Apple is working on a new digital music format
time.com
time.com
Bono, I will tell you a secret. It's the good music that's irresistible, not some DRM garbage which you don't even have the balls to discuss.
Imagine listening to a recording and going "ooh, that bassline", and then turning up the bassist and turning down everything else to hear it better. Or easily "remixing" while you listen by eg. applying a filter to only the drums. You could even save presets to listen to "your" mix of the song again. Maybe this only appeals to hardcore music fans, but I know it's something I'd love to play with.
Of course it would have to be supported by major user-friendly software like iTunes, and would have to implement a nice interface for interacting with a tracks. But I've always thought Apple was very well positioned to take this on, if they wanted to.
But very few artists are willing to publish the "source code" of their work.
The sad truth is that audio engineers are way better than anyone else in mixing the music and making it shine. The better approach is not to mess with that and just trust them.
The same thing goes for headphones. It's better to get something more or less neutral in the sound to listen music in the way is supposed to sound, not distorting it adding crazy bass.
People buy Beats because they like the way they sound (or because their idols use them). Even if you may think it's the same as ultra boost.
It's not about what sounds good, it's about what you think sounds good.
> The sad truth is that chefs are way better than anyone else in creating a delicious menu and making it shine. The better approach is not to mess with that and just trust them.
Who ever said that keeping people from dressing hideously or eating food that doesn't match was a good idea?
Some people might even make it sound better, but you're advocating we take that opportunity away from them without giving them the benefit of the doubt.
But releasing a format for music that works around the idea of "do your own mix", that's a different issue.
If some artist wants to do it, hey, that's totally fine. What I'm skeptic about is that it's the future of music.
But I think the larger point is that most artists and labels would hate this. To a singer, having someone hear your soloed vocal track is like being seen naked.
I think most artists view their records as being a single work of art. The song, arrangement, equipment, mixing, and mastering are all part of something bigger. Artists don't really want people to be able to break that apart. It's not meant to be experienced that way.
The problem is that record labels have bought into the idea that a record needs to be outrageously loud in order to compete on radio. And the labels are the ones paying the mastering engineers.
I don't know about electronic music though.
I don't know how many people would actually be interested in that, though. It would be targeting a segment of music listeners that are extremely engaged with their music. I don't know if that market is really big enough to overcome the growing preference for streaming services.
It's pretty interesting, although I don't know how much of an opportunity is there, for some of the same reasons mentioned in the other replies. Musicians and producers can be incredibly reticent about this stuff.
There are many things you can do that link purchased content with other content. Adding lyrics that appear in realtime would also be handy.
My ideas are now patented. Pay me 5% of all future sales please... Isn't that how patents work? State the obvious and rake in cash for doing very little?
There's a lot of noise in the digital music industry about high quality audio at present. U2 may be following in Neil Young's PONO footsteps.
There may be doubt whether high quality audio can deliver what it promises - i.e. an improvement over MP3 320 that is noticeable to normal people's ears. But the Pono kickstarter proves beyond any doubt that there's money it it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1003614822/ponomusic-wh...
The older members of the music-listening public are more likely to be audiophiles and have more money to throw at kickstarters from classic rockers. They are a bit slower to adopt new technologies, but are now fairly well on board with iPods and MP3s. However their ears aren't always high definition any more.
The younger members of the music-listening public don't really bother so much with the concept of "owning" music. It's like fresh air – so long at it's streaming at you, it's good and who cares about owning it.
No mass market for buying high-definition audio downloads is to be found in either category.
So, if your comment is going to follow the typical apple bashing, history ignoring model, just don't bother.
I simply don't see any static, local file format succeeding regardless of DRM-encumbrance. It's simply less useful to mainstream users than the streaming equivalent.
The battle isn't about which format your files should be in, it's about whether or not you have any files at all.
"Bono tells TIME he hopes that a new digital music format in the works will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music"
Stopping piracy isn't accomplished by punishing users, its done by making legitimacy easier/more appealing in the first place.
However, if it's truly irresistibly exciting, but $1.29 per song, that implies DRM, as one can safely assume the exciting aspect is not the act of purchasing the music.
The point in the article about the new format helping lesser known artists really shows just how little U2 and Bono actually get about the current state of the music industry. Artists are getting completely screwed by labels and must tour by necessity to make money. In fact, with the huge growth in the festival industry, small acts (and large acts of old) can make significant chunks of money they otherwise wouldn't. To Bono's point, Cole Porter could tour and make lots of money doing it today. He may not have wanted to, but it'd be possible. A new digital format isn't going to change that.
