If you pirate music, you're downloading communism!

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On 30 Mar 2009, at 06:33, Steve Pond wrote:
> I think the subscription model exists because it's easier to
> administer, imagine how many people there are on the planet listening
> to media.  Pay per listen/view is not practically possible on a large
> scale yet. (The yet is the scary bit, when they have that amount of
> personal control we're doomed)

Oh, we're doomed anyway -- I just need to figure out how listen to as  
much music as possible before the axe falls .... ;)

Subscription is surely easier to administer, and might work for the  
vast majority of casual listeners -- those who just let the hits  
float by on mainstream radio.  Though for the rest of us ... well,  
I'd blow up my television except that I do like to watch the BBC news  
channel and every once in a while there's a good documentary  
somewhere.  Films and series ... well, my schedule isn't organized  
enough to catch them on TV, so I usually just wait for the DVDs to  
become available.  The picture quality is better anyway!

So the problem with my TV subscription is that only a very small  
amount of what I actually want is available through it.  Maybe other  
cable/satellite services have better stuff, but I'd have to changed  
around from subscription to subscription -- and they're probably not  
that different.  Maybe to buy a package with one extra channel I  
wanted, I'd have to likewise accept a whole bunch of other channels I  
don't care about.  And even the channel I wanted probably shows  
drivel most of the time, along with a few shows I would like.

And, then, in any case if I move or the subscription provider goes  
bust or gets bought, or decides to reorganize its offerings, then all  
"my stuff" gets lost or changed or heaven knows what.

So my fear with music subscription is, basically, that it will suck.   
I fear there will be various subscription services, with different  
stuff, and none will have everything I want.  They'll go bust or I'll  
have to re-subscribe to something else for some reason, and "my music  
collection" will get blown away or be changed under my feet.  Maybe  
someday this problem can be solved by a more pervasive and reliable  
internet and better systems (of storage, delivery, payment, etc.) ...  
but I think that day is still some ways off.  Too far off for the  
music industry to sit on its collective arse waiting for it -- and  
definitely too far off for me to get enthused about a subscription  
service anytime soon.

For the foreseeable future, I think music has to be sold as units,  
and if those units are not encoded on some kind of physical delivery  
media (be the medium vinyl or CDs or whatever) then it needs to be  
sold as files.  I think that's the only way that one can reliably  
deliver the product to the customer so that the customer can use that  
product whenever they want.

Still, I did like one of the general ideas I read in that James Love  
article that FOFP recommended.  It suggested that everyone would have  
to pay a fee for massive P2P style music access, but that there could  
be an element of user choice in to whom you paid that fee.  So, maybe  
you have to pay a fixed monthly fee for "access to everything" -- but  
perhaps you could directly decide to pay your favorite artists, or  
you could pay a particular collection agency that distributed the  
money to artists in some particular way: to retired blues musicians,  
or African jazz musicians, or to those musicians whose music was most  
downloaded, or to those musicians whose music was least downloaded :)  
or whatever.  I kind of like this kind of model.  It gives me access  
to piles of music and allows people to be compensated, but leaves  
some user choice in how that compensation was made.  So, perhaps I  
might download 100 songs in a month -- probably I'm not that  
interested in most of them, and never listen again, but perhaps  
there's one band that I really liked.  Well, I could send them my  
monthly fee.  Perhaps next month another band might get the fee  
instead.  Or I could divide the fee percentage-wise between all the  
artists in my iTunes library (or all the artists, depending on how  
often I played their song). Or perhaps I downloaded a bunch of songs,  
but really liked the 20% of songs all of which were from a bunch of  
bands in some new genre I'd just discovered.  Well, I could pay the  
fee through an agency that supported that genre.  That would be kinda  
cool.  On the artist side -- well, still have to make songs that  
people liked, and probably associate myself with some collection  
agencies that would pay be for genre-based stuff, etc.  I guess these  
agencies would end up being a bit like record labels, but they'd at  
least be coming to the user cap-in-hand ("please send us your fee  
this month").  That might force them to be a little nicer -- at least  
to the consumer!

Doubtless there are some problems with the implementation there, but  
I like the concept, anyway.


> I think eventually we will have a tiered pay per listen/subscription
> model though, just like satellite TV now, you can choose to pay per
> film, or if you watch a lot of films subscribe to everything.


Though I never get pay-per-view films, since they're usually less  
convenient and lower quality than a DVD.  And, if I like the film and  
expect to watch it a few more times in the course of my life, then  
the DVD works out cheaper, too.  (Owning the film as a downloaded  
file or files would, as far as I'm concerned, be just as good as  
owning the DVD.  Better maybe -- you could sell me the basic film  
cheap -- thereby, perhaps, making me more likely to give it a try --  
and then sell me the commentaries and extras and stuff additionally,  
if I turned out to be a fanboy.)


> There would still be nothing to stop bands selling "artifacts" direct
> to fans,

Though there could be, depending on how their contracts with the  
subscription services were framed!


> but I think the days of raid fandom are over for anyone under
> the age of 25. They have too much media squirted at them & have no
> need to obsess like maybe we did... :o)


;)  I dunno.  People probably thought that we were being overwhelmed  
with media when television first went mainstream, too. And for  
another thing, did most people ever really have a need to obsess --  
or is that just the people that we, who inhabit this obsessive list,  
knew?  Surely most people just cruised along through life, letting  
those hits float by on the radio.  They heard "Silver Machine" a few  
times in '72, and "Reaper" a few times in '76, and have never  
obsessed about anything.  But, equally, for those who still have that  
obsessive streak, I just think the things of which one can become a  
fan are now much more diverse.  People under 25 do still become rabid  
fans of, say, video game franchises -- ya know, ya gotta get the  
latest version of "Semi-Nude Vampiresses Defend the Post-Apocalyptic  
World from Giant Killer Alien Monsters"! (OK, not a great title, but  
a sure-fire hit game concept! :)).

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
http://www.carlaz.com/