Internet Chivalry Isn't Dead (It Just Smells Funny)
[ No. 26 - December 1998 ]
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Things That Are New
The Liquid Music Player 4.0 (download for Mac or Windows
<www.liquidaudio.com>)
is out and it's free. Along with the Dolby
AC-3 audio codec, Liquid now supports an early version of the new
AAC codec (<www.iis.fhg.de/amm/techinf/aac/>). AAC
technology was developed in partnership by Dolby, Sony, AT&T and
Fraunhofer-Gessellschaft (the same people who released MP3 on an
unsuspecting world). We'll cover AAC in more depth as soon as we
distill the dense language of audio physics and compression
algorithms. The new Liquid Music Player 4.0 allows you to compile
tracklists from a site and download all of them at once (a
timesaver). The Player also allows you to create a playlist to
purchase or stream audio (similar to
<www.ifez.com/audio/TheFez/>). You can customize the
faceplate of any track and the Player software supports "more" CD
writables (burners and their software). The latter if you are
planning on purchasing tracks and burning your own CDs.
Liquid Audio is all about providing copyright protection for the
online distribution of music files. That means they're interested
in playing the Major Label Distribution Game with all of the
attendant negotiations and alliances. That tends to leave the
independant musician out of the picture. But Liquid never wanted
to be a love slave for promoting your name and music on the Web.
They're hoping to be THE online music distribution system when it
finally achieves consumer and industry acceptance. We're not sure
if they're going to survive the big Internet audio distribution war
but even potential failure provides useful information. The
lessons learned watching Liquid's arc through the Internet Audio
heavens will be put to good use by the next generation of audio
content delivery systems.
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"Wintertime winds blow cold this season, falling in love I'm hopin'
to be..." - The Doors
Welcome to the last full winter in the Second Millennia! A magical
dragon is slavering somewhere in the Enchanted Forest so us rowdy
FezGuy/Minstrels will bounce from hamlet to town within the
city-state of Internet Audio, examining legal tussles and
Proclamations, Knights Errant (in the form of new online music
companies) and those pesky weapons-makers, the technology companies
and their rampant alliances. Maybe we can draw some Medieval
conclusions. Maybe you can draw them for us by giving us a sound
dunking. We need all the help we can get.
First off: what's up in the litigious record business? Unless
you've been living under a rock you've heard about the excitable
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA )
having a restraining order struck down by a Federal Court in
Washington, DC, last October 26th, 1998, against the sale and
distribution of Diamond Multimedia's (<www.diamondmm.com>) RIO
PMP300 audio device. RIAA will appeal of course. The PMP300 is a
tiny, 2.4 oz. playback device capable of storing 60 minutes of MP3
encoded music files from your computer (via an included cable that
plugs into the computer's parallel port) for playback anywhere. It
retails for under $200.00, uses one AA battery (not included) for
12 hours of playback and fits in the palm of your hand. The PMP300
also comes with software that converts CD audio (or any .AIFF or
.WAV file on your desktop) to MP3 encoded audio before transferring
the files to memory on your handheld RIO. The RIAA claims the item
is a "digital audio recording device" and will increase music
piracy. Diamond Multimedia offers the RIO as merely a "player" and
therefore not subject to royalty payment requirements dictated by
the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA. See:
<www.riaa.com/aarc/aarcsum.htm> for a brief overview). Naturally
we empathize with the financial terror the big labels are feeling
but it's helpful to remember some recent history. Big labels cried
that cassettes would be the death of the music industry. Big movie
studios howled that video would be the end of the cinema. Even the
most cursory glance at those two industries shows that the exact
opposite happened. Revenues increased and both hegemonies are
experiencing their fattest dollar ever. RIAA has said they want to
work with companies like Diamond Multimedia to use technology and
still protect rights-holders. Perhaps they should approach the
situation in an open manner before resorting to strong arm
tactics.
The Bottom Line of this tempest in a teapot: if you own the rights
to your recordings you can do anything you want with them. If
you've got an agent like ASCAP, BMI, Sesac, etc. representing your
rights, let them know how you feel about these issues - they work
for you! Always keep your publishing. Think of it as a mantra.
You can order the RIO online.
In other legal news: On October 28, 1998, our friendly President
Clinton signed the Digital Millennum Copyright Act (DMCA) into
law. This new and wordy act focuses on Internet broadcasters
(or webcasters).
The law is the quick and dirty outcome of heavy negotiations
between the broadcast industry and the music business. The DMCA (a
clear explanation is available at:
<www.digmedia.org/DMCAexp.html>) allows for guidelines and
restrictions on: the number of servers and streams allowed, the
frequency and length of specific webcasts, non-posting of setlists
and the responsibility of the webcaster to make sure software
designed to prevent copying data streams is not tampered with at
the source. The DMCA also has a little provision requesting
webcasters to *not* suggest copying and redistributing content.
It's the little things. There is much more on the above-mentioned
website. Check it out. It's concisely explained and relevant.
The fees and methods by which revenue will be collected and
distributed is in negotiation for another six months, and you can
bet they'll use all of it. The terms of this contract between the
music business and the broadcast industry will be renegotiated
every two years.
Meanwhile, in the realm of marketing and sales, music business
people are experimenting with any number of wacky, Rube Goldberg
ideas to make money out of your music on the Web. Here's a couple
of things we've recently come across...
We got some spam the other day from mp3.com (<www.mp3.com>)
offering to join their artist area and the Digital Automatic Music
(D.A.M.) program. In this program mp3.com would produce and sell
CDs for a 50% cut of the profit. We thought we might consider the
idea under its fair cloak and see what they're really offering.
First of all, we were spammed, which is not the best beginning.
