Posts Tagged ‘mp3’
The Constable on October 8th, 2008
According to an article at The Financial Times today , EMI is going back into the direct to consumer market with its music downloads. As some of you may remember, they tried something similar in the past with Musicnet (which was a failure).
At this point not much is known about the new venture, other than that is planned to be live by Christmas. Of course, the big question on everyone’s mind is “why should I bother shopping there?” - and EMI has yet to answer this. In today’s marketplace, a site or store with the broadest selection is most likely to succeed, even in the face of competition including price (see online sheet music site Musicnotes’ 80% market share vs. that of their competitor, Sheet Music Direct for proof).
Of course, the experience is another key component - but even if EMI offers a great experience it is unlikely to triumph over the experience already available from iTunes and others. Exclusive content might help, but for the most part if the rest of the content isn’t there the destination is likely to become an “I am going there specifically for this” vs. “I am going there because I like shopping there” kind of option.
That is, unless EMI is using this as an option should they decide to stop licensing retailers like iTunes, or force them to change their pricing structure (using the “if you don’t like it, we’ll just sell it ourselves” threat).
Of course, a lot of my ideas are speculation - but they’re valid speculation at least…
The Constable on September 27th, 2008
StereoTune has an article up about a new pay-for-content mp3 site at Soundsbox.com. Just like (the now defunct) allofmp3.com, they are charging a minimal fee per download ($.14 a track here), and just like allofmp3 they are using the Russian ROMS licensing system - which basically ignores all U.S. copyright law and does not pay a single cent to songwriters, artists or copyright holders. This is also the same supposed licensing that (the also illegal) ultimate-guitar.com uses for its guitar tabs.
Even though this is obviously illegal in regards to U.S. copyright law, it is still unlikely the site will be going anywhere anytime soon since it’s not based in the U.S. It took major intervention, and a threat to not allow Russia into the WTO to get allofmp3 shut down, and they just moved to mp3sparks in the end anyway.
read more | digg story
The Constable on September 26th, 2008
So Muxtape shut down (as we knew it would) due to completely disregarding the RIAA and being unable to come to any agreement with them. Now Favtape is positioned to take its place, but again it’s only a matter of time until this goes the way of the dodo as well.
Unlike Muxtape, Favtape doesn’t host anything itself - but is using Seeqpod instead. Of course, Seeqpod is very likely to get shut down soon for the same reasons services like Grokster got their butts sued - for being a service basically made to allow people to access copyright-protected material. See, Seeqpod is basically a music search engine/player that searches the web for MP3s of specific songs and then loads them in from the host server.
What eventually needs to happen if copyright holders want to keep stopping these services is that it needs to be made very clear that where a file itself is hosted is not the only part of copyright infringement - but building a service to do so is as well. Think of it as murder vs. hiring a hitman - just because someone else does the actual deed doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible at all for making it happen.
The Constable on September 11th, 2008
Today, after almost a year, the OiNK investigation came to an end. Earlier today we reported that OiNK administrator Alan Ellis was charged with “conspiracy to defraud”. Now, just hours later the alleged uploaders are charged with copyright infringement for uploading one CD.
read more | digg story
The Constable on August 28th, 2008
Doesn’t the FBI have more important things to do than go after someone for leaking Guns n’ Roses songs? Sure, it’s illegal… but aren’t there much bigger fish to fry than someone posting 9 songs? Much less, 9 songs from an album that, if history is any indication, will never see the light of day anyway (and when if it does, will anyone really even care?)
Read the rest of this entry »
The Constable on August 25th, 2008
Dear Grooveshark:
Are you serious? You’re actually selling songs that you know you don’t have rights to, and just putting the money into a slush fund so you can pay the record labels, etc. when you get the deal done? Seriously?!
recent twitter conversation:
In my experience, if there is one way to kill any chances of going legit, it is to do exactly what you are doing. Your system of posting songs and paying ASCAP / streaming rights is more than likely fine, but to sell content that you know you don’t have rights to is extraordinarily risky.
From the deals I’ve worked on, one thing has stood out - and that is that there are many publishers and labels out there who simply will not work with a business if they have openly violated copyright law.
The simple fact that you have songs from The Beatles available for sale on your service, when not even iTunes has gotten this, is an extraordinarily bad move on your part, if your goal is to be a legal service with actual licenses. It’s one thing to hold royalties if you don’t know if you have rights. That’s debatable, but to hold royalties when you KNOW you don’t have rights….
All I can say is good luck, and I hope you have a good lawyer on retainer.
The Constable on August 25th, 2008
I have to admit, I haven’t had much time to research this site since I just came across it this morning… so consider this more of a note to myself than anything.
A kind of P2P music file sharer / iTunes / social network, Grooveshark.com “is an online music community that rewards you for sharing, reviewing, and discovering new music.” The more music you share, the more credits you get to download music from other people. Beyond this, the built-in social aspect of the site allows people to organize, filter and recommend music for each other - and the most respected users are automatically highlighted so as to give the best experience for casual users.
As for the legal portion… frankly I don’t know how this is set up. At first glance it appears that users can upload anything they want, and then the music is available for sharing or download.
