Comcast P2P, Expensive Music Downloads — Consumers Always Pay

Ars Technica reported Comcast's announcement of its plan to lead an industry partnership in the creation of a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" that would apply both to users and to ISPs. I think client p2p sponsored or offered by telcos, cable companies and their ISP operations has been lurking in the shadows for some time. I also think that previously the perceptible delay or the palpable resistance to p2p functionality by the telcos has resulted largely from an inability of the telcos to devise a worthwhile monetization plan. The obvious financial gain resulting from bandwidth usage and the accompanying charges to customers doesn't offset the huge potential load that existing infrastructure and switching would have to carry. But now that all the telcos and cable providers have thrown down the gauntlet and declared, essentially, that net neutrality (another buzzword for sure) is here and in the process of being implemented, it's quite possible that p2p functionality will suddenly become viable (and specifically chargeable as a service distinct from texting, phone calls, voice mail, caller ID, etc.).

The other question that giants like Comcast have recently asked their legal staff is "Are we opening the company to legal action brought by copyright holders if we enable p2p?" The most frequent answer seems to be that as long as Comcast promotes the use of p2p functionality, and more important, as long as copyright holders and managers such as Apple (through its iTunes web site) are willing to pay Comcast a tithe to ensure customers have fast access to the iTunes site (thereby provide sufficient revenue to make infrastructure loading and improvements worthwhile), everybody's ass is covered. No lawyer can then make a case against Comcast for enabling illegal file sharing the day after the same legal staff approves a deal for Apple to pay a fee to Comcast to ensure that Apple customers who are also Comcast customers have fast access to the iTunes store.

It's initially a complex equation. The most worrisome factor might be the degree to which Comcast and its competitors decide to impose potentially invasive usage monitoring to ensure specifically that p2p usage remains legal and within the guidelines for Fair Use set out in section 107 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Is the potential sacrifice of privacy worth the dubious privileges conferred by paying for a p2p feature on your cell phone? Possibly worse still, what will bandwidth payments by Apple to Comcast do to the purchase price of music downloads?

In the end, consumers pay, then pay again, and then yet again. What's the real cost of a music download on iTunes in such a situation? After accounting for the small proportionate cost of your ISP contract, cell phone plan, data plan, p2p client fee, bandwidth charges if you go over a monthly limit, the cost of a song download, the cost for the time required to burn a CD at home (for those people who prefer to listen to a CD in the car), the cost of the CD itself, the proportionate cost of hard drive storage space and backup storage space, and the cost for the time needed to make redundant backups of Digital Rights Management (CRM) licenses, purchasing music online may not be the bargain anyone thinks it is.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a Big Fat Red Herring

C|Net, Ars Technica and many other technology and entertainment news and information providers have been hollering for years about the outrageousness of Digital Rights Management (DRM) imposed on purchased and downloaded music and video files. DRM, which essentially limits your ability to use or copy a downloaded music file on anything besides the music device for which it was meant, is and always was a red herring offered by a music industry that's suffering through a needlessly difficult transition. My take on DRM is much different.

I don't give a sweet darn about Apple, iTunes or Steve Jobs or whether or not the record labels do or don't still control the majority of decisions and directions in the music business. I don't care about DRM - at all! All I want is to be able to purchase and download high fidelity, 396Kbps variable bit rate MP3s instead of the lo-fi 128-196Kbps fixed rate garbage currently available. Until Apple and other major music sites, in partnership with the record labels, offer at least the same quality as I can currently get from a commercial music CD, what's the point? Of course the tracks only cost 99 cents each online because they're all just lo-fi crap. DRM? Who cares! Online music purchases are pointless in the first place not because of DRM but because the audio quality is terrible! So the labels lift DRM and we then rush online to purchase and download the same lo-fi (but un-DRM'd) tracks? Good lord, have we all gone crazy? If you want great quality, un-DRM'd music right now - today - from any artist you choose, just go to your local record store and buy a CD. When you get it home, you can RIP it at any quality you want and then listen to the music in your car, on your living room stereo, on your computer and on your portable music player. What's the problem?

