MP3. How will it change music distribution?

Subject: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Tony Burns
Date: 17 May 99 - 07:53 AM

There is an interesting article by Christine Lavin that will be available at the Washington Post web site for about two weeks. I thought Mudders might find it interesting and perhaps worthy of discussion.

To get to the article here's a blue clicky thing

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Blake
Date: 17 May 99 - 08:33 AM

MP3,Hmmm, Well let's see, I think that it is a bit too early to tell right know. The fact is that the internet is much slower then runnin down to your local CD/tape/record store (oh yeah 8 track). If you live in a remote location I think it would be nice for those people to take advantage of. The second positive aspect is that if you have a home studio and can promote your music from a web site instead of relying on a record company. The really positive part of this is that your band would be free to express itself in a more open and a much more free way than traditional big name studio producer would pay for. The more people are set free the more we are able to see and the Internet is just that. The problem is that digital may last longer and be much clearer but to alot of people it does not sound as good. The other problem that I see is this, I am from Southport CT. and there is a really cool place in Westport Sally's' Place that sells old, rare, hard to find jazz, Blues, Folk, and rock ect.Well you can go and just buy but I would go and talk to Sally about music and life and this and that. I think that this is only available in person and in a store. Blake

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Jon W.
Date: 17 May 99 - 10:25 AM

Well, in a store and in a certain Cafe we all know and love.

Music is now software. All the problems and the advantages of distributing software have now been inherited by music. Only one significant difference - even MP3 files are much much larger than most software packages. I've been unable to successfully download an entire MP3 song file at home even with my 56Kbps V90 modem - I always get an error (perhaps poor quality phone lines?). I can get them on my office PC in two or three minutes each. Also I've been disappointed in the sound quality I get from the MP3, particularly on vocal tracks. I don't know if it is due to a slow processor (90 MHz Pentium) or my sound card - some enlightenment would be appreciated. I'm certain it's not my speakers (they sound great when a CD is played through them) and fairly certain it's not MP3 itself - if it was, the format couldn't possibly be the success that it seems to be.

Jon W.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Blake
Date: 17 May 99 - 06:57 PM

Poor quality is possibly noise from your other hardware in your PC. Your CD-ROM has a cable running from it directly to your sound card and thus makes music played from it clearer. At your place of work do you have access to a CD writer; if you do it would be an ideal way to test if it is the mp3 or just radio frequency interference. When you plug in an effect to your instrument and there is an air or humming noise this is kind of the same thing ten cycle hum or R.F.I. This is just a guess. Blake

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 18 May 99 - 07:20 AM

G'day,
When I get time I'll make a longer post.

There's no doubt that mp3 or some similar format (with copy protection?) will have an enormous impact on the music industry. The quality is very good, mostly indistinguishable from the original - depends on the encoder, they vary.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Ted from Australia
Date: 18 May 99 - 06:28 PM

Check out MP4 at
http://www.globalmusic.com/cybermp4/ each file (not as large as MP3) comes with it's own player
Quality is excellent.

Regards Ted

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Ted from Australia
Date: 18 May 99 - 06:36 PM

I'll try for a blue clicky

to MP4

Regardds Ted

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Ted from Australia
Date: 18 May 99 - 06:39 PM

hey it worked :-)

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Mudjack
Date: 18 May 99 - 06:41 PM

One of my favorite parts of any CD is the art work that goes into the project. I insist on music contents but the art is very important to my taste.
Mudjack

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Jon W.
Date: 19 May 99 - 01:05 PM

It seems to me that one of the important factors of MP3 or whatever will eventually be the next dominant method of music distribution is the ability to have a large collection of music on a physically small device, and which the consumer will be able to select the tracks he or she wants to hear (i.e. recordability). Also an important factor (one I've been suffering through tape eating tape decks, warped & scratched records, scratched CD's, etc for years while waiting for, having forseen the inevitablility of it 20 years ago) is the total absence of moving parts. So far MP3 looks to be meeting these requirements.

