Hard News: Another nail in the coffin of music DRM
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was a key driving force behind the CD's development and acceptance by the record industry.
and nothing to do with the advancement in technology? which is what you're saying.
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and nothing to do with the advancement in technology? which is what you're saying.
No both but it was a dead duck until the idea that catalogues would be replaced was added to the mix. That was it's key selling point to the record industry and without them it was a non-event.
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That was it's key selling point to the record industry and without them it was a non-event.
you got to remember that at the time the recording industry had already started its move to digital technology well before the compact disc was a twinkle in anyone record label exec's eye. 3M and Soundstream both had digital devices used in studios in the early 70's.
rather than being thought of and developed by a bunch of exec's wanting to sell the same product to an already existing market (which is a flawed idea in itself) it was a continuation of developments in studio recording that started way back at the beginning of the 70's. CD's didn't hit the market till 1982.
I personally never felt the urge to replace my vinyl on cd, but did buy new music on disc as it came out.
Its almost laughable to think of a board meeting at a major that went something along the lines of
manager - ok what new projects have we got to make us money.
a&r guy 1 - I've got 4 new albums finishing production from established artists and 5 new signings with good followings who we're going to start recording soon.Manager (rubs hands together ) excellent.
A&R guy 2 - likewise here
Tech guy - how bout we make a new format and sell the same old records to the same people over again.
manager - sounds like a good idea to me, lets go with that.
I mean its not like the old model was flawed. they weren't running out of new music to record and release, vinyl was doing its job ok, but something else had been in use for a while that was going to do it better. They didn't need a saviour in the form of selling old shoes to the same customer, there was plenty of money to be made sticking to the same game plan.
I have to admit your story is definitely a much more exciting way of looking at it, and helps fuel hate toward the industry but the reality is, well kind of boring, however you want to interpret it.
its just the same as selling cans of beans but with cooler packaging.
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I have to admit your story is definitely a much more exciting way of looking at it
Flawed idea or not Rob, it's the truth. Its hardly a controversial argument to make over the past two decades..until now it seems when you seem to be trying to re-write what is widely and little disputed and widely accepted recording industry history.
We seem to be going around in circles here again, best leave it.
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best leave it.
you're bored and avoiding work just like me mate :)
can you flick me some links to this theory of replacement thing. I just read through the wiki entry on CD specs and development and they didn't say anywhere that it was motivated by the desire to sell the same product twice, not that wiki is the defining history of anything, but they did manage to get most of the boring specs in the article correct,
remember if its not on the internet, it's not true :)
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That wiki link is about the tech development, not the peripheral politics and other stuff which were involved. It hardly mentions the people who agreed to make the CD the format of the future.
I'll try and remember that book on the recording industry's business history..it's a fascinating, if dry, read. There is also a great book on the rise of Warners which has quite some detail on the CD adoption too.. the author was a Warners exec
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Of course the improvement in technology was a major reason for CDs. And of course it was pushed by tech companies, the Sonys and Philips, who were dead keen to sell us another hi-fi system- yeah, better in some ways, but very pricey in 1982.
The majors were not keen, in part because it involved a digital copy of the original which could be copied, bit for bit, by the nefarious. The fact that they could re-sell their back issue was a big factor in getting them to look past this.
To get the better quality- which I could never hear- you had to buy not only the new player, but the a whole new collection of music.
IIRC the costs of producing and distributing CDs in bulk rapidly came down to less than producing vinyl. But in NZ at any rate, CDs were sold for $4-10 MORE than vinyl. One justification for this was- I remember this quite clearly- that a CD could be copied.
This "logic" really did erode the relationship between producers and consumers. Hitting the legitimate purchaser for the cost of losses that illegitimate use might impose never sits well. (I know we all pay for the costs of shop-lifting. But who likes subsidiing crime?)
Rob, you don't seem to get the technical reasons drm is not feasible. I'll leave that.
But the other reason the majors in particular are hurting is a lack of leadership wrt costs and pricing. And the price-gouging started with the CD.
It hasn't stopped.
We all know that after initial production costs, an mp3 can be delivered ridiculously cheaply. The "emusic" model works for me- but it'd work a lot better if ANY of the majors climbed on board. (Some of the Warners FN catalogue seems to be up- but not for NZ. WTF!)
Instead of going all Canute, one of the majors has to get real and start selling reasonable quality digital downloads at a price that makes people want to "go legit".
There will be a price point where "very cheap" (20c a song? That's almost nothing, the cost of a text- I don't think anyone would hesitate to pay it- yet emusic can get close to that) AND legitimate AND good quality can compete with free. It could be boosted with "loyalty schemes" - free extra tracks, HD video down-loads, on-line chat with the band, whatever extras can be dreamed up for registered buyers.