Technology writers and music/media/entertainment writers talk about everything in this space except product quality. So are all of these paid writers simply unwitting pawns of the technology and entertainment companies? For pete's sake, get to the crux of the matter - the quality of MP3/music downloads - and put pressure on Apple, the other music sites and all the record labels to provide us with the quality we deserve in return for the outrageous amounts of money we're paying for all this stuff.

The music industry doesn't want us to think about quality. For the time being it's less expensive for them and their licensed partners to RIP and store in their online libraries lo-fi, low bitrate files, marketing them to us with the same energy and language previously reserved for high fidelity LPs and CDs. While the brick & mortar music business and distribution channels become financially unwieldy as more and more people move online, the music industry and the record labels worry about everything except product quality. It's pathetic. DRM? Even more pathetic. Like any DRM scheme is going to remain undefeated for more than 10 minutes? It's idiotic.

I'll pay for quality. We'll all pay for quality. Unless you're purchasing a commercial CD however, you're not going to find quality at an online music store unless you mail order a commercial CD. DRM is, and always was, a minor issue.

Legalized copying of HD-DVD and Blu-ray

There are rumours that some of the big sutdios are loooking at a licensing agreement that will allow users to legally copy HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs. This can be seen as recognition of the mess that is the current state of digital rights management. To be frank, I applaud any nod to the fair use of the media we buy.

Amazon Prepares to Sell DRM Free Music

According to The Times (UK), Amazon is setting up to challenge Apple with an offering of DRM free music via their online store. Amazon is apparently ready to launch next month, hopefully the content will be really DRM free rather than of a reduced variety. I'm watching, anyone else up for the competition...

EU Hits Out at Apple Over iTunes DRM

The European Union Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva lashed out at the way Apple locks iTunes users to its iPod music players. When users download music from iTunes, the songs are saved in a proprietary format which will only play on their iPod players.

In an interview published by the Geman magazine Focus, Kuneva was quoted as saying, "Do you think it's fine that a CD plays in all CD players, but that an iTunes song only plays in an iPod? I don't. Something has to change."

This statement reflect growing consensus amongst consumer advocacy groups in Europe, with many of them joining forces to put pressure on Apple. Groups in Finland, France, Germany and Norway recently agreed to work together in their battle against Apple and iTunes.

Non-Discriminatory Web

The father of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee told politicians at the US House of Representatives on Thursday that it was critical to protect the web from being control by a single company or country.

Berners- Lee stated in his conclusion that it was essential that "We ensure that that both technological protocols and social conventions respect basic values. That Web remains a universal platform: independent of any specific hardware device, software platform, language, culture, or disability. That the Web does not become controlled by a single company -- or a single country."

The full transcript of his testimony can be found here and it is well worth a read.

Music, Media and Money

I'm both fascinated and annoyed at many of the approaches to money making being taken by the music companies. They bitch and complain about piracy and to be honest they are probably right to a certain degree. However, I've been buying music for a long time, and much of my music until about 10 years ago was on vinyl. Every time a new device or media technology is announced, I cringe and think, "does this mean I'm going to have to buy all the music in my library again".

I've previously bought music on LPs, Tapes, CDs, DVDs and even the odd piece of digital music online and on memory card. I love gadgets like many others, however I can tell you this: I won't be jumping to, or spending a lot of money on new media. I'll continue buying CDs and ripping them to my media players. I'm happy enough with that.

Stop re-inventing the wheel. Frankly I'm sick of spending my hard earned money to make some fatcat music executive or lawyer rich. If you want me to buy music I already have, you've got to offer me a lot more than some new packaging or a "remastered" version. Invest some money in value added content and pay the artists more. You media moguls can certainly afford it.

In case you're wonder why I'm so pissed I sat down recently and figured out how much it would cost me to replace my record collection at £15 a CD. I freaked. Think about this a moment. The record companies sue the hell out of copyright violators and yet when it come to paying the creators of that same music, they drag their heels and cry saying the music business is expensive. Yet the RIAA and other organisations with similar interest have been trying to change the law as regards royalties so that they don't have to keep paying the creators of the music they're selling. Read this article over at IGN for more. It details that the RIAA recently petitioned judges to lower the royalties so that the record companies can make more money.

For another take on why the MPAA thinks piracy exists, read another article, again at IGN. It made sense to me.