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A special life's history.
Don't you just get the best ideas on trains? I'm only a half hour into the journey and I've already come up with a fantastic music sharing idea. Hey ... don't go - at least not yet. I know it has been said before, but there is no way to stop people using/distributing MP3's or similar format music files. No amount of technology or legal wrangling will stop your techno-friendly, or even tech-aware, person from enjoy/abusing (perspective dependent) music.
No, the solution is to make it simpler, or at least as simple, to be law abiding and enjoy the flexibility of downloading music. So far nothing new. You can find hundreds of (more interesting) people saying similar things on and off line. This being said the big players in the music (and now film) industry don't seem to see a way of doing this. Or aren't interested.
So here's my ill-thought out 30 minutes on a train idea. I'm pretty sure this is actually my idea - but no doubt it is similar to many other concepts.
Principles to uphold:
1. The person paying should get control of the file.
2. Distribution, on a no-pay basis, should be kept to a minimum.
3. The artist/record company can expect similar compensation to CD/records/tapes
(before 90s price hikes).
The are also some
assumptions:
1. People want to be honest (a minority will always cheat.)
2. Unreasonable costs will push people away (if CDs cost 3 pounds/5 dollars
would people be so excited by free music?)
3. The record industry will not be easily convinced.
The plan
Ignoring point 3, and imagining that the industry chooses to do something, the first step is to create some free, or at most ad-ware, peer2peer type software. In case you're not familiar with ad-ware, this means it is free except that you have to view adverts, presumably in this case for songs/artists, while you use it. This would be trial software for, say 30 days. The software would be uniquely linked, thus giving access to, the combined archives of the record companies.
After 30 days (or a certain MB amount), the choice would be to continue with limited functionality - perhaps only allowing transfer of files under 1.5 mb (and therefore only half a song or a sample of one) - or pay a limited fee for access to the entire (or reduced at first if the industry was nervous) music catalogue of all the companies signed up. In reality you'd need a healthy catalogue to get people interested. For a fee of perhaps 10 pounds or 15 dollars a month, with a lock-in of a year, I think this would be both popular and profitable. Not convinced? Read on.
Without resorting to 'spy-ware', legitimately the industry could develop information services - newsletters and alike - to inform customers of new releases, live events and merchandise. It could be highly targeted, with every download offering the option to receive such info, and/or links to fanzine sites and official sites. I'm not a big fan of target email, but there has to be some added incentive for the record and music industry (beyond massive profits) to go to the expense.
Recordings of live gigs could be offered exclusively as well - indeed the entire concept might start around only offering such content. Extremely easy to produce, with no marketing costs and being distributed digitally, it is hard to see how this could not make money. The Grateful Dead's "Tapehead" model, albeit perverted with the introduction of money, is employed here.
To be blunt, so far there still is anything radical. It's all fairly logical. The main issue is trying to limit the distribution to non-subscribers. I see no issue with allowing peer2peer sharing via the 'official' software, as if anything, this would further reduce the costs of the required infrastructure. Two things are certain here though. People will want to try and avoid paying and not everyone will sign up.
How to combat this? For a start, in my opinion it is important to note I don't think this will be a huge issue. The industry should look at adding it's own service as a way of gaining income from a system that will go on regardless. Music is going to be shared online, so they might as well make some money out of it. By making the quality, scope and range on their system better than any other, they have a strong chance of making the scheme work. It does rely on human nature somewhat; the argument that people don't want to cheat might apply more accurately to demograph that aren't currently heavily in the music sharing field. So perhaps this idea is a few years off.
Still, there is clearly a urge to try and limit the current distribution. Having ruled out complex copyright protection, that leaves either agreement on some sort of block on copyright material on other peer2peer (arguably impossible), or, preferably getting all the big players (how many? Perhaps only 3 or so) to become 'official' distributors. With a limited non-subscriber file size, music 'cheats' (and I hasten to use this term) will be limited to either samples or very low quality files. Hopefully by the time compression technology improves most people would see the benefit of paying. I would hope that a fairly high max non-subscriber limit would mean other important p2p uses and users could continue. In the UK I could see this whole system being bundled into broadband access .
I started off by saying this is unlikely to be a completely new or novel idea. I would love to think this could inspire someone to create such a system. I guess I would say my message is I would like to pay a fair price for music. I would also like the convenience of getting it - song by song if I want - online.
I can see this working. I can see music shops where I go in, enter my subscriber number, pick songs, and have a booth/person burn me a CD. With the coming of broadband technologies, music sharing is more likely to enter the mainstream, than be limited by prosecution or copy protection. If schemes, either based on the above, or variations/similar notions other have come up with, can be successfully implemented, then we can all benefit from new technology, rather than either being scared of it, legislating against it, or worse.
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