The mp3.com site is huge, though. It's got everything; from Dionne
Warwick to ultra heavy audio experimental noise corruption. The
site gets a lot of attention. It's widely reported that the second
most entered word in search engines (after "sex") is "MP3."
The offer states it is free to join ("no signup fees, no monthly
premiums, no costs!"), provides free promotion to "over 3 Million
music lovers per month" (that must be their "hit" statistic), a
non-exclusive contract that you can terminate any time (a very good
thing), unlimited song posting (individual song files have a 5MB
limit) and free links to your site and retailers. mp3.com mentions
"material may not be defamatory, trade libelous, pornographic or
obscene."
They seem to be representing themselves as a new-model online music
company. While they will host your music and information,
mp3.com's real hope is that people will use the United States
Postal Service to order your CD through them, of which they will
retain 50% of the net gain. They do allow you to choose the retail
price (within the five to ten dollar range).
So, what's the downside? Well, to "defray their costs" mp3.com
reserves the right to press (and sell) compilation CDs that may
include your music and not pay you for the privilege. But consider
the benefits of such high Web-visibility. We FezGuys feel the
equation comes up in the black.
So what is it, really? It's a mail-order record store, which has
been attempted before, but with a difference. Most of the music on
this site is not available anywhere else and there's a lot of it.
Downloads are not encrypted or watermarked and they're free.
There's a lot of participation and, while that's not a reasonable
argument for you to join, we think the site is worth the time and
effort. Certainly the contract terms are way better for the artist
then a standard record company would ever offer.
And another site: The Orchard (<www.theorchard.com>) spammmed
us with a personal touch. They told us that they got our email
address after viewing one of our band's websites. Sort of like like
an A&R guy giving you call after a show. Similar to mp3.com, The
Orchard (adline: "A Place To Grow") offers to manufacture and sell
your CD through mail-order and keep 50% of the net. But, unlike
mp3.com, they charge money up front to host your music, artwork,
photos, bios and itinerary. It adds up quickly. We think $7 is
too much to ask to add every live show entry. This tells us the
site is probably not automated. We also think a $30 fee for
placing an individual song file on the site and a $10 fee for each
link is silly. Perhaps if they used automating technology they
could drop the recurring fees.
The Orchard reassures us they will "make albums available in major
online record stores", "make albums available to traditional record
stores through the largest One Stop Distributor in the world", and
that "we never make judgments" and "give our artists the
opportunity to develop and grow." The first two statements are not
clear about what "available" means and the last two are fatuous, at
best.
In the introductory spam the company founder informed us he wrote
some big hits from the Sixties. Unfortunately that doesn't qualify
them in the new Internet music model. They seem to be missing the
inherent benefits of the Internet, like grass roots marketing and
the use of new technologies. The folks seem like nice people but
the service is not worth the money. mp3.com is a better deal.
On to the horrors of marketing technology! Internet audio
technology companies know there is strength and longevity in
numbers. RealNetworks continues its astonishing series of
corporate sleepovers - the tart. The RealNetworks RealPlayer 5.0
(G2 coming "soon") will now be bundled with AOL v4.0 (currently
Windows only but Mac is coming) shipping now. That's good for both
parties and their users. Tons more people can listen to their (and
your) content. In a gutsy vote of confidence the
Microsoft-partnered RealNetworks has also joined with Netscape.
Now you don't have to download RealNetworks products at the
source. It's automatically included when you download the Netcape
browser. As if that weren't enough, Intel's Streaming Web Video
Technology is now integrated into RealSystems G2 suite of tools.
Intel gets to increase the saturation of their new video streaming
technology. Intel says their video encoding is 4x faster than the
RealNetworks 5.0 video tools, and offers "improved decoding
performance." That should translate into a clearer, less jerky, and
perhaps faster image for those viewing individual streams using a
phone modem.
Think of marketing press releases as a Mad Lib. Just insert your
product name between the hyperbolic adjectives and off you go!
Just once we'd love to see a company explain their product or
technology in plain English. We'd fall on our knees and kiss their
feet.
Dear Fezguys - Love your column and website. I have to tell you
that MP3 does not cut it for modem streaming as far as I'm
concerned. RealAudio G2 sounds tons better and really streams. I
downloaded the Audioactive MP3 Production Studio DEMO and player
and encoded several files. They stream from my hard disk but don't
from my site at tripod.com and xoom.com won't let me upload mp3
files. I'm trying to find out what to do about this. I thought
you might like some real world feedback. If MP3 is the people's
encoder and Windows is the people's OS we are in deep doodoo. If
you have any ideas on how to make MP3 stream for 28.8 modems I'd
love to hear, but I'm going to stick with RealAudio G2 as my
primary streaming technology. Thanks for the great site and
columns. Sincerely - Rick
Hi Rick,
As we noted last month (column #25),
the G2 "Cook" codec does indeed sound better than MP3, but the G2
encoder itself has some *major* user interface problems. It sounds
like your main problem is the bitrate you've encoded your files
into. In order to stream over 28.8k, your best bet is to choose
the 16kbps setting, so you've got plenty of room to account for the
slowdown effects of buffering, listener connections of 22kbps or
less, or listeners reading their email (or engaged in other desktop
activities) while not realizing it affects their connection. The
"people's" *anything* often lacks organized resources that big
corporations take for granted. We must do our part to enable good
open-platform solutions (like using MP3) and also urge large
corporations to be relevant and create useful products and
technologies. We don't think Windows is the "people's OS," that's
for damn sure! Also: remember that if you only provide material in
G2 while Players are *only* available for Windows you'll be missing
a heap o' people. Why not send email to RealNetworks telling them
you really want those Mac/Unix players to be released! Cheers
- The FezGuys
We welcome your comments.
