Unhelpful

Actually, this is about MP3s, and not about any of the other popular search terms listed…

I came across a hilarious article today. It’s so amazingly stellar, it deserves a running commentary on some selected portions.

RIAA lets MP3 stay in music devices

In response to the popularity of online music and the growth of the MP3 (MPEG 1, Audio Layer 3) digital format, the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents major U.S. record labels, launched the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) in December.

SDMI consists of representatives from the music and technology industries and is charged with creating specifications for secure music downloads that ostensibly could be built into any download technology. SDMI expects to have those specs by March 2000.

Those specs already exist. It’s called called “MP3″. What the music industry is really trying to do here is foist an alternative format that seems similar but has a method for payment collection. In this sense, it’s similar to DIVX, which was promoted as an “enhancement” to DVD if you went to Circuit City, but which, in reality, was a completely different format with a much different (and less user friendly) payment scheme.

Unlike the DVD vs. DIVX debate where the controversy was only over how much you paid and when, the MP3 vs. SDMI is a much clearer issue for music fans.

MP3 is free.
SDMI is not free.

It’s as simple as that. If DIVX failed when it had more in common with DVD than SDMI does to MP3, SDMI is as dead a “new” format as any you will ever see. The example of the Sony Minidisc is instructive. I know people who have them and love them, but I have yet to see anyone who uses them to play pre-recorded minidisks. They use them to make their own mixes and to trade - just like MP3s are used. Have you seen the Minidisc aisle at your local Best Buy (if they still have one)?

It’s lonely.

Another instructive example is that of DAT tapes. The DAT tape was meant to be the end-all replacement to the audio cassette. It’s still around as a data format, and it’s used heavily in music production circles, but your average consumer barely remembers it, if at all. The industry won that battle - they fought it because it allowed for digital-perfect copies of CD music. They won that battle for one simple reason: they got to the battlefield before anyone was aware of the war. To clarify the metaphor, they were able to force technology makers to add measures which prevented indefinite digital copies of CDs. This time, however, MP3 is already in the hands of the consumer - in a big, big way.

Although the mainstream record industry has opposed MP3 because it has been used to pirate music, the format itself is legal–and the industry seems to be realizing that it is here to stay, at least for the moment.

Re-read that. It’s important. People who don’t understand context frequently screw this part up. The format is legal, even if you use it to do something illegal. Nobody has a patent on digital music, regardless of what their lawyers tell them.

The difference will be a “trigger” to be embedded in new CDs that will remind the user via the device to upgrade to the phase-two technology once it becomes available, the source said. The upgrade will be a software fix, the source added, noting that the portable players in general are “dumb devices” - most of the intelligence resides in software on the PC or in the device.”

This contains information you need. Specifically, this:

Save your current copy of your MP3 encoder once it gets “updated” after this SDMI format is launched. A lot of the bigger recorders written by people who are trying to earn money from their work will have no choice when the music industry starts pressuring them - their “updated” recorders will have to follow this “trigger” code. Eventually, the “reminder” trigger will be buried so deeply in your software that defeating it will be a long and involved process.

Unless, of course, you keep your current “old” version as a failsafe.

Case in point:

Phase two will involve what the music industry source–and another from the computer industry who also asked to remain anonymous–called “secure ripping.” Users will still be able to “rip” CDs they own–that is, convert them to files that can be stored and played back from a computer–to listen to on their PC or portable device, but they won’t be able to post the files on the Net, the sources said.

I have a perspective on piracy that goes back to the early days of the Commodore 64. I saw piracy when it was “young”, just as the concept of “warez groups” was coalescing, and I saw things change (and not change) as the C64 moved on and the Atari ST, Amiga, Mac, and clunky PC took its place. I saw things change (and not change) again as the Windows-Intel platform won its long-fought battle for PC game platform supremacy.

One thing that’s remained a constant is this: Copy protection doesn’t work. It’s a never-ending battle - the industry doesn’t “win”, and the pirates don’t “lose” - the only casualty in this battle is the average customer who wants to buy and use his product legitimately, and is hampered by a scheme designed to protect him from something he wasn’t planning on doing.

“What we’re trying to avoid is a ‘filling station’ model, in which endless numbers of devices get fed from one CD,” the music industry source said.

Funny, what I’d like to avoid is a “filling station” model in which I have to keep feeding funds into a payment model for music I already own. What billion-dollar industry consortium represents my interests?

This move is designed to “incentivize the user to upgrade [to the phase-two technology] but not force him to,” the music industry source said. “If he wants to be able to use the same device to play SDMI-compliant music in the future, he would have to upgrade.

So instead of a “filling station” model, we use the “rent” model where the user constantly has to shell out money to use the same product for new content. Hey, it worked for Windows, maybe consumers will happily fork over $50 every other year to SDMI device manufacturers for the continued pleasure of having their options castrated.

But I suspect that after winning against DIVX, the consumer can win against SDMI.