were the plumber and school teacher and shop-keeper, who played an instrument as a hobby. J.S.Bach was the only professional.
Who knows, maybe in a hundred years we will only let computers compose music for us. Maybe the musician as a professional will go the way of the knife-sharpener or tailor. What a world that would be…
02007-12-14 | Copyright, Music
50 Cent: File-sharing ‘doesn’t hurt artists’ | News | Guardian Unlimited Music
The industry has to “maximize its income from concerts and merchandise”, he said, adding: “It is the only way they can get their marketing money back.”
Have you noticed that seeing a live-show has become quite expensive? In the nineties the idea was to tour to sell CDs. Many bands received tour-support from their record labels because a tour did not have to break even or make money in order to be successful. The idea was that CD sales would more than make up for the lack of touring profits. Shows tended to be huge and extravagant, because the aim was to sell CDs. One could say the live-show was a commercial, an advertisement for the CD. Basically the artist’s income (plus the people involved in either recording or touring, e.g. musicians, roadies, engineers…) was derived from many people paying very little – the cost of a CD.
Now CD sales don’t amount to very much and artist have to make a living from touring. The result is that ticket prices have gone up and may no longer be affordable for students, for example. The irony is that the group of people most likely to share files is also the group that may not be able to afford a live-show as a result.
Another result is that current major label contracts specify that the record company also receives money from the artist’s touring and merchandise income – not just the sale of CDs and downloads. A major label deal now reads much more like a management contract – a percentage of ALL income.
I am starting to believe the only sensible thing to do is to levy a tax on every single device that plays or amplifies music, including amplifiers, headphones, loudspeakers, computers, music-players of every shape and form etc… – this is not a new idea: in the Nineties there was a tax on DAT tape, because it was the first medium that could create a perfect copy…
Stretched over so many devices the amount of tax a person would end up paying would be small, smaller than the sales-tax perhaps. BMI and ASCAP have a lot of experience in dividing up income for musicians. For many years they have divided fees for use of music in film, television and radio. They could divide the money derived from the music-tax by looking at how many times songs are being downloaded. Maybe music would indeed become free, there would be no more RIAA raids, and the artists would simply receive their share from the music tax.
I cannot find a downside to this idea. Concert ticket prices could come down again and live-shows would become more accessible. File-sharing would simply become unnecessary because music could be downloaded for free.
PS: searched and found this interesting EFF document from 2004 and this from Prof. Lessig.
02007-12-14 | Copyright, Music
50 Cent: File-sharing ‘doesn’t hurt artists’ | News | Guardian Unlimited Music
The industry has to “maximize its income from concerts and merchandise”, he said, adding: “It is the only way they can get their marketing money back.”
Have you noticed that seeing a live-show has become quite expensive? In the nineties the idea was to tour to sell CDs. Many bands received tour-support from their record labels because a tour did not have to break even or make money in order to be successful. The idea was that CD sales would more than make up for the lack of touring profits. Shows tended to be huge and extravagant, because the aim was to sell CDs. One could say the live-show was a commercial, an advertisement for the CD. Basically the artist’s income (plus the people involved in either recording or touring, e.g. musicians, roadies, engineers…) was derived from many people paying very little – the cost of a CD.
Now CD sales don’t amount to very much and artist have to make a living from touring. The result is that ticket prices have gone up and may no longer be affordable for students, for example. The irony is that the group of people most likely to share files is also the group that may not be able to afford a live-show as a result.
Another result is that current major label contracts specify that the record company also receives money from the artist’s touring and merchandise income – not just the sale of CDs and downloads. A major label deal now reads much more like a management contract – a percentage of ALL income.
I am starting to believe the only sensible thing to do is to levy a tax on every single device that plays or amplifies music, including amplifiers, headphones, loudspeakers, computers, music-players of every shape and form etc… – this is not a new idea: in the Nineties there was a tax on DAT tape, because it was the first medium that could create a perfect copy…
Stretched over so many devices the amount of tax a person would end up paying would be small, smaller than the sales-tax perhaps. BMI and ASCAP have a lot of experience in dividing up income for musicians. For many years they have divided fees for use of music in film, television and radio. They could divide the money derived from the music-tax by looking at how many times songs are being downloaded. Maybe music would indeed become free, there would be no more RIAA raids, and the artists would simply receive their share from the music tax.
I cannot find a downside to this idea. Concert ticket prices could come down again and live-shows would become more accessible. File-sharing would simply become unnecessary because music could be downloaded for free.
PS: searched and found this interesting EFF document from 2004 and this from Prof. Lessig.
02007-11-29 | Copyright, Internet, Music
Regarding this post – here is a video – Thanks VH
Started the day by taking out the garbage.
Later a listen to the newest Lingua Franca master with Jon, followed by a meeting with Michael Motley, the designer of the CD package. Michael came up with a great cover and at noon we went to Brian’s for lunch. The conversation was all over the place, but I do remember this web site Michael mentioned: BUY (LESS) CRAP!.
That’s a great xmas tree.
In the afternoon I read this article and had to laugh out loud at the last paragraph:
I hate Tom Cruise, but see no reason why, in a movie, he shouldn’t play von Stauffenberg. Objections to that simply show how much emotion still surrounds the issue, especially among the German chattering classes.
Indeed. If it has juice, if it makes us emotional, then it might point to a shadow we have.
And regarding the biz of music, BoingBoing reports this:
On the 5th of October 2007, the Swiss law makers adopted a new law to comply with the WIPO treaties. Thanks to the entertainment lobbies, apart from criminalizing DRM circumvention devices, you can now win a one year visit in jail if you share a copyrighted file on a P2P network.
And this:
The Canadian government is about to bring down Canada’s version of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and it promises to be the worst copyright law in the developed world. It will contain an “anti-circumvention” clause that prohibits breaking the locks off your music and movies in order to move them to new devices or watch them after the company that made them goes out of business — and it will follow the US’s disastrous lead with the DMCA in that there will be no exceptions to the ban on circumvention, not even for parody, fair dealing, time shifting, or other legal uses
I see both as more extreme measures, which in turn will make the file-sharers feel more righteous. There is a middle way. It is called CreativeCommons and here is a link to my 2005 interview with CC.
Guy Hands, the new boss of EMI, discovered waste and was congratulated by Robert Fripp:
Mr. Guy Hands of Terra Firma is to be congratulated on his acquisition of EMI. Perhaps. Majors have a diminishing role to play in the future of music-provision. No doubt this is the fault of the artists – only interested in garnering huge advances (which seems to be partly the view of Mr. Hands). The economic base of majors is copyright ownership of the work of others. They are exploitative, incompetent, failed to take a lead in the emerging digital music-world, have problems providing accurate accounting, and fail to honour responsibilities to others that they claim for themselves (eg RF/KC copyrights).
A good buy, EMI?
Goodbye, EMI.
That remids me… the licenses for “In the Arms of Love” and “The Santa Fe Sessions” will return to SSRI on February 24th, 2008.
And, this article on global warming…