Was Cole Porter a performer? What I see after a bit of searching indicates he was a songwriter/composer, so what would be the attraction of a Cole Porter tour?
While I want everything to be open and interoperable, I personally work in a startup that aims to make profit. So I also understand the commercial reasons of proprietary technologies.
So, I am torn, what should be proprietary and what should be open?
Really, nothing should be proprietary, or at least not proprietary forever.Take note of Id Software's approach of open-sourcing their engines X years after release of the accompanying game.
If we keep releasing proprietary systems, nothing will be archived or usable in the future, if the source is never released. Hundreds of video games are going to be inaccessible in the future due to DRM servers, or proprietary backends.
I mean, I can ramble on forever, but it's pretty clear that non-free[1] software is bad for the future of people and society. Snowden proved RMS right.
[1]: Free as in freedom: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html (You can still charge money for free software or related services. Not everyone can run their own Google, even if they open sourced it all. But that's a whole 'nother set or arguments.)
(And there's almost as little chance that it is going to matter any more than the Apple/Bandai Pippin @WORLD.)
If Apple is actually involved in a more significant way than grudgingly acting as fluffer to Bono's fantasies of heroically saving a nonsensical[2] industry that briefly emerged as an artifact of technological limitations of the previous century, I would guess it is some kind of super-metadata-laden format that includes art/video/interview/extras, maybe including built-in remixability or something, that is designed (but unlikely) to entice users to buy even more DRM-free $1.29 songs than they already do in MP3/AAC.
[1]: http://macdailynews.com/2007/02/06/apple_ceo_steve_jobs_post... (Was astonished that Apple doesn't still host this, btw. But it's not gonna change.)
[2]: “Cole Porter wouldn’t have sold T-shirts. Cole Porter wasn’t coming to a stadium near you.” Right. So he would have sold his songs to somebody who was -- or else not made much money from it. So what. There are homeless drummers in SF better than Cole Porter, and no new media format is going to change any of that, nor should it.
Cassette tapes were better than vinyl records, because they were more portable. CDs were better than tapes, because you could skip tracks. Mp3s were better than CDs, because you could fit thousands of them in your pocket. But at each step of that progression, the sound got worse.
Young's testimonials are from professional musicians, the extremely small subset of the public that actually cares about the quality of the sound. These are not the people he needs to convince. This is obviously aimed at the general public, who have proven time and time again that convenience is king.
The vast majority of people can't tell the difference between an 16-bit, 44.1kHz, 192kbps mp3 and a 24-bit, 192kHz, losslessly compressed file.
I don't think the vast majority of people could either tell the difference or care about the difference between much larger compression gaps than that.
I received three free months of Sirius radio when I purchased a certified used car. After a few minutes of flipping through the channels, I couldn't understand why anyone would want to listen to such highly compressed music with tons of artifacts, yet lots of people pay for subscriptions.
If his ears can still tell the difference between "high-resolution" audio and MP3 320, then it is a miracle of geriatric audiological medicine. Seriously, medicine should get on that, there's something unknown to science going on there.
[steps off soapbox]
That said, I have a hard time seeing how a new digital music format is going to affect piracy at all. AAC is already technically superior to MP3, but everyone still trades MP3s.
And I really hope this is not a veiled reference to a new DRM format.
We have disgust for software piracy here (particularly if it something we have written), yet the same disgust DOES not translate to music or musicians. It is wrong.
I think it is an attitude that needs to change. And the argument that "if I like it, I'll buy it" is wrong too; do we all pirate Microsoft Office and decide if we'll buy it after using it for a while? I don't! I buy Office if I need Office / enjoy using Office (not likely with that daft ribbon interface!).
I am speaking a musician here: by the time you are earning an appreciable amount of money from album sales, you are no longer just "making a living". Most musicians that support themselves through music do it by touring and selling merchandise (including physical recordings), and musicians that get famous have usually been doing this for years before they start making money off of recordings. The only exceptions are "manufactured" pop stars, like Miley Cyrus or Ariana Grande, who get big contracts right away through high-powered connections and nepotism.
And yes, the record "fat cats" earnings are perfectly relevant in this situation. They are exploiting musician's work to become wealthy, and by supporting them, you are implicitly supporting their actions. If you want to support a band, go see their shows and buy their merchandise.
Before an artist earns money from album sales, they have to pay for all that stuff. When album sales drop, either the artists get less of all those things, or they have to pay for them from other revenue sources. Either way it's not good for them.
The idea that album revenues never did anything for anyone makes no sense.
Piracy makes for great exposure. You can't eat exposure though. At some point a band has to make money if it's going to make a living, and piracy has made a big dent in that, even for small labels.
