The BBC news reported that
“Virgin and Universal have signed a deal that will give the ISP’s customers access to “unlimited” music.
For a monthly fee, Virgin’s broadband customers will be able to download or stream as many MP3 files as they want.
As part of the deal, Virgin has pledged to aggressively police usage to stop the MP3 tracks turning up on file-sharing networks. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8100394.stm
So we pay a flat fee if we want to download music & that goes to the record company who, I’m sure, will pass it on to the musicians, presumably like subscription radio.
I can see a few problems with this, especially as artists are using the big companies less & partly because downloads aren’t exclusively saleable content but it might be a way forward.
Steve 2:06 pm on June 17, 2009 Permalink |
thanks a lot for posting this D_M,
it’s the confluence of the term ‘unlimited’ with ‘agressively police usage’ that seems like a total non-starter. It’s a land-grab, with DRM by the back door (or even DUM – Digital usage management – that seems to fit better) – the idea being that ‘if you’re going to get it, we’ll make you pay for it’, the ‘we’ being the labels, not the artists. As you point out, this means that anyone wanting to get onto that service has to do a deal with Universal for digital distribution. Not a company with a particularly glowing history of championing the underdog, empowering indie musicians and undermining their own iniquitous power-base.
It also says nothing about the value of the music as culture. The whole message is ‘get what you want, so long as you get it from us, don’t go straight to the artists, make them come through us, don’t think about the cultural value of this, just download it, listen, but don’t you dare share the MP3s with your friends, or we’ll sue your arse‘
It stinks.
Steve 12:03 am on June 19, 2009 Permalink |
…alternatively, they could just sue each of us for 2 MILLION dollars, and make their money that way..
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10268199-93.html
scary scary stuff. V. difficult to believe. How do these people sleep at night??