sealing music

[Monty]

What is the scenario was changed to climbing videos. Someone buys one video and makes a copy for everyone or puts it on the internet for everyone to download. Just saying that Best Buy and artists are rich isn't always the case, as in climbers trying to make a living filming videos. I have download songs and videos, but started to shy away after I started to understand how hard it is to make a living for many of the individuals.

[krampus]

I'm so confused...stay calm, think, think WWFZD

[tbwilsonky]

i'm currently trying to make money as a musician, and i've completely abandoned any hope of making money off album sales. the only way i think it will work is 1) gigs and 2) media synch (ads, tv shows, etc..). now if you live in a major market, gigs are probably pretty doable. lucrative even. but living in lexington (or any other small market), they require so much energy that it's rarely worth it. add to that, if you are not guaranteed, you always run the risk of getting screwed.

media synch seems like the play, but most publishing companies want 25-50%. still, 50% of X is more than 100% of nothing. and nothing is exactly what i can do without a publisher.

would be nice if ASCAP did a revenue share so working musicians could make ends meet... /sigh.

[pkananen]

toad857, iTunes music has no DRM.

And DRM is a horrible thing. It doesn't hurt people who are determined to pirate music, it hurts the normal consumer who is limited in their usage of their media, and it allows the vendors to lock people into a particular market offering. You're telling me PlaysForSure was not bad????

[bcombs]

DRM is (to me) the only logical compromise between digital music availability and assurance for the music industry that piracy is mitigated. Yes you are correct, there are ways around everything, but I can't think of a single scenario (outside of Toad's comment on giving a CD to your buddy) where DRM has created a situation where I couldn't play music how and when I wanted.

The thinking with PlayForSure was in the right direction, but was poorly implemented. There were so many issues with codecs and royalties and who owes what to whom that it couldn't work. The intention of PlayForSure was not to eliminate all formats with the exception of WMV / WMA. It was an attempt to standardize on a set of codecs and formats that would make it easier for the consumer, not harder. Another problem was how fast paced the media industry was at that time. Playing MP3's is one thing, but trying to ensure that all codecs and formats were in sync was another. Royalties for codecs are managed by the patent pool, not Microsoft (even for Microsoft's own codecs), so trying to create a supported list and push content creators / device manufacturers to it made sense, at the time, I think.

[pkananen]

But isn't it interesting how the most successful music store doesn't use DRM? I really don't think DRM has a noticeable effect on piracy rates.

DRM hasn't hurt you yet because you haven't been using a particular platform past its lifetime (aside from PlaysForSure?). I would love to buy Kindle books, but I'd also like to be sure I can give them to my kids someday, and with DRM, the fact is, I don't own my books, Amazon does. They decide where I can view them and how I want to use them. They can't assure me they'll have a product I LOVE in 30 years to read my books on.

[bcombs]

I don't know how iTunes works, so I'll have to ask. Can you move content out of iTunes into another manufacturers device? If not, I don't really see a difference between offering DRM content bound to a player and non-DRM content bound to an application. Is that how it works?

[pkananen]

iTunes music files are AAC. They do not have DRM. They burn straight to disc, and you can export an mp3 version from within iTunes. They are not bound to any device or application.

[bcombs]

OK, so that makes the buck a song pricetag worth it. If I paid a buck a song for everything I downloaded I would be broke. For me it really is just a user preference. I would rather pay a monthly subscription and have access to more content, knowing that I don't really own it, I'm paying only for access. Now, if I were paying full price or a buck a song and didn't have player / application choice, then that would suck.

[krampus]

Just currious if anyone knows how much a band actually gets when you download a song for a buck vs. what they get for being on Rhapsody vs. buying their CD