Here’s the info from their one-sheet for the labels:
User Music Experience
- User-generated music bios, reviews, a la Wikipedia
- Demand-based Pricing ($.99, $.75, $.50, $.25)
- Users receive $.25 for every song they sell
- 100% virus-free, high quality files at high speeds
- Massive library via patented p2p architecture
- Custom music recommendations for music discovery
Label Licensing Benefits
- No hard drives or CDs required to upload content
- $.25 user credit incentivizes users to buy more music
- Song recommendations, artist promotion for partners
- Fans are paid to market your artists and bands
- Content is spread virally and legally from fan to fan
Label Content Management
- Full control of pricing, payment, file quality (bitrates)
- Sales reporting and comparison between competitors
- Artist metadata information input and development
- Access fan and user geographic & demographic data
- Full take-down and opt-out of content distribution
Terms
- Revenue split for songs sold in the system:
- 50% - Label
- 25% - Grooveshark User
- 25% - Grooveshark Administration Fee
- • Label provides full metadata information
- • Label pays publishing fees for any content sold
- • Grooveshark pays all PROs related to streaming
- • Grooveshark pays all hosting, integration fees
I haven’t been able to find an option yet for labels to opt out of the system, but I’m not going to say it doesn’t exist. However, I find it hard to believe they are doing this without first gaining approval. If they are simply posting songs, then selling them, and then trying to get contracts, that’s going to be a major problem.
I’ll try to spend some more time on the site later and give a better overview at that time. In the meantime, if anyone has any experience with Grooveshark, please give your opinions in the comments below.
All said, it does look pretty slick. I’m excited to do some research.
The Constable on August 24th, 2008
With all the illegal file trading sites on the Internet, one major thing keeps popping up among them. This is the fact that more and more of these sites are hosting in other countries, most notably Russia. The reason for this is that in countries like Russia and some others, copyright law is quite different than it is here in the United States, and the sites are free to do whatever it is they like.
Of course, just hosting in Russia isn’t enough to avoid the issue. Ideally the sites are also registered to companies or individuals in these other countries so they can avoid all legal issues. That said, with a lot of the action that is going on currently, most of the crackdown (other than the RIAA) has been to send sites “take-down” notices. This generally also includes sending a notice to the site’s web hosting comany as well, implying that the host itself may also be culpable for any potential broken laws, lawsuits, or even (usually threatened) jail time.
Generally when it comes to sites that actively participate in what is considered (in the U.S. at least) to be copyright infringement, it is one of two cases: 1.) the site owner doesn’t realize he or she is breaking any laws, or 2.) the site owner knows, or expects a high possibility, that what he or she is doing may be breaking laws, but does it anyway.
In the instances of example one, a take-down notice will probably work by scaring the individual into taking the site down. For this reason, some of what the RIAA has been doing has been effective, in that there are people out there who are scared from what they’ve heard on the news (whether suing your potential customers is a good business tactic is another question altogether).
It’s in the instances of example two, however, that take-down notices risk even furthering the problem by simply moving the site somewhere else. Look at textbooktorrents.com. They were down, and are now back up on another server, and based on the current message on their site they are likely to move servers again the next time they are taken down at their host. The same thing has happened several times with The Pirate Bay.
One can assume the inevitable result of all of this is that sites like these will all be hosted in other countries where copyright law currently allows it. So what then? If intellectual property really is one of the most valuable products of the United States, will the government eventually step in and force Internet Service Providers to block access to specific sites? This currently seems unlikely, especially given the recent judgment by the FCC against Comcast for their throttling of bandwidth to torrent sites.
But if not this, then what? Eventual legal persecution of people downloading the files? Again, this seems to make as much sense as the drug war focusing on arresting everyone who does drugs but doing nothing about the dealers. Will it lead to political sanctions, such as the threats between the WTO and Russia for allofmp3.com? If the countries are defiant, again this will not work.
So is the real potential in all of this to actually go to war over intellectual property theft? Or will the laws simply change?
Perhaps the copyright holders will save the day by changing their approach to licensing.
Perhaps… but I recommend you stock up on canned goods. You know, just in case.
The Constable on August 21st, 2008
From CNET: Three Mac rumors sites have received anonymous tips that Apple is getting ready to introduce a subscription iTunes service in September.
My two cents: Doesn’t this already exist as Napster? Don’t get me wrong, I love my Napster… but I fail to see how this is some sort of crazy news. If Apple were smart about things, they would have done this long ago. It’s not like it would force anyone to use it, but the option of buying OR renting (take your pick) is a lot nicer than the forced decision to buy only, as iTunes has always been set up.
You can call me crazy if you want, but the idea of purchasing music downloads has still never made much sense to me (well, it made more sense once they started offering DRM-free content). Still, buying files that are tied to your computer or a certain player or device has never been my thing. For this reason, I think iTunes might be able to finally get a higher percentage of their iPod customers using iTunes, rather than just ripping their own CDs (or ripping someone else’s or downloading from p2p).
read more | digg story
The Constable on August 20th, 2008
Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA.
This is what has been displayed on Muxtape.com for the past two days. I had planned on doing a little writeup on Muxtape, and discussing some of the copyright issues they may have to deal with… but while they’re down I think it may be best not to speculate too much.
That said, Muxtape is (was?) an interesting but simple idea: let people make mixtapes online and share them. The obvious problem with this though is that it’s not legal to upload songs you don’t have rights to. Of course, like most sites that are trying to actually be somehow legit, they make it clear on the site that you can only upload songs you have rights to upload - but they don’t do anything to really enforce this. There is definitely no army of moderators going through the content and verifying whether or not it’s copyrighted.
My guess as to how this will play out is that in the end Muxtape will have to strongly support some sort of digital fingerprinting system, and likely either only offer songs that are “cleared,” or at least have to pay web radio rates, much like Project Playlist.
