Audio content delivery

[amirm]

Whether it's MQA or some other invisible format, does anyone here think that there is any future for visibly file-based music at all? I don't. And therefore I don't think there's a future for non-DRM music. All we will have is pointers to content in the cloud that may, or may not, have restrictions placed on who has access to it and how much our bank accounts will be debited by.

Having to download something before listening is an inconvenience. The job of technology is to remove inconveniences. Therefore, what you say is absolutely true.

In 2017 I probably bought $5,000 worth of music (most downloads, some CDs). In 2018 I switched to using Tidal and bought I think one CD and no downloads. Anything I wish to listen to at home or in the car is there for me so I just pay the monthly and am happy. See a recommendation for something others enjoy? A few seconds later I am hearing it through streaming. My library is constantly growing because of these recommendations with purchase decision not getting the way anymore.

Of course the general public is hugely there already with many not even using computers anymore to want to download anything.

As for restriction, a magical thing happened with Steve Jobs forced the labels to allow him to distribute music without DRM. From then on, the music industry is not worried about content protection. The only protect they demand and is there is to make sure you are a subscriber. I see no reason for them wanting to put any other restriction on the music. I just leave the door ajar for Apple creating Apple-only solutions. Smart speakers with their boundaries is one such area.

 

[RayDunzl]

I represent a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of the population, listening to unpopular music and primarily using physical media.

That's me, too.

Throw in a couple of local non-commercial radio stations, and I'm good.

I free stream a little, couple of times a month, out of curiosity, but lose interest soon enough.

Tried a month of Tidal, that experience posted elsewhere.

posts 26, 34, 36

 

[Blumlein 88]

I wonder how many of those who say they have a library of 20,000 albums, upwards, have actually legally paid for them.

I wonder how many with 20,000 albums have actually listened to it all? At a few hours a day it would take years.

Does it still count as piracy if you get the albums, but never do listen to them?

 

[RayDunzl]

I have about 1500 disks, with only maybe 100 or so I should just throw away (bought long ago from the bargain bin for $.50 or a dollar). The rest I listen to in rotation. Play one, leave it cocked out of the shelf. The next one to be played will still be fully inserted someplace in the rack. At some point I shove them all in again and start over. Takes a long time. About 1/3 are cocked out right now.

There are some that I know every note and others, when I put them on again, have no specific recollection of what's there.

Listening to Boulez Conducts Zappa right now (couldn't tell you what's on it). Audio Buddy brought over a disk called "Prophetic Attitude" Satruday night. Woodwinds playing Zappa tunes. There were three tunes we thought maybe they had written, turns out they weren't, and one of them is on the Boulez CD. It was fully inserted in the rack, so not a "double play".

Last bought a CD in March, but surely will again.

Takes me a while to find someone I like, but when I do, I tend to collect their entire product.

 

[Pluto]

...a magical thing happened with Steve Jobs forced the labels to allow him to distribute music without DRM. From then on, the music industry is not worried about content protection

I only hope you are right. From my experience of the music industry, there is no limit to the avarice of which the media companies are capable and if they should smell new money within future development opportunities, they will seize those opportunities with relish.

 

[Blumlein 88]

There were a series of articles a few years ago about this issue. I wish I still had the links. In any case, short version, the cost of music distribution in the modern world is effectively zero. Or so close it makes no difference. Because digital music can be copied and shared in a way that has so little cost it is difficult to calculate. Due to simple supply and demand when cost is zero price will be near zero even with very high demand.

This presents a problem if you wish to be a professional musician. Where is your income stream if the price of your music is close to zero. We see this issue even with royalties on streaming music currently. The conclusion of the author of those articles was the artist/musician has to create added value in some way. The most obvious, and the one generating income is live performances. Concerts. Even the most popular streamed artists make more money from concerts than streaming.

So where does that leave files or streaming? If you pay $20 per month for Tidal, listen to 3 CD's worth of music per day, then you are paying about 22 cents for each album's worth of music you listen to each month. It is not clear Tidal is going to survive financially. If you purchase a $15 CD, then listen to it 100 times the cost has become 15 cents per listen. Tidal after paying expenses and royalties earns it money for providing convenience and access to almost any music you can name.

