Prince is threatening to sue a raft of major websites, including YouTube, eBay and Pirate Bay, as part of a legal initiative to "reclaim the internet" from rampant piracy. Is the Purple One going a bit too far or is his claim legitimate?

He's nuts.

There is a growing movement of people, who realize it's completely possible to leverage the nature of the Internet. It's also been demonstrated repeatedly that one can compete with free as well.

(free as in others giving your stuff away)

One very fine example of this is Cory Doctorow. He publishes in physical form, and that's where his revenue is. All his works are CC licensed, permitting derivatives (given the result is CC licensed as well!), translations, and transcodings to other formats, means and methods.

Rather than have lots of people running "get your Cory books here sites, with ads, he chooses to run a very nice site where all the derivatives, translations and transcodings of his works can be had for free. One can make a purchase or donate to the CC foundation there as well.

Result: I get to read his books in iPod notes format, listening to my favorite tunes on the go at the same time. Download a book, do whatever I want with it, then upload, if I want to, the result to Cory for others to enjoy.

He gets all the attention and leverages free to sell books, at the least show you his own ad, and you are completely free to pass his works around to others, thus marketing him nicely.

(and this is exactly how I got turned on to his great fiction stories.)

In the end, books are still better than electrons, so a lot of people buy and download as their needs permit.

A download costs him nearly nothing, but a physical book costs plenty. Leveraging the attention brings a return on the download, and makes more physical sales possible, sans ad and promotion budgets normally linked to this activity.

Prince can sue all he wants. The net is global and appears to not respond well to having it's core value changed for reasons that are growing more out dated and less viable every day.

Adapt or die, paying the attorneys on the way out.

Also, with all his music talent, how come he just can't release some great tunes and not sweat his older works so much.

The two need to have lunch, IMHO. Prince has a style that is perfectly suited to the Internet. This combined with a site that offers his talent up, mixed with some news and commentary, would really boost his image and do it on the cheap.

Pay 10 geeks to just hammer the net with his stuff, pimping his site for a year instead of the attorneys. It's like money in the bank, given he actually steps up and adds some value.

And that's the kicker for me. It's growing more apparent that adding value is where the dollars will be going forward. New works grow easy to produce, there are far more venues, many outside the traditional structures, and a growing sea of competitors. New will continue to get old quickly. Old is rapidly growing to be worthless.

Value comes from people. If they work at it, they will make a great living. If they don't...

they can gamble with the attorneys.

The Capitalist formerly known as the Artist formerly known as Prince.

Prince was among the first to have a website(NPG)where fans could order "Internet only" released albums, songs, and radio shows, Prince found a way to cut out the middleman and reach fans directly and also make a lot of money thru the net. Why the slap in the face to his fan base now?

Yeah, I don't get it.

He clearly did.

IMHO, he's in a slump and is expressing his denial through litigation.

I tried to watch a new DVD the other night. I swear, there were probably 20 minutes of anti-piracy garbage, including those old-style VHS-reminiscent "FBI Warning" screens, 'this disc is copy-protected' screens, even a presumably teen-leaning 'downloading is illegal' commercial.
I really miss VHS... you could fast-forward through all the garbage, including the lame, flavor-of-the-week movie trailers "Coming Soon to Theaters, Spring 1993."

The problem is you've always been able to make a copy for your own personal non-commercial use... it's called fair use. A lot of movie studios and record companies seem unaware of it, or are trying to scare the public to increase sales.

I've talked to people that say since they downloaded things, they were more likely to go out and buy whatever they downloaded, and they find out about other music and movies to buy that they didn't know about previously, whereas they wouldn't have bought anything if they were staring at the shelf in a store.

Also talked to people that say they won't download anything - they really want that physical medium it comes on, along with all the packaging and the occasional special features.

There