As a musician who happens to work as a software developer in the live audio industry, I would disagree that the music culture harms musicians. I have plenty of recording gear myself and have recorded and mixed the bands I have played in (as a hobby) but I am not blind to the fact that a mixing engineer will likely make a better job of the mix than I will. (Some will disagree - listen to Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full for an excellent example of how mixing and mastering can destroy and utterly flatten a record).
However, if I were to ever be signed to a record label (a choice that I would have had to make, not by coercion) and sold records, I would be happy if people came to see me live. I would also be happy for people to buy my records - NOT pirate them. My time is not free. The mixing engineer's time is not free. The sound engineer's time is not free. The mastering engineer's time is not free. Do you think it is?
I would NOT be happy for people to be pirating my album. Why would you think that I would be?
I listen to bands that seem not to be touring the UK at the moment and haven't for some years. Does this mean that I can pirate their albums?
I listen to bands that are on small labels. Are the labels benefitted by me pirating the music they sell?
Are the bands benefitted by pirating the music they sell?
How do I listen to a band's music after seeing them live and going home?
All of the "fat cat" arguments are irrelevant - if the band/label have stated that you can buy the album (yes BUY the album), why do you feel entitled for the music for 0.00?
If a software house states that you can have their software for a fee (yes BUY the software), why do you feel entitled to the software for 0.00?
If a supermarket states that you can have their produce for a fee (yes BUY the produce), why do you feel entitled to the produce for 0.00? Do you only buy from "indie" food store because you object to some "fat cat" earning from you buying from a supermarket? Does the capitalist nature of food retail offend you? Does it entitle you to food for nothing from the supermarket?
If anything, piracy has had the effect of sky-rocketing ticket prices to see bands live. And this isn't the "BIG" names either in the pop genre. This is rock/prog/jazz artists.
I think it is INCREDIBLY naive to believe that piracy will suddenly make people choose "better" music (with "better" being entirely subjective). I think some jazz is pretty great, but do you see people going out and buying jazz? No? There's no money in jazz apparently. I like some prog rock. What about prog rock? No? According to you, people should be changing music tastes because of piracy... but I haven't seen it - have you? Has pop music plummeted in popularity? Is there something I have missed?
Do you really see music getting better? Production values might be (hurray for higher sampling rates, headroom and bit depths) but are we entering an era of incredible music changing the face of the world? No?
Apparently a huge shift in the (subjective) quality music is coming because of piracy. I will wait to see it.
Musicians and bands had been making a living for thousands of years before the recording industry was invented, and they will continue to do so for thousands of years after the recording industry has crumbled to the ground (mostly due to their own greed and stupidity). While the recording industry certainly allowed some musicians to become filthy rich, that was mostly through exposure. Musicians have never made very much from the sale of recordings alone, and have always relied on touring and merchandise for the majority of their revenue. Today, even very popular bands, the ones that get the juicy contracts, are making pennies on the dollar on the recordings they produce (and before this gets brought up, so are the engineers and producers, most of the money goes to marketing and distribution, and then a big chunk to the various executives and agents). The situation is much worse for smaller and rising acts.
The truth of the situation is that the recording industry and their distributors have been exploiting the labor of hard-working musicians for the last 100 years. Many of the old blues men from our earliest popular recordings were never even paid, although men that they never even met grew rich from selling their work. The recording industry has been selling the same snake oil to us sense then, just packaged differently according to the musical tastes of the time. There will always be a collectors market for physical recordings, but it is time that we acknowledge that digital content can be delivered for essentially zero marginal cost, and that free knowledge and art have cultural benefits that drastically outweigh any financial gains that may be made by restricting access to them. (And if you are someone that can only be swayed by economics, I would argue that by encouraging innovation and free exchange of ideas, you will reap greater economic benefits overall, even though certain industries may suffer initially.) Moreover, as an artist, by sharing my music for free, I feel that I am being much more honest and forthright with my audience and that am able to reach far more people than I would otherwise.
The only people really exploiting artists are recording industry executives. If you buy an album you like, instead of pirating it, you're taking advantage of those artists. Go see them play live or buy a fucking t-shirt instead.
"Buy a fucking t-shirt"? There are two possibilities.
1) The artist is signed to an exploitative label deal. If this is the case, the artist is not seeing any more money from that t-shirt than they do from an album sale. Nor are they taking home their gate, so seeing them in person isn't helping either.
2) The artist is signed to a limited or ethical deal. If this is the case, then they have a good relationship with their label, and pirating music will hurt them either directly (lost royalties) or indirectly (hurting the label and forcing succesful bands to sign with a major).
