Copy-proof CDs, R.I.P.

lord custos says they will fill the earth with vile worms

HaX0R J0R CDz W!F 4 PH3LT-T!P P3|\|!@#!@#!@#!@#

(my considered response = HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA)

ILM follows suit?

But to do that, the industry also has to give up on the idea that it can stop people getting the music free if they really want to: that's not possible. Since the industry is the world's biggest control freak, that's really hard for it to accept (but hey, the movie industry had the exact same fears and the same rhetoric about video recording, and that wound up being half their revenues). Make a legal system good enough, and it will only be a minority that take the time and the effort to get everything free. No doubt the majority of people would pay for some music and get other music burned from friends or whatever--the question is whether they would wind up spending less on music overall. I don't think they would, they'd just listen to MORE music (that's how it works with me, anyway).

I didn't say that all this would be "good," necessarily, but I think it would be better than the current system because a) it would change the way music is marketed and b) I think artists should get paid, and I don't believe in an open source utopia. There are so many cool marketing things you could do with filesharing. I don't know exactly how a legal system would play out in terms of revenue-sharing etc. There are lots of different models; I imagine the simplest and the easiest would win.

But whatever model won, I can't imagine that the system would be built solely around multi-platinum overpriced CD megahits, the way it is now. There is so much music out there now that's not major label, it's not funny--it's like a bipolar system. We have all the music in the world at our fingertips, practically, and almost none of it gets heard in the quote-unquote "mainstream." Who knows, maybe the mid-size label would be able to make a comeback, which wouldn't be a bad thing at all... maybe there would be a little more room in the system for other stuff to get through. I'm sure there would still be pop.

That's my rant for the day ;)

I think it is all the bad karma of the record industry from ripping off artists and fans over the years coming back ten fold.

This is the payback for jacking the prices up when they started selling CDs and making a quick end to vinyl.

The music industry *can't* make a better file sharing network than the ones which already exists.

First : they don't own all the music. Much of the music is owned by the independents. By independents who have gone bust. And, now, amateurs are starting to put their stuff up (especially bootlegs.)

So the BigCos will only ever make a smaller selection, limited by their catalogs.

Secondly : either the industry will ensure quality by putting things on their own servers, or they'll trust the P2P "cloud" of users.

If they run their own servers, they don't have the capacity required, and they will prioritise the "hits" making the selection even smaller.

If they trust the cloud, they lose the quality control that's meant to differentiate them from the alternatives. There'll still be broken files, slow downloads etc.

Finally. It's not clear the music industry would *want* a succesful P2P file-sharing culture. The industry works by creating hits. Small numbers of universally popular musicians. And selling associated merchandise and paraphernalia.

But in a P2P file sharing culture, we're likely to see the end of the hits based industry. More people will be listening to their particular preferences. Traditional media will be less important as a driver. The industry won't be able to hype up and push chosen bands. Advertising sponsorship will collapse.

Even if they set their P2P subscription fee to cover the cost of lost music sales, the industry as a whole loses out on all the external sources of revenue it gets from controlling *stars*.

So, own it or not, P2P is lose either way for the traditional music recording and publishing industry.

a) I can't see any reason why "the industry" can't come up with enough server capacity.

b) I don't think an "industry"-run network would mean the end of hits. Hits aren't just about distribution. They're also about promotion. Even if everybody has all music available for immediate download, people only have so much time and attention span. They're going to spend most of their time on the most populist stuff that gets the most and best marketing, just like they spend most of their time on the three big internet portals, despite the millions of web sites that are just a click away.

However, you do have a point about the labels not owning all music (just most of it). Part of the reason why the industry is so resistant to Napster, Kazaa et al is because the companies behind those networks are not running them because they love to steal from the rich and give to the poor: they are running them because they want a piece of the action. If (or rather when) some legal form of P2P emerges, whether through the courts or record company acquiesence, a company like Kazaa hopes to be ideally positioned to become the default network and make oodles of money on a cut of every download.

And you're right, it's difficult for "the industry" to counter that because a) the five megacompanies would have to agree to share, since noone wants a service that only includes certain tunes and b) the five megacompanies don't quite own all music. But there's no reason why they can't all get together in the end, or why other smaller labels couldn't join in too, or why the tunes owned by the five majors alone wouldn't be enough for the average user, anyway.

Hey, maybe legal P2P would ultimately lead to ONE GIANT MEGACOMPANY that owns the filesharing network ;) This is after all the trend of the computer business: the company that owns the killer application owns the market.

(unless computer code itself is the shared language?)

i haf no idea what i'm talking about

As for the whole issue of Reuters breaking the story, I'd love to see Sony go after them and get whapped down by the judge: Reuters hasn't given you a manual, they've just given you the general idea. It's akin to saying, "Hey, you can circumvent the DVD encryption scheme by writing some code!" Yeah, you can use that to crack it if you know coding. While the Reuters story was a bit more specific, it still isn't specific enough, because it doesn't tell you exactly what to look for, and it's vague enough that you could make your own CDs completely unplayable if you're not sure what, specifically, to look for.