Meanwhile on my other question about MP3 sound quality on my PC. I have grabbed tracks off of CD's and stored them as wave files. Theoretically they should sound identical to the CD tracks but they don't - they are just as bad as the MP3 (still way better than RealAudio though). I wonder if the Digital to Analog converters on my sound card are messing things up? I'm pretty sure that the CD Rom drive has it's own D/A converters, and the cable from it to the sound card only goes to the analog part of card (otherwise you couldn't listen to audio CD's with headphones plugged into your CD Rom drive, right?). So the D/A converters must be at fault. The other possibility is that since MP3 is compressed, it obviously takes some processing power to decompress it, and maybe my 90MHz Pentium isn't up to the task? Or maybe the shareware/freeware I'm using isn't. I guess my question is, will those of you who think your MP3's are nearly indistiguishable from CD quality please describe what hardware/software combination you use to get those results? Probably I ought to put this on a separate thread.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Jon W.
Date: 19 May 99 - 01:11 PM

Here's the other thread.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 May 99 - 03:02 PM

Where are the economics and politics? Where is the copyright law? Where are the collecting societies? DO musicians want to be poor?

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From:
Date: 20 May 99 - 11:43 AM

How many of you good folk writing in this column actually earn ALL of your living as musicians and or composers.

If you do... shame on you for not constantly mentioning copyright.

Mp3 etc. is wonderful, but with music 'down the wire' comes abuse on a scale never seen or thought about.

SACEM the French org. is banging the drum about 'private piracy'... this is the act of copying from a CD to a cassette etc. It s illegal... is it not?

Look at the inside cover of many books printed in the UK.. the copyright says you cannot lend or borrow the book. Music is the same.

Blah blah blah... but folks... think...please.

les H

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Mudjack
Date: 20 May 99 - 03:48 PM

I thought the main users of MP3 would be the unknown musicians who need the venue. Ascap and Bmi and any other money concern will indeed figure out how to suck the bucks out of the system. If they have to, they'll just go to court and win their stake there. Have you forgot we live in America? my $0.02 worth.
Mj

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 May 99 - 06:33 PM

Sorry Mudjack but ASCAP, BMI and pals have never bothered to do anything approaching a thorough survey on US TV or Cable, and the foreign societies like the PRS let them get away with it. I know a widow who lives off her late husband's royalties. She ain't rich. Her husband wrote a theme for a 6-part series. The US collecting society picked up one broadcast of one episode. She got paid for one broadcast of one episode. Where was the money for the other 5? In the pocket of the collecting society because the broadcaster pays a blanket fee to the collecting society.

Tell me again that the collecting societies will look after the smaller fully professional composer. They use the revenues from popular music to subsidise "classical" and dance to the tunes of the mega-composers (U2 spent over GBP1 million on their litigation with the UK PRS, I have heard it rumoured) and the big music corporations - the music publishers controlled by the record companies and TV companies.

The UK's PPL (there is no direct US equivalent, I think. PPL controls the performing right not in music but in recordings of music. Records have in the UK a copyright which has a performing right element I think in the USA this is not so) handed over many millions of pounds sterling to the musicians' union. It conceptually arose from the performance of recordings of the work of the faceless army of session musicians. The faces had a separate stream of money paid to them. No money (until very recently, and that a relatively small proportion) was paid by the union to the faceless ones. No system of fair apportionment was ever worked out. The money was spent on "good works". Now that there is a statutory right PAMRA (the collecting society for the new right) wants the session musicians to produce documentary proof of what records they played on thirty forty and fifty years ago.

A fair system so that all musicians (composers and performers) can get their proper remuneration from all uploads and downloads of their music and performances is vital. Leave it to the industry and you won't get it.

And bear in mind that if you say that MP3 enables those who would otherwise not get a hearing to get heard and paid, you are telling musicians they have to pay to be heard. How many blues labels used there to be? How many great blues songs and performances were signed away outright in perpetuity for twenty dollars. How many composers are being pressured right now into composing "library music" for a flat fee? How many composers are being told that if they want their commissioned music synchronised with films (movies) or TV they will have to assign their publishing rights to some tame publisher? In this environment the free market system does not work. It only enables the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.

Make sure the internet pays composers and performers fairly. Start work now. Leave it to the politicians and you will get the "Fairness in music licensing" Act and worse. Remember that act, tacked on to the end of an allegedly reforming copyright act to extend US copyright to bring it into line with modern European copyright, frees some places to use music to add value to their services rendered to the public (and so get more customers) without having to pay for the music they use to add that value.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 20 May 99 - 11:12 PM

G'day,
History is littered with examples of people having to adapt to technological change. The discussions about copyright etc. and the impact of mp3 are very interesting, but for better or worse the format is here and will have a huge impact on the recording industry. Together with the internet there is an enormous scope for illegal distribution of copyright material. Of course the fault there lies with the people doing it, not with the technology.