I'm sure you play music, but I think your sense of the industry is incomplete or not up to date.
Although I'd prefer not to dredge this into a petty back-and-forth ad hominem contest, it may be your sense of the industry that is incomplete. Many smaller labels are turning to free digital releases, treating these as a form of cheap and highly effective advertising, and still selling enough physical recordings and merchandise to make a profit, all while giving a larger portion of the revenues to artists. By presenting the situation as false dichotomy between "stealing from artists" or not, you ignore the fact that there may be a better model for the industry as a whole, with more equitable sharing of profits, and you also ignore the incalculable social benefits of free and open access to information and artistic works. In the real world, moral choices are complex, and often you are presented with the choice between two bad things, supporting a fundamentally corrupt and exploitative recording industry that is expropriating profits through collusion and unethical business practices or possibly taking some money away from some people.
No. You're putting words in my mouth, and are seemingly incapable of understanding that the works of small, struggling, middle class bands--the kind who have always treated each other well--ALSO get pirated, and that those declining revenues have an impact on their lives.
Bands and labels that are small, indie, and love their audiences are not fighting piracy because they don't want to demonize or create conflict with their fans. Their fans reward them for that by taking money out of their pockets by getting their albums for free from a pirate site instead of paying the actual artists.
And worst of all, they think they're doing the artists a favor by doing it!
Of course bands and labels are releasing music for free now. What other choice do they have?? You can't fight a tsunami. They are making do with less because they have to. That doesn't mean it's objectively a good thing for the industry or the artists.
You're not alone. There is this amazingly powerful Stockholm syndrome where young artists have been convinced by people way outside the music industry (primarily technology) to argue vociferously against their own self-interest.
It's one thing to choose to give away your music for free as marketing--that's always been legal and always will be. And it's not a new or innovative idea...the radio has been doing it for 50 years.
It's another thing if you're trying to sell albums, and the albums are really popular, but you're still not making enough to do basic middle-class things like buy a house, take a vacation, have kids, save for college, etc. Meanwhile, everyone else in the ecosystem gets rich: ISPs, electronics manufacturers, software producers, websites that run ads, etc. Music labels are not the only companies who can exploit musicians.
One thing that disappoints me is the way folders have stayed un-typed in OSes. I've always wished that the Reiser concept of "a file that contains files" had caught on, as that would be much more appropriate for packing metadata and other information unrelated to the main audio stream into an audio file container.
How does this differ from a ZIP file? (Keep in mind all modern OSes support treating ZIP files like directories.)
Second (and this is more a problem in Windows where the 3-letter extension is more important) the OS needs to know which tools it can associate with which type. If a file is a .zip, then it's a .zip and it can use zip tools. If it's not a .zip, it can use the file's own tools (like if it's some kind of music archive). But not both.
The problem with this is the concept of "files with subfiles" is not a thing outside of ReiserFS. Sure, if people used ReiserFS, they'd have this feature, but how would you transport such files between machines? You'd have to serialize them somehow: this is exactly what ZIP is.
(Remember HFS resource forks? Me neither. They suffered from exactly the same issue: ambiguous transport semantics.)
Optimizations around such things are exactly that – optimizations – and should not affect the semantics of the objects involved. The proper way to approach this is to decouple data storage from indexing from file semantics. Hence a better approach would be to permit access to contents of ZIPs using FUSE (on Linux) or what-have-you, and index the contents in a database like Spotlight (on OS X).
If a file is a .zip, then it's a .zip and it can use zip tools. If it's not a .zip, it can use the file's own tools (like if it's some kind of music archive). But not both.
Ignoring that OOXML (.docx etc.) already takes this approach (zipped XML files), the problem of allowing multiple different programs to access the same type of file is a minor enhancement to the OS. (I'm pretty sure you already can configure Windows to allow .docx to "Open With..." a ZIP program.) Supporting files-which-are-also-folders requires breaking quite a few more assumptions in OSes.
It seems like a misguided attempt by an out of touch group of 50-something marketing managers to be hip/relevant.
Hell, I'm almost 30 and few of my friends have any interest in U2. I just asked my 21 year old cousin and she can't name a single U2 song.
Maybe some of my contemporaries think this is interesting or cool, I just find it odd.
It seems like a misguided attempt by an out of touch group of 50-something marketing managers to be hip/relevant.
Beats was cool because Dre is a legend and a celebrity. I hope Apple starts using some of Beats' marketing people for their own brand.
I have no doubt this new codec will be proprietary, and only if it fails to gain any traction is there a chance of it becoming open.