Hi Ben,

a) I can't see any reason why "the industry" can't come up with enough server capacity.

The killer is the bandwidth. The industry could conceivably buy enough disk drives and load the files onto them. But think about the amount of file sharing going on at any one time. Now imagine that the industry sets up a server farm (or three) somewhere. And has to pay for enough bandwidth to their server farm that everyone can download music files. Not only download them, but download them faster than they could from a P2P service. And this bandwidth has to be available 24 hours a day.

I can't show you the maths, but the general consensus in the P2P community is that distributed P2P systems can handle far greater loads than any centralized system.

b) I don't think an "industry"-run network would mean the end of hits. Hits aren't just about distribution. They're also about promotion. Even if everybody has all music available for immediate download, people only have so much time and attention span. They're going to spend most of their time on the most populist stuff that gets the most and best marketing, just like they spend most of their time on the three big internet portals, despite the millions of web sites that are just a click away.

I think the tendency is towards diversity anyway. But I know from personal experience that I am more likely to get into a non- mainstream, or an older band through reading comments here on ILM and then finding some on Morpheus, than I did before. Case in point. I've been trying to do it with some of new forms of Metal discussed. Whereas I've never listened to or bought a piece of Metal in my life.

File sharing has broadened my taste and made me less mainstream. I believe that's the general direction of the trend for everyone. I don't believe anyone gets into file sharing and gets more stereotypically mainstream.

Now, I know the industry wants to preserve the "hits" system. But how will they do this? In the old days they did it, partly by nobling the distribution channel. By making certain things more easily available, better publicised, and flooding record shops, music media with adverts.

Now, its because the industry will want to keep doing this, that they won't make a good file sharing service. Because the essence of a good file sharing service is its *neutrality*. Imagine how file sharing will be if the industry tries to bias it by taking my time and bandwidth with adverts for bands they are trying to make into hits. By, screwing up search results. By making specially selected tracks cheaper or faster to download.

The point is, the industry can't have it both ways. File Sharing can't be good, AND, a medium for engineering hits. And my guess is they'll choose the latter at the cost of the former.

However, you do have a point about the labels not owning all music (just most of it). Part of the reason why the industry is so resistant to Napster, Kazaa et al is because the companies behind those networks are not running them because they love to steal from the rich and give to the poor: they are running them because they want a piece of the action. If (or rather when) some legal form of P2P emerges, whether through the courts or record company acquiesence, a company like Kazaa hopes to be ideally positioned to become the default network and make oodles of money on a cut of every download.

I agree that Napster and Kazaa are owned and run by people trying to make a quick buck too. But I don't accept that that money rightfully belongs to the music industry. Kazaa make money from adverts for providing a P2P service ie. a related service. Not for selling music. If I make hi-fi equipment (which is after all useless without music industry product to play on it) do I owe the music business royalties?

Now I know the recording industry won the right to royalty on blank recording media. But that's a symptom of how fucked up the system is. Every time I (as a musician) record my music onto my tapes to give to my friends I pay the recording industry a royalty for doing so! It shows what a riddiculously over-powerful lobby they are. But it isn't a reason to believe that all music related services which could be used for infringing copyright ought to be controlled or taxed by copyright holders.

Having said all this, I think as commercial ventures Kazaa etc. will fail if they try to make a legit, commercial version of file sharing for precisely the same reason that the recording industry would. Central servers can't handle the load. And legitimation implies restriction on the content which users can share.

And you're right, it's difficult for "the industry" to counter that because a) the five megacompanies would have to agree to share, since noone wants a service that only includes certain tunes and b) the five megacompanies don't quite own all music. But there's no reason why they can't all get together in the end, or why other smaller labels couldn't join in too, or why the tunes owned by the five majors alone wouldn't be enough for the average user, anyway.

Not only does the industry not own all the music. But what about other file types? Films? TV shows? Books? Porn? Even if they roughly manage to sign all music labels, that are large enough to voice a complaint, will they co-opt Hollywood, Random House and the Amsterdam erotic publishing world? I'm used to a single file sharing interface to all media types.

I am not arguing that the music industry "rightfully" owns anything--just what I think will happen.

Re: Hits vs. diversity. I don't think it's an either or. As I tried tongue above, I think a legal P2P system would open things up a little. But not so much that hits would magically disappear and everybody listens to different things equally (and who wants that anyway? I like hits).

Other file types: If there's money to be made on sharing them, why wouldn't all those other industries want to get involved?

Anyway, as Alex points out, this is all academic and will probably take decades to resolve itself, and we really have no idea exactly how that will happen. My arguments are based more on general principles than any great technological knowledge. The general principle being that people can and will make money off of anything ;)

But it is happening. For instance, paid content comes to Kazaa.

"Along with finding search results that point to unfettered MP3s, Kazaa users will begin to see links to songs for sale from record labels and advertisements linked to keyword searches..."

Something to bear in mind re:bandwidth. The technology Napster has been developing for the past year or two is based on paid P2P (some complex method of tracking files as they go from computer to computer--much easier to do if there is a single, "authorized" file that people are sharing). So central servers probably aren't even necessary anyway.