As for DRM, and its potential abuse, I dislike it more than most. Yet it can't become too far fetched or it kills the point of it by killing the goose. And this goose isn't really laying all that many golden eggs.

HDMI and ARC are an example of how far DRM can go with enough collusion by manufacturers and film companies. Yet it isn't a big enough issue that very many people refuse to use it because it is very convenient and they haven't been highly restrictive about it so far. I think TV and movies are in a much stronger position than music companies and musicians are in a truly sad state of clout even worse than the music companies. So while I'm sure music companies are as greedy and devious as ever, I think the limited value of their wares will place a limit on how far they can go.

Oh, and us people persnickety about all aspects of the quality of music reproduction, we don't count enough to matter. Clearly even high rate mp3 has enough quality that for the 99% it is a total complete non-issue. And in recorded music as currently produced with all the over-processing mp3 is way more than enough quality.

 

[Sal1950]

I believe that tomorrow's DRM will be largely uncrackable.

Mostly true, look at how easy it is to rip a CD, then try to figure out how to rip a SACD, doable but complicated.
I like having files that are not tied to any app, hence their playback isn't controllable by anyone.
No one can stop me from playing back my CD rips, but I know Spotify can shut off my access to it's downloaded files at any time.
I don't believe that access to my HDTracks files is accessable but I'm not 100% confident the labels haven't hid something in the metadata.
Things get sketcher by the day, used to be I could play the recordings on my DVR if the network is down. Not so today with XFinity, if the network is down the DVR won't play back my recordings. What the hell good is that?

One of the best results of my ripping all my LPs was the opportunity to listen to every one of them one more time. So much great music I hadn't heard in years got re-entered into my memory banks. Took a lot of time but as I went thru packing up the house, doing the houses candy coating for it's sale inspections, etc, I revisited many LP's I hadn't heard in 20 years. Also the act of ripping all my CD's into a Media Player with it's data base, I can now visually scan my entire lifetime collection in a nice easy to use listing by any manner I chose (artist, genre, date, whatever). SO MUCH easier than trying to scan my eye over hundreds and hundreds of CD's on shelves trying to find something to play.
Times really have changed in my near 70 years, mostly for the better when it comes to technology, I love one of the latest inovation of streaming. The more I use my Spotify account the more I love it. Just learned how totally easy it is to use Spotify Connect and my Marantz 7703 pre/pro. From anywhere in the house I can use any device with the Spotify app to chose something to play, chose my 7703 as the access point, and wammo, that album with start playing in the amp.

I think about my family's music collection I grew up listening to, AM radio and 78rpm shelacs.
Happy New Year, we're going into 2019, time flys and life is short, enjoy it while you can.

 

[svart-hvitt]

There were a series of articles a few years ago about this issue. I wish I still had the links. In any case, short version, the cost of music distribution in the modern world is effectively zero. Or so close it makes no difference. Because digital music can be copied and shared in a way that has so little cost it is difficult to calculate. Due to simple supply and demand when cost is zero price will be near zero even with very high demand.

This presents a problem if you wish to be a professional musician. Where is your income stream if the price of your music is close to zero. We see this issue even with royalties on streaming music currently. The conclusion of the author of those articles was the artist/musician has to create added value in some way. The most obvious, and the one generating income is live performances. Concerts. Even the most popular streamed artists make more money from concerts than streaming.

So where does that leave files or streaming? If you pay $20 per month for Tidal, listen to 3 CD's worth of music per day, then you are paying about 22 cents for each album's worth of music you listen to each month. It is not clear Tidal is going to survive financially. If you purchase a $15 CD, then listen to it 100 times the cost has become 15 cents per listen. Tidal after paying expenses and royalties earns it money for providing convenience and access to almost any music you can name.

As for DRM, and its potential abuse, I dislike it more than most. Yet it can't become too far fetched or it kills the point of it by killing the goose. And this goose isn't really laying all that many golden eggs.