On the other hand the format helps to level the playing field. Look at www.mp3.com to see how unknown performers are able to sell their recordings on the world market. I think they will be forced to modify their approach as the quantity of recordings they handle explodes as it's bound to - it's getting to the stage where there are enough free downloads available to keep many "customers" satisfied without the need to buy the "DAM" CD (see the mp3.com for an explanation). The mp3.com concept and the fact that performers can easily set up their own web sites to market their albums in mp3 format is set to change the marketing of recorded music forever.

It will be interesting to see how much life is left in the CD format. I think its days are numbered because:-

1. It's too easy to make an exact copy - the record companies will kill it off.

2. It will have to fight hard to survive the impact of mp3.

3. DVD technology is here, although standards are not set. This will allow 20 or 24 bit recording at 96kHz sampling rate with extra channels for surround sound. It will allow extra information to be added - anything from extended cover notes, lyrics and pictures to video clips. It will give the recording companies the opportunity to investigate new methods of copy protection.

If you remember the pain of changing from LPs to CDs, if your LPs are gathering dust in the garage and you don't want to do that again, I don't think the change to DVD will be the same - a DVD player should be able to play audio & video DVDs and standard audio CDs. If the industry wants, it could also play mp3 files off CD ROM.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 21 May 99 - 12:44 AM

And for a few technical words follow this blue clicky thingy to the thread started by Jon W.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Jon W.
Date: 21 May 99 - 03:12 PM

I've ruminated on this for a few days and now feel ready to put my oar in. As far as illegal distribution goes, MP3 is not much different, from the standpoint of royalty payments, than any other form of music distribution. If people want to be dishonest they will be. I see MP3 more as extending power that previously was concentrated in the hands of a few (well-capitalized) corporations to the masses. Just as the internet has done for news/opinion publishing, it will now do for music publishing. It's been said that freedom of the press applies only to those who have presses. In the past, presses have been expensive enough that few have had them. The internet, being a virtual and affordable press, has given multitudes the freedom of the press. Now the freedom to press records is available. What does it mean to the musician? I see three types of musicians who can benefit from distribution of MP3 files over the internet. First, there is the musician who just wants to be heard and doesn't much care about being paid. They can now afford to distribute their music for cheap. Second is the musician who wants to be paid but has not the fame to interest a publishing company. They can submit their music in MP3 to an internet distributor who can track downloads of their files. The musician can gain exposure and have documentary proof of it. One mechanism for paying these people would be to allow the consumer to download part of a song for free, but be required to pay a fair price for the whole song. This could be easily implemented. Furthermore, the sales could be automatically tracked and royalties fairly distributed. Third, there are the established musicians who can command a price for their music already. For them, the internet and MP3 are just another form of radio/MTV - another broadcast medium on which to display their wares (softwares in this case :)) and another marketing outlet. Again, we have the technology to track the sales and distribute the royalties.

Piracy will continue to be a problem. The music industry has survived it, the software industry has survived it, I see no reason why their love-child will not survive it.

As for displacing CD's: As I mentioned above, I've been waiting for 20 years or more for music to be distributed in a solid state form (no moving parts). MP3 software technology and flash memory hardware technology represent the initial flowering of this hope. Does anyone else see the advantage of this?

Jon W.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 22 May 99 - 05:16 AM

Jon,
I remember discussing with students when CDs first appeared the possibility of recorded music eventually being available in a ROM-like format. (One of the things I teach is digital modulation/encoding). I still think it will happen for the same reasons you do but it has a while to go. Even using compression, e.g. mp3, memory capacity & cost make the idea impractical at the moment. The Diamond Rio mp3 player is a start, but it just doesn't have the capacity or cost effectiveness it needs at present. I'm sure there's a place for it, but the idea is not ready for the masses yet.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Paul Mills
Date: 23 May 99 - 02:40 AM

Interesting discussion here. I've just scanned the postings on this thread and I don't think anyone has brought up the point that MP3 and related digital audio technologies may be spelling the death of the "album".