That's getting closer. If there'd been some revolutionary leadership from the top- in recognition of the "revolutionary" technology- instead of endless heel-dragging, hand-wring and fear-mongering petty prosecutions- I'd bet the music-biz landscape would look a lot different- and more optimistic.
Maybe that's naive- but at least it's naive looking forwards, not back endlessly to the lost golden past! -
Rob, you don't seem to get the technical reasons drm is not feasible. I'll leave that.
:) don't I?
but if I did 'get' it would there wouldn't be 33 pages of periphery discussion now would there?
You don't need to tell me how easy it is to get cracks (hypothetically speaking of course), but if drm attempts didn't have any effect then you wouldn't have 'some' people getting pissy cos they couldn't copy their music easily. making it slightly harder than piss easy does actually have an impact, maybe not on you (you evil pirating downloader type) or me (innocent your honor, a virus must have put those files on my computer) but the people who have better things to do with their time than trying to figure how to work bit torrent or crack a new copy protection failure. -
No question drm has the effect of making some legitimate customers *pissy* (you know that feeling when a vending machine takes your money and doesn't give you the bag of chips? It's quite irrational and dispropotionate to what you've lost, for sure. Don't discount it- rage is rage!)
Has DRM had the effect of stopping, slowing down, or even reducing by an iota the level of piracy?
I think not. Quite the opposite: it's likely, doncha think, that some of those pissed off people have DLed files they might otherwise have bought, had it not been for a bad DRM experience? 33 pages of people telling you that is my evidence, yer honour!
WRT people trying to figure out how to use bit-torrent: just ask yer kids. I have had to remove limewire from the family computer twice. They have had no problem working it.
Me, I find iTunes fills me with irrational rage. Always trying to play every CD, copy stuff, sync up this or that, wanting to link to i-store USA or trying to update to the latest version. They seem to manage that ok too. ;-) -
you
33 pages of people telling you that is my evidence, yer honour!
me
33 pages of periphery discussion
hopefully you read more in it than that robbie.
if anything i'd hope some people saw the issue in colours other than the black and white its tempting to dismiss it in. -
Yeah, I think it's a great discussion. And far from black and white.
I totally get your central point: the economic model supporting/profiting from (it does both) the recording of music is in danger of being completely undermined by "free music on the net". (Not, I tend to think, by people copying CDs and giving them to mates- but certainly also by the widespread availability of pirated material in some parts of the world.)
This does matter. It WILL make a different to what gets recorded and how it gets recorded- and why. Musicians may well stop recording music to make a living- because that may become impossible.
I don't think anyone is disputing that.... just arguing about the role drm- already, it seems, dropping out of the equation- has to play in whatever the road forward is. -
Musicians may well stop recording music to make a living- because that may become impossible
Hasn't it always been near-impossible in NZ? Of the NZ musicians playing gigs around town and being played on the radio, what percentage have day jobs? 95%?
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But in NZ at any rate, CDs were sold for $4-10 MORE than vinyl.
Actually it doubled overnight. List price of an LP in 85 was $14.99 and a CD was $29.99 or $32.99 depending on the label. It was a huge royalty bonus for all labels too, especailly the majors who were hitting their artists with a 75% royalty reduction for "new technology" until Simply Red and Dire Straits sued and won.
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Me, I find iTunes fills me with irrational rage. Always trying to play every CD, copy stuff, sync up this or that, wanting to link to i-store USA or trying to update to the latest version.
And you forget..wrecking my CD drive. There are acres of web pages and forums where people are trying to work out how to get the CD drive back that iTunes, in an update, has nuked. Mine died three weeks ago when I let it update Quicktime..disappeared and no amount of system restores or registry tweaking of UpperFilters will bring it back despite the BIOS still seeing it.
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just arguing about the role drm- already, it seems, dropping out of the equation- has to play in whatever the road forward is.
I'm not really arguing about the bad vibe drm has caused, its obvious from irate comments all over the show.
simon's cd drive for instance. but I don't think the act of attempting to copy protect music is to blame, I think the urgency and the badly implemented examples of it have snowballed it into a giant bad vibe scene.In your case simon who knows why your drive was screwed. does quick time have anything to do with drm? I take it you're running a pc so it must be bill gates fault, or apples for quicktime or the music industry. does it matter any more who's fuck up it was?
imagine a corner store where you knew the owner. nice person, always helpful, getting robbed blind by some kids from another neighborhood. he puts in barbwire to keep them from sneaking in the store, you snag your polarneck skivvy (1975, orange) on it.