Yeah, you're right that you can combine central servers with P2P distribution. Eg. central servers keep reference copies of files and user clients compare a checksum on the file against some official version in the database. So you can have something of the better of both worlds. But

a) this won't guarantee the down-loading experience issue. It won't guarantee that you get the file quickly, or that the person you get it from doesn't suddenly drop the connection. If you rely on the cloud, you can't make "improving on the cloud" a selling point.

b) this is only going to work with content put up and legitimized by "the industry". Unofficial bootlegs will either be excluded or as unreliable as ever.

I am not arguing that the music industry "rightfully" owns anything--just what I think will happen.

Sure, my contention isn't that the industry won't try to run a P2P service. Just that it won't be "better" than the current ones we've had. By this I mean,

a) it won't, in practice, have as much stuff. It will be harder to find obscure music than on current file sharing systems.

b) grandiose claims that downloads will be faster and less problematic than the illegal systems will prove untrue.

c) the "neutrality" will be compromised and the experience will be polluted by the industry "pushing" certain products at you in an obnoxious way.

Does this mean people won't sign up? I don't know. Some people are gullible enough to buy anything.

There are some ethos considerations. Right now I leave certain things on my computer, after I burn them to CD, because they're obscure and I believe that I'm a useful resource. Will I still believe that, if I think that the official industry servers are a back up? Or will I be more ruthelessly clearing my hard disk the moment I get what I want? If this pattern is repeated the industry will have to host most files itself.

Other file types: If there's money to be made on sharing them, why wouldn't all those other industries want to get involved?

a) it increases the organizational complexity of putting this stuff in place, it will take longer

b) money will be spread more thinly. They may cost a subscription to a music sharing system at $30 a month and have the sums work out. But to bring Hollywood on board, the studios will want a big slice. So do they double the subscription fee? Pay Hollywood out of the same subscription base? I don't think these negotiations and discussions will happen quickly enough for the enterprise to get off the ground.

Anyway, as Alex points out, this is all academic and will probably take decades to resolve itself, and we really have no idea exactly how that will happen

Sure. But Napster didn't take decades. It took months. I think the industry will take years to try to design even a working system. And fail utterly to produce a better one. But the illegal ones sprang up here and now in no time at all.

My arguments are based more on general principles than any great technological knowledge. The general principle being that people can and will make money off of anything ;)

But it is happening. For instance, paid content comes to Kazaa.

"Along with finding search results that point to unfettered MP3s, Kazaa users will begin to see links to songs for sale from record labels and advertisements linked to keyword searches..."

Yeah, they'll try. And people will make money. But not until they've changed their business model. The current models *won't* make money or provide a good service. And notice already the "pollution" creeping into the system. Re: Hits vs. diversity. I don't think it's an either or. As I tried to argue above, I think a legal P2P system would open things up a little. But not so much that hits would magically disappear and everybody listens to different things equally (and who wants that anyway? I like hits).

All large and centralized media are decaying in favour of smaller, more diverse media niches. The truism is that such change is over- estimated in the short term, but under-estimated in the long term. Hits won't disappear in the next 5 to 10 years because of this. But in 50 years? I'm not so sure.

Download times are always going to be dependent on people's connections. I don't think there's much room to improve there. Audiogalaxy works pretty great for me right now. But actually searching for the files is what takes the most time, and that can easily be improved by a legal system. Clean out all the multiple versions of each file, no need to search for stuff that's obscurely named because the correctly-named versions of the song have been deleted, presumably at the artist's request, and make it possible to download entire albums by filing all the tunes together.

"Neutrality"/"Pollution": This is a red herring. Who cares? Only about 5% of the population gets idealistic about that kind of thing. As long as you can find the tune you want by typing in its name, you'll be fine. I agree that it's possible there may be less music available on a legal system, although I don't think there's any intrinsic reason why that should be so. It certainly wouldn't be in the music industry's interest to deliberately not make certain content available.

But the music industry doesn't have to give people all music anyway. It just has to make a system that looks and feels "safer" and more convenient than the illegal systems. (That is all P2P is: a revolution in convenience, nothing more. Instead of being able to order any music online, I can download it without waiting for postal delivery or release dates.) It is still a relatively small percentage of the population that uses file-sharing services. That percentage is doubtless better-educated, more moneyed and much more invested in music than the vast majority of people. The industry just has to go after the same people who made AOL the biggest internet service, despite the fact that it's a piece of shit technologically. I imagine there may always be illegal file sharing services, but they will ultimately be marginalized.

But Napster didn't take decades. It took months.

Indeed. But Napster is the technology in the rawest form. The technology completely undermines business models that have existed for decades, if not centuries. Those business models are what will take a long time to adapt. But they will adapt, because they have to. The existing industry is still operating under the assumption that it can stop this stuff. Once it realizes it can't, it will coopt it. That will be a messy process, sure.

"All large and centralized media are decaying in favour of smaller, more diverse media niches."

The exact opposite is true. The media business is actually in a period of unprecedented consolidation. What is happening is that the large and centralized media are buying up all the smaller, more diverse niches.