I've heard about companies which are about to set up music "boutiques" in shopping malls where you can go and order up a customized CD with 15 or 20 of your favorite songs from a variety of artists which the boutique will download from their network and burn onto a CDR for you. The price will be the same or less than you pay for a regular CD.

MP3 is similar in that people downloading MP3 files from the web are dealing with songs one at a time.

The point here is that the idea of an "album" consisting of a wide sampling of songs by a particular artist, sometimes thematically linked, could go the way of the Dodo.

PM

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: gargoyle
Date: 23 May 99 - 02:54 AM

In agreement Mr. Mills.

I have "discovered" artists I never knew before. I have downloaded their sample tracts and in some cases, (Ben Harper and the Inocent Criminals) purchased their albumns.

However, the best part, is the ability to pick out the best parts, and create a unique "CD" of the best parts. Given the current technology, the inability to transpose t o WAV files would make most of it usless.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 23 May 99 - 05:28 AM

G'day,
I also agree with Paul - there are sites (well at least one) which allow you to purchase the downloads of single songs. When I looked a few months ago payment was a bit tricky unless you lived in the U.S. but I'm sure that will change.

I think the easiest way to convert mp3 to wave is to use Winamp - easy to obtain, extremely cheap & easy to use. Plugger+ (freeware) to go the other way.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 23 May 99 - 11:52 PM

Fascinating thread, and wonder of wonders, I'm actually not going to venture an opinion,(I'm still thinking) but I'd love to hear more.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Paul Mills
Date: 24 May 99 - 11:08 PM

I'm curious to know whether anyone feels that the death of the "album" would be a good or a bad thing.

When the recording industry first started, it was all about recordings of single songs (remeber 78s and 45s?). With the invention of "long-playing" record, the possibility of including 10 or 12 songs on a single record became a reality. This eventually led to the album as an artform in and of itself.

The Beatles' "Abbey Road" was probably one of the first concept albums and there have been many more since then. These are records which are a total listening experience in and of themselves. The songs all link together in a thematic way.

With MP3 and the other distribution technologies arising from digital audio, people will get to choose which songs they want to purchase from a variety of artists. They may no longer be able to (or choose to) get a collection of a particular artist's songs linked thematically. As a record producer, I find this a bit troubling probably because I've dedicated so much of my life to making "albums". The average consumer, however, would probably like to pick and choose among a wide variety of artists and songs - so for them, the new technology is a boon.

Any thoughts?

PM

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 25 May 99 - 03:09 AM

When I first started doing "Acoustic Workshop", my folk music radio program ten years ago, I would receive on average about 4 or 5 submissions a month from artists seeking airplay. I would listen to every cut on every album and generally would play a few cuts over the next month or two from about 60 to 70% of them. It certainly took at least 5 or 6 cuts per album to get the general "feel" of the recording. Currently I receive probably 20 to 25 CDs per month and the percentage of those that I find interesting enough to play on air would be closer to 20%. There are probably a number of reasons why this is so, and I'm sure some are purely personal. As a rule, the quality of production and packaging is uniformly high, and generally the artists themselves for the most part are competent or better. Perhaps I've been so close to music for so many years that I'm a trifle jaded, but I hear so little that seems inspired, or really original and generally after 60 seconds of the first cut, I know what the rest of the album will be like. Women singer-songwriters tend to be so strongly influenced by one or two successful artists (Ani DiFranco, or Loreena McKinnett for example) that by the second or third cut the "influence" is all that I really can hear. Other strong influences are Joni Mitchell, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and more recently Alison Krauss. Nuthin' wrong with those folks, but I'd rather hear the originals. The "Dylan", Neil Young and John Prine influences come through very strongly on a lot of the recordings by male singer songwriters. Albums by Celtic (style) bands have now become so numerous that it is truly difficult to tell one from another - and adding an African or south American (or bluegrass) feel to a Celtic band helps only on rare occasions. Once again, perhaps I've just heard too much music....but maybe not. I think the majority of the newer songwriters don't listen to enough varied music before they start to compose - and rush that first CD out. At one of the city's open stages I see so many young performers who can barely make an "F" chord already singing their young life stories to totally uncritical audiences comprised of OTHER performers.
The end result for me, is perhaps I now just don't have the time to wade through 20 totally derivative (though probably pleasant) albums to find that one by a young artist who may have the potential to be really something one day.
If every new artist that wanted airplay sent me their very BEST song on a one track CD, I think I'd be able to get into it a little more and probably a higher percentage would get that airplay.
Some albums (by songwriters) still jump out at you though. One that comes to mind is "Annie Mae's Wedding Album" by the Toronto band "Slowpoke". However if I were BUYING albums by original songwriters today, I think I'd be tempted to go with the "one song from this, and one song from that, and another from this...etc.