HDMI and ARC are an example of how far DRM can go with enough collusion by manufacturers and film companies. Yet it isn't a big enough issue that very many people refuse to use it because it is very convenient and they haven't been highly restrictive about it so far. I think TV and movies are in a much stronger position than music companies and musicians are in a truly sad state of clout even worse than the music companies. So while I'm sure music companies are as greedy and devious as ever, I think the limited value of their wares will place a limit on how far they can go.

Oh, and us people persnickety about all aspects of the quality of music reproduction, we don't count enough to matter. Clearly even high rate mp3 has enough quality that for the 99% it is a total complete non-issue. And in recorded music as currently produced with all the over-processing mp3 is way more than enough quality.

The articles you refered to are pure theory, right?

Here’s a more empirical report from EU, that the politician-bureaucrats tried to suppress. Evidently, politician-bureaucrats work for the narrow interests, not their voters.

SHORT STORY: https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537

FULL REPORT: https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_study.pdf


PS: I have posted the link on previous occasions but few seem to have read or understood it. What we call piracy today, which was common habit 25-50 years ago, may not be a bad thing after all, if you believe the suppressed EU report.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The articles you refered to are pure theory, right?

.

Actually no. He included data from sales and streaming revenue. Gave examples beyond just concert tours of other ways a few artists had creatively added value. The prediction going forward is based upon the theory and data as it existed at the time of the articles. Do we need to go thru the way the price of distributing any music once it is digitized is nearly zero?

I've read the short version of the report you linked. It is something I believed to be true for years. When I was a poor student and taped albums belonging to others it invariably resulted in me buying more albums than the number I'd taped. That seemed to generally be the case. In modern times viewing others who do some pirating, while there has to be an overlap, most often it was one of two situations. Getting content they couldn't buy in their home country anyway, or conveniently getting content they otherwise weren't willing to pay a penny for in the first place. In both cases there is no harm to sales.

 

[svart-hvitt]

Actually no. He included data from sales and streaming revenue. Gave examples beyond just concert tours of other ways a few artists had creatively added value. The prediction going forward is based upon the theory and data as it existed at the time of the articles. Do we need to go thru the way the price of distributing any music once it is digitized is nearly zero?

I've read the short version of the report you linked. It is something I believed to be true for years. When I was a poor student and taped albums belonging to others it invariably resulted in me buying more albums than the number I'd taped. That seemed to generally be the case. In modern times viewing others who do some pirating, while there has to be an overlap, most often it was one of two situations. Getting content they couldn't buy in their home country anyway, or conveniently getting content they otherwise weren't willing to pay a penny for in the first place. In both cases there is no harm to sales.

According to the suppressed EU report piracy is a non-issue on a society level. Still, when I go to the cinema I need to watch an FBI warning that I will be put in jail or worse if I redistribute the film (as if this, in any way, could pose a problem given the huge drop in quality). Such government «commercials» against piracy reflect a Soviet and DDR mentality that has become a part of modern capitalist society.

 

[Sal1950]

According to the suppressed EU report piracy is a non-issue on a society level. Still, when I go to the cinema I need to watch an FBI warning that I will be put in jail or worse if I redistribute the film (as if this, in any way, could pose a problem given the huge drop in quality). Such government «commercials» against piracy reflect a Soviet and DDR mentality that has become a part of modern capitalist society.

I get that same FBI warning with my blu-rays, I can't copy them either. I used to be able to copy DVD's but the last few I tried it on have failed, they've changed the encryption so that the software I have doesn't work any more. Screw em. LOL

 

[amirm]

I get that same FBI warning with my blu-rays, I can't copy them either.

Interesting side story on that. Back when the record labels were super worried about piracy, they wanted to put that same FBI warning on CDs. Turns out the movie industry had copyrighted that and they could not use it!!!

 

[Blumlein 88]

Interesting side story on that. Back when the record labels were super worried about piracy, they wanted to put that same FBI warning on CDs. Turns out the movie industry had copyrighted that and they could not use it!!!

That is hilariously ironic.

Speaking of irony I remember the headline on Ars Technica when Amazon pulled all copies of 1984 from Kindles over some copyright issue.

"Amazon uses up the entire universe's supply of irony in one day"

 

[andreasmaaan]

Having to download something before listening is an inconvenience. The job of technology is to remove inconveniences. Therefore, what you say is absolutely true.

