Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not purported as fact
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The music industry's steadfast refusal to accept that we're now living in
the 21st century and that their medieval business and marketing models
no longer apply appears to have ankle-tapped moves to copy-protect CDs.
Yes, their burning desire to prevent customers from using CDs on their
PCs or transcoding the content to MP3 for use on portable media players
looks set to cost them a small fortune.
They have indeed been hoist by their own petard!
I refer to the way in which a new generation of "enhanced audio discs"
are configured to deliver two copies of the music they contain. One copy
is in regular CD format, the other is in a computer-readable (usually
Windows Media Audio WMA) format with built in strong Digital Rights Management
(DRM).
The Aardvark PC-Based Digital
Entertainment Centre Project
Yes, at last, this feature
has been updated again! (31 Mar 2003)
Here in NZ, the music industry has made it very clear that they don't want
people copying their CDs to tape or ripping them to MP3 for use on their
portable music player. In fact, to do this is against NZ copyright law
and could be punishable by some stiff penalties.
In countries such as Canada, the music industry have decided to allow
this media-shifting activity to take place -- but they have convinced
government to slap a massive levy on recordable media such as CDRs. This
levy is to offset the "losses" that the industry faces when someone
simply makes a backup copy of a CD for use in the car -- rather than buying
a second copy of a disc they already own.
Well here's the irony...
Artists are now demanding that if the recording companies are going to deliver
two copies of their work to customers, they ought to get paid twice for each
of these "enhanced audio discs".
Suddenly the recording companies are on the back foot for a change and all
those artists they've allegedly been screwing for years now hold the upper
hand.
So what are the options here?
The most likely outcome is that the Industry will negotiate a compromise deal
with artists that sees them get just a little more than they used to.
However, this does represent a great opportunity for popular artists to
get tough and play hardball -- at the Industry's expense.
Unfortunately, I suspect that the contracts between artists and recording
companies have been carefully crafted in such a way that any musicians
who don't agree to the industry's demands will simply be left in the unenviable
position of being bound by a contract but having the publishers refuse to
release their new albums.
One thing's for sure -- negotiating a new royalty rate with artists, along
with paying for all this new copy-protection technology, will push the costs
associated with CD production up. With any luck, this will speed up the
industry's acceptance of the inevitable -- that they'll have to embrace
the electronic distribution of their product through the net.
But even doing this is now proving to be problematic...
Two standards have appeared on the Net for music sales/downloads.
In one corner we have Apple and its very successful iTunes system. In the
other we have Microsoft plugging its own standards.
I'm pretty certain this is going to be a real format war -- just like the
VHS/Beta battle of the 1980s -- and ultimately there will be only one real
winner.
Right now, in terms of functionality, flexibility and "cool factor", Apple
has a huge lead over Microsoft. The iPod is a cool little box (although
the iTunes service also works with Windows PCs) and iTunes offers users much
more flexibility in what customers can do with their music
once they've bought it - and this includes burning to CD.
Microsoft is (for once) on the back foot and if there's one company that
has repeatedly shown itself as being able to stand its ground against
Bill's bullying juggernaut -- it's Apple.
So, who's your money on?
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