From Greg Earle Sent Thu, Dec 4th 1997, 22:04
From Greg Earle Sent Thu, Dec 4th 1997, 22:04
Our Fearless Leader sent this to me originally, but I thought it deserved a
wider audience as it has several good ideas in it ...
- Greg
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Date: Wed, 03 Dec 1997 15:05:52 -0800
To: Greg Earle <xxxxx@xxxxxx.xxxxxxx.xx.xx>
From: Brian Behlendorf <xxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: (idm) FAX reissues (was: Re: dreamfish "re-issue") - free
rant included!
In-Reply-To: <xxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxxxxxx.xx.xx>
References: <Your message of "Wed, 03 Dec 1997 16:30:16 EST."
<xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx>
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At 02:22 PM 12/3/97 -0800, you wrote:
>I've been mumbling about Internet music distribution being the Future Of Music
>on these lists for several years now. (Not claiming prescience here, just a
>rather obvious pathway due to familiarity with the technology.) It's about
>time the music was MORE ubiquitous, not the other way around.
Excuse the momentary brain fart:
Remember Personics?
D'ya think the Web is ready for something like that?
i.e., think of a specialized desktop application which was basically a marriage
between an MP3 player/decoder and a CD-R burner. One would have to go out and
buy the CD-R burner, but they're ~$250 these days, and going down. Imagine a
sufficient amount of encryption/obfuscation that the record companies wouldn't
have to worry about someone downloading the MP3 and playing it over and over;
all they could do was burn it to CD, and they could only do that once.
To buy a CD, one would go to this Web site, they'd choose whether to get an
original album or a mix collection they'd specify, they'd pay some set amount
of money (say for a full-length which retails for $15.99, they pay $10), and
then the special client kicks in and downloads the music (which could take a
long time over 28.8, but with people downloading Netscape all the time I think
they're used to it), and after verifying the download it burns the CD. Use
128kbits/sec MP3 so it's almost CD quality, but also let them use 256 kbits if
they want almost total CD quality, or license something like Liquid Audio.
The J-cards can be sent in printer-ready PostScript form, or printed somewhere
centrally and snail-mailed.
You could start by going to certain labels who can no longer afford to print
their back catalogs (like, say, FAX) and offering to distribute their work this
way. Once that proves the model, approach some progressive labels as a new way
to distribute their existing in-print music.
If you make the price point high enough, you could actually pay the labels
*more* than what they make going through traditional retail channels. This
would be a big incentive for them to say yes.
The big big big cahuna for music delivery over the Internet for record labels
is the whole copying thing. If they could prevent people from putting the
downloaded MP3 content onto their own Web sites or from making 10 copies for
friends, they'd be more willing to do it.
Actually, it looks like Liquid Audio is doing just this:
http://www.liquidaudio.com/programs/indie1k.html
but I don't know how successful they're being at it. I wonder if someone could
simply license their tools and build a company ...
Brian
--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--
"it's a big world, with lots of records to play."-sig xxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
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