In 2017 I probably bought $5,000 worth of music (most downloads, some CDs). In 2018 I switched to using Tidal and bought I think one CD and no downloads. Anything I wish to listen to at home or in the car is there for me so I just pay the monthly and am happy. See a recommendation for something others enjoy? A few seconds later I am hearing it through streaming. My library is constantly growing because of these recommendations with purchase decision not getting the way anymore.

Of course the general public is hugely there already with many not even using computers anymore to want to download anything.

As for restriction, a magical thing happened with Steve Jobs forced the labels to allow him to distribute music without DRM. From then on, the music industry is not worried about content protection. The only protect they demand and is there is to make sure you are a subscriber. I see no reason for them wanting to put any other restriction on the music. I just leave the door ajar for Apple creating Apple-only solutions. Smart speakers with their boundaries is one such area.

With the one caveat that most (all?) major label streaming content is watermarked, with at least some known examples of same being audibly inferior.

 

[Pluto]

I don't believe that access to my HDTracks files is accessable but I'm not 100% confident the labels haven't hid something in the metadata

Even if you are highly paranoid and suspect that the encoded formats might contain something untoward, you can always convert to WAV and recode back into your chosen lossless format using software you trust. While it's true that the files (and even you, the individual purchaser) might be identifiable via the metadata, you can easily examine that metadata, rewrite what you want to retain and delete anything you don't like.

What is more interesting is the science of steganography – the embedding of data covertly within a sound or video stream. Such a process is likely to withstand multiple generations of conversions through lossless formats but may well be destroyed by one generation into the MP3 or AAC space. Such conversions are, after all, specifically designed to remove non-audible data.

The sure indicator of the existence of such hidden data that might identify the purchaser is if you and I buy a nominally identical product yet there are unexplained file differences between the two. The oddly named OpenPuff software is great fun to play with.

So there might yet be a useful purpose yet for those lossy formats

 

[svart-hvitt]

With the one caveat that most (all?) major label streaming content is watermarked, with at least some known examples of same being audibly inferior.

Do you have evidence that streamers like TIDAL an Qobuz use watermarked files?

 

[Don Hills]

As long as modern generation is using earbuds phones will have exposed analog outputs. I don't see that changing any time soon..

It's changing already. Apple make phones without analogue outputs.

 

[Don Hills]

Do you have evidence that streamers like TIDAL an Qobuz use watermarked files?

I've seen no evidence that any of the streamers do their own watermarking, but UMG do watermark most/all of the files they supply to the streamers.
https://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible-watermark

 

[Sal1950]

What is more interesting is the science of steganography – the embedding of data covertly within a sound or video stream. Such a process is likely to withstand multiple generations of conversions through lossless formats

Thanks so much for sending my paranoia level to 11. I'll be tossing round the bed and thinkin bout this schitt till 6:00AM Christmas day.

 

[Wombat]

Having to download something before listening is an inconvenience. The job of technology is to remove inconveniences. Therefore, what you say is absolutely true.

In 2017 I probably bought $5,000 worth of music (most downloads, some CDs). In 2018 I switched to using Tidal and bought I think one CD and no downloads. Anything I wish to listen to at home or in the car is there for me so I just pay the monthly and am happy. See a recommendation for something others enjoy? A few seconds later I am hearing it through streaming. My library is constantly growing because of these recommendations with purchase decision not getting the way anymore.

Of course the general public is hugely there already with many not even using computers anymore to want to download anything.

As for restriction, a magical thing happened with Steve Jobs forced the labels to allow him to distribute music without DRM. From then on, the music industry is not worried about content protection. The only protect they demand and is there is to make sure you are a subscriber. I see no reason for them wanting to put any other restriction on the music. I just leave the door ajar for Apple creating Apple-only solutions. Smart speakers with their boundaries is one such area.

Put a CD in the tray and push 'play'. Such inconvenience compared to a computer, software, file management, menus, and storage and back-ups to multiple dodgy drives for security. No internet or subscriptions needed as a bonus. The CDs wont go into receivership, either.

Well, what would you expect a Luddite to say.