| |
|
| Articles |
Legal
Music Downloads
by Mike Ber
On July 28, 2004, French Internet access providers
and music copyright owners signed a joint national
charter aimed at cracking down on illegal downloads
and expanding the amount of legal music tracks available
online (AFP). This is the latest in a series of
moves taken across the world to combat music piracy
as production labels see more and more of their
profits being lost to illegal downloads of music
files.
The music industry has been saying the same thing
for several years now: peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing
networks are exponentially distributing pirated
music across the world through the Internet, and
this constitutes a copyright infringement. In English,
this means that the fact that I downloaded a Tori
Amos track through Kazaa yesterday and am listening
to it right now makes me a criminal. So far, so
good. Quite true as well.
But the real problem is not that people do not want
to pay for music. Often I sample new music off the
Internet before buying the CDs. Chances are that
if I like most of the album, I’m going to buy
it. On the surface this is what radio stations do
when they play music. The difference, however, is
that it has become insanely easy for me to acquire
almost-as-good-as-original quality mp3s of any track
that I want to listen to, and even if I don’t
pay a dime, no one is there to catch me.
The principle of accountability has vanished. When
one sees that there are two ways to acquire the
same product, but by sacrificing a ‘little’
bit of quality you can get it for free without being
penalized for it, what would most rational people
do? P2P networks have made finding music off the
Internet ridiculously easy, and most of us tend
to ‘forget’ our social responsibility
when it comes to such ‘trivial’ matters.
To contribute to this, copy-protection techniques
used on CDs by major production houses are always
a step behind the latest cracking algorithms, and
steps taken to prevent ‘ripping’ of CDs
and DVDs have proven fruitless so far.
Enter music downloads of the legal kind. Disregarding
the small number of ‘free’ legal music
available for promotional purposes, more and more
artists and labels have begun to provide a pay-per-download
music service. In essence, you can purchase individual
tracks or complete albums through a secure online
transaction and then download your ‘purchase’
and, with variable limits to personal use, pretty
much do whatever you want to do with it (Several
providers digitally encode the files to prevent
them from being played on other computers, or to
be burned onto CD-Rs)
This is both a move to encourage free-riders such
as me to start acquiring ‘legal’ music
and an economic adjustment to the digital music
revolution. Developing technologies are changing
the way people perceive and use music. The advent
of iPod and other mp3 players has meant that more
and more people are becoming accustomed to carrying
around their complete music collections with the
latest players offering space for around 10,000
songs. This holds frightening possibilities for
record companies. There is a very real concern within
the industry that the CD format is fast going out
of style, and as technology evolves, consumer demands
for the best ‘medium’ will change as well.
Till a few years ago audio CDs offered unparalleled
music quality, a factor record companies used to
encourage people to ‘buy instead of steal (download)’.
However, today’s high-quality digital formats
mean that audio quality is comparable, and in some
cases equal to, CDs. Some experts are even starting
to predict that within a decade CDs will become
history as digital music will evolve to a point
where we will be have access to our entire music
collection (hopefully paid for) wherever we want
it: in our car, at work, anywhere in the house,
even on the beach. Matched with promises (and the
reality) of audio quality, this is a serious threat
to traditional business.
Thus, providing legal music online is a means of
the industry trying to position itself to take advantage
of the rising trend of portable music collections.
A quick glance across major online music stores
tells us exactly so. While offering free-riders
affordable music (allowing them to purchase only
the tracks they like instead of forcing them to
buy the complete album) to ensure that they do not
turn to music piracy, sites like eMusic and Apple’s
iTunes are backing the new trend. iTunes, Apple’s
online music store, has the added distinction of
being supported by perhaps the best mp3 player in
the business, the iPod. In this combination, Apple
has found a very secure marketing brand and ensured
that it takes full advantage of this cross between
technology and music.
Legal music downloads appear to be the perfect answer
to stopping music piracy, at least the downloading
kind. Therefore there is no surprise when one sees
major record labels pushing to expand such services.
However, recent developments tend to make us question
what the overall agenda really is. After a period
of consolidation of the digital music market in
the last two years, albums available for download
online are being priced higher than they would normally
be in retail stores. It used to be that you could
download a song for $0.99 and a complete album for
$9.99, but now stores are setting higher prices,
with tracks going for $1.50 or even $2.49 and $11.50
albums being sold for $12.50 and $13.00 online.
What is going on?
In positioning themselves to take advantage of changing
market forces, the music industry has also hit upon
another major factor in determining sales: consumer
behavior. Legal music downloads offer people like
me the comfort of never having to waste time in
retail stores looking for my favorite track from
high-school days or wondering when the latest album
of Nickelback would hit the shelves. Instead, all
the hassles are removed with everything easily searchable,
previewable and downloadable from the comfort of
my computer chair (and this baby is very, very,
comfortable). Consumers may not be usually rational,
but they are always looking to save the effort when
it comes to making any sort of purchases. Online
stores (or is it the major recording labels? Who
knows…) are now cashing into this very aspect
of human psychology and are beginning to charge
extra for a service they are portraying now as a
privilege. Having already consolidated their core
target market, the time has now come to increase
revenues.
Would this drive people back towards music piracy?
Highly unlikely. People are not evil, or criminal,
by nature. Appeals to their better nature usually
work, and that is the strategy adopted by agencies
like the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA) who are actively involved in putting a stop
to illegal music sharing. Media campaigns encouraging
music lovers to pay a dollar or two for tracks instead
of ‘committing a crime’ by downloading
them for free are actually working as slowly but
surely, more and more people flock to online music
stores. And with existing customers sticking to
this more ‘comfortable’ way of buying
music, the industry is finally starting to win back
ground it lost due to music piracy.
For more information about this topic please visit
www.Every.ca
admin@every.ca
About the Author
Mike Ber is owner of www.Every.ca , and
www.ComputerMagazine.ca |
|
|
|
|