I think that on rare occasions a new artist is strong enough to sustain real interest over a whole album, but for the most part I hear a lot of filler, and I guess that's why I've gotten somewhat jaded. There ARE gems but I just don't have as much time to hunt for them.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Tony Burns
Date: 25 May 99 - 07:37 AM

Paul and Rick make good points. Let me say a couple of things from my view as a consumer.

While I seldom like everything on an album I often find that after repeated listenings there is a cut that grows on me. I don't think I would find those cuts if I had to pick and choose based on .... (Hmmmm.... I was going to say based on listening for a few seconds and then realized I don't know how I will be asked to make my choices.) In any case those gems that grow on me might be lost.

As far as the thematic approach is concerned this new format could be a good thing. An artist could produce a thematic work that was only 3 or 4 or ?? numbers long and market that as a single file. No need to get a whole 72 minutes of material together.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 25 May 99 - 12:39 PM

I should have made the point in my rambling discourse that I much prefer listening to music that is strongly grounded in older tradition. I'd worry about becoming an "old farte" were it not for the fact I felt the same way when I was 15, and was hence a "young old fart".

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Ted from Australia
Date: 25 May 99 - 05:37 PM

Purely as a matter of intrest and nothing to do with the discussion above,(I agree with Tony )
I recorded a 4m. 49sec CD track in both MP3 and WAV formats . The quality of playback i found indistinguishable from the CD(apart from being mono)
The file size was a bit of a surprise :
MP3 4.526 mb
WAV 3.010 mb

I thought that MP3 was supposed to have a goodly amounty of compression.

I also have a sampler CD in MP3 it has 168 full tracks!!!

Regards Ted

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 26 May 99 - 07:00 AM

G'day Ted,
The 4m49s wave file should have been approaching 50mb if stereo. However it's possible to create a file with a .wav extension which actually has mp3 compression & is recognized as a "wave" file by windows media player. The file nstools.exe can be downloaded from Microsoft & enables recording software (some anyway) to save in this format, you may be unaware that you're using it. Nstools provides a medium quality compression, but the result can be good for attaching to emails.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 26 May 99 - 07:40 AM

G'day,
Tony's point is a good one, I'm sure we can all think of songs we didn't know we'd like until we'd heard them a few times.

The album concept doesn't have to be dead although the CD might be. The way mp3.com are marketing the music, you either get a couple of free downloads or you buy the complete album, cheap though it may be. You get no sleeve notes - it's up to the artist to provide as much info as they see fit on their own web site.

The high flyers who have the resources to make DVDs will probably make "super" albums that will exceed what we're used to in many ways.

As I suggested above, mp3.com's concept of free downloads as a "taster" will probably be a problem in future, a different way of providing tasters might be needed.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Jun 99 - 04:08 AM

This thread ought still to be being discussed. MP3 is causing some people great worries that it will be possible for joe public to post its favourite CD to its website, and for the rest of the world to download it without paying anyone anything apart from the purchase of that first CD. It will be years before any sort of macrovision derivative or watermarking will stop this. The current draft EEC copyright directive will remove liability (mostly) from ISPs. How will songwriters/producers live?

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: legal eagle
Date: 06 Jun 99 - 10:54 AM

I get a bit cross when people say the technology moves ahead of the law. The acts done by joe public in an unauthorised posting, and in many cases in an authorised free downloading (without the consent of the true rightsholders) are restricted by law. The problem is enforcing if anyone can do it anywhere on the net. Hence the need for secure encryption and watermarking.

Subject: RE: MP3. How will it change music distribution?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Jun 99 - 02:02 PM

Real Player is now Emailing those receiving its updates to tell them the new Realplayer will enable them to record all their CDs digitally. At present doing so would infringe copyright both under English law and (I think) US law.

Does anyone still doubt the danger of the medium, to those whose livelihoods depend on getting copyright and similar royalties effectively collected?