shop owner explains he's going under cos of theft and needed to do something till he gets his security guard and CCTV installed, you understand his position and you don't want to lose the convenience of having a good guy running a store locally, so you accept the conditions. The key thing there is understanding it from their point of view. I don't think that's happening a lot right now.and apparently with all this talk of hassles with itunes apparently it is possible for someone to create software which stops you doing things, even if it is completely unintentional :)
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Hasn't it always been near-impossible in NZ? Of the NZ musicians playing gigs around town and being played on the radio, what percentage have day jobs? 95%?
tell that to the nz music industry commission. they blew $5 mill on trying to establish a viable industry and all they had to do was ask the exponents and dave dobbyn the likelihood of earning a livable wage from music since those guys gigs more than any other bands in nz.
i've mentioned it before but shihad at the peak of their success were paying themselves $400 a week, ie about the same as what you get for flipping burgers 6 nights a week.99% have dayjobs, or more, unless they're on the dole
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In your case simon who knows why your drive was screwed. does quick time have anything to do with drm? I take it you're running a pc so it must be bill gates fault, or apples for quicktime or the music industry. does it matter any more who's fuck up it was?
I'm not blaming DRM Rob but Quicktime / iTunes fucking up both PCs' and Macs' CD drives is much documented online. Apple have been promising a fix for some time now. And yes, it matters to me as I can't burn all those legitimately bought CDs to my iPod or Zen. I might have to find a copy of each online now.
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Me, I find iTunes fills me with irrational rage. Always trying to play every CD, copy stuff, sync up this or that, wanting to link to i-store USA or trying to update to the latest version.
Word. I recently, reluctantly bought an iPod (I would have stuck with Creative, but no one else can compete with that 160G of storage!), but my one experiment with iTunes put me right off. Bah.
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Quicktime / iTunes fucking up both PCs' and Macs' CD drives is much documented online.
any word on what's causing it?
I have'nt experienced any such problems but I don't doubt they exist. if it did happen to me I'd be straight down to the shop I purchased my laptop off, which I updated with legit sofware updates from he manufacturer and insist they sort it quickly. I can do this cos I live in a city with an earnestly good mac store (magnum mac CHCH) who are conscious of their rep, trying it in the uk might be less easy as those guys didn't seem to give a shit. -
I would have stuck with Creative, but no one else can compete with that 160G of storage!
does creative allow for full res .wav files?.
I think I looked at an iriver years ago and it recorded in 44/16 and played back 44/16 files. obviously hard drive space becomes an issue when you're dealing with full res but I don't really need to carry 2000 albums with me, I don't like that much music.
Its what players should be going toward though, full res audio and the capacity to store it all.
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does creative allow for full res .wav files?
This is where the audiophile boys back slowly and suspiciously away from me: I don't really care about sound quality...
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I'm kind've in that league too, Danielle. Cloth ears. And a lot of my most pleasurable listening is in the car, to hissy, grubby old tapes, ripped, teehee, straight from the record decades ago.
It's the vibe I get from it I love, rather than the detailed sounds I almost never notice. But it sure helps if the initial audio quality is good, and the song well-mixed. Or you can end up straining to catch things in a pool of aural mud. -
I don't really care about sound quality...
That's cosin this day and age its predominantly reasonable, but why not have cd quality if its available.
128 bit mp3 is passable but compare it to 34 or 68 bit and you'd start to care. grainy and gritty.
look what our parents had to listen to music on, shitty record players with no bass, and scratchy harsh sounds.the advantages to better audio are in the detail of what you can hear in the mix, a backing vocal harmony or cool hidden guitar line etc, but that only comes up to a certain point and then you're into detail in instruments and stereo placement and space and I'm not really that fussed by that stuff as a listener. i'm with robbie with the car stereo turned up loud. Cars shouldn't be the best listening experience with all the road noise and bad speaker placement but how often does anyone get time to sit in a well set up room with 'good" equipment.
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Here's another castle in the air: a site where you sign up, with your bank account details, and buy music for say $1 a song. But once you've bought it, for a very small additional fee- maybe 2c- you can download it as many times as you like- so you can have it on your phone, your ipod, burn cds for your stereo- you can even give it to your mates, sign in and dl it for them- but you'd be stupid to actually let them sign in as you, cos then they'd have access to anything they wanted til YOUR money ran out.
The benefit is that your collection sits there in the sky, waiting for you to access it, any time, any where. You back the car over your ipod, or you're on the beach with your new flame, and you just have to play her THAT song- or your house burns down. No matter- your music collection is safe.
I think I'd prefer the 20-50c mp3 option, but there'd be some attraction to this model, too. Very cheap does encourage a "throwaway" attitude to recordings (and a significant change to the whole recording industry) but it could compete with free/stolen. -
It WILL make a different to what gets recorded and how it gets recorded- and why.
a friend recently commented on the impact that the death of john peel will have on the shape of music. no the fall = no pavement?
not having listened to uk radio for a while does anyone know if people are stepping up to carry on his role?
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