Personally, with all my lovely bandwidth, I think I would like this service... assuming the content they make available is worth it (ie. everything).
Fatal Flaw
MP3 has one major problem. Major. A CD cannot crash. My hard disk crashed. BOTH my harddisks crashed. I've lost Gigabytes of music, including two of my own unfinished songs.
The music is replacable for the moment, it will just take time. I've backed up my most important data, it's just three weeks old. Not a huge problem, the information is elsewhere. It's just time.
In fact, the time to return from this carnage will be huge. I plan to simplify my computing life a little. I do to much with the time I have.
I'm also thinking of trying out some net services, some free (or not?) backup drives like Driveaway, and calender services etc. Something that won't crash, and if it doesn't, I can be pissed off at someone else.
If you're interested, I suspect it was Cool Edit Pro that did it. May it rot in all types of bitmapped hell.
Porn vs MP3
Has the porn industry survived the internet? It seems so. Did they stress when someone discovered that porn, previously only available from magazines of videos, could be cheaply scanned and posted to newsgroups for all to see for free around the world? I'm sure they did.
What have they done to combat this? Subscription services. The majority of porn sites are subscription. The majority of porn video is pay per view or pay per minute (a friend told me). Is the music industry really that different?
Well yes, it costs a LOT more to record a good album. It costs a lot more to put on a 'live show' than it does to stick a couple of people in a room with a camera. But it's similar.
A lot of subscription services are cropping up. "MP3.com" has subscription channels, as I'm sure a lot of other places do (do they? maybe I'm wrong). Is this the way to go?
Probably not, if it happened right now we'd have a channel for every major record label and we'd be back where we started. People want to be able to get at the music they want without hassles. If every song on the net, no matter how popular, cost someone a few cents to download, or a even a few cents to play.. would that work?
Somewhere online that knows what music I own and would let me listen to it anywhere would be good. "MP3.com"'s MyMP3.com lets you do that. At least... it did. Will it be back? I'm thinking I really want it now. Badly.
And when music goes digital. I don't want to buy a file, who wants a file? You get it, it's an entry in your file system. Would I purchase the 'right' to listen to that music, to download it from a server if I wished. If that server also had all the liner notes, all the artwork. Not some piece of crap official webpage... something good, something like the artwork you'd get with a normal CD... would I be happy then?
Would I pay full price for this service? I've seen many reports that say music would not be cheaper on the net. From what I've seen of attempts at selling music online (at HMV, the stupidity of Sony selling single songs for the same price as a single) music has been the same price as you would get it on CD, and you get a lot less. No liner notes, nothing physical... why bother?
Nobody will pay for music online unless either : it's the only place you can get it, or it's very very very cheap. I'd pay $X each month to have full access to a record companies catalogue. Maybe even $X a month to have full access to a bands catalogue.... although would we not just be on there long enough to copy it all? Tell me you wouldn't.
Some industries have survived through piracy. The rental video industry (although apparently they make all their money from late fees)... um. Think of anything else?
Midnight Oil vs Olympics
At the closing ceremony of the Olympics (sorry about the lawnmower people.. or didn't you see it?) Midnight Oil played 'Bed's Are Burning'. They all wore black T-shirts with 'sorry' on them. It was a big screw you to John Howard, our Prime Minister for not saying sorry to Australia's original people. It was brilliant.
But not according to the press and 'the majority of people'. It was a disgrace they say. A blot on an otherwise brilliant show... 'We're not racist! How can you call us racist after the pride we have in Kathy? Not what after Kathy did? I mean really? What about Kathy?'.
It made me sick. So you love Kathy. Why wouldn't you? She's a legend and out performed the world in front of 110,000 people. But she's the only example you give. I'm sorry, but loving one Aboriginal does not mean you're not racist.
It isn't difficult to admire someone who performs well. It is far more difficult to admire those who suffer in the hidden slums of Sydney. Those the middle class prats of the press try to hide, try to ignore because it's just too hard.
And the 'majority of people'? A quick look at a survey of the best performers of the closing ceremony at Sony Music says 61% of people thought Midnight Oil ruled.
There is a lot further we need to go on the way to a better Australia, and Midnight Oil were the only ones to come out and say it in a moment when we're all blinded by sucess. Full points.
This article from the San Francisco Cronicle I read while there says it all. 'FIVE DAYS after arriving from San Francisco, I still had not seen an Aborigine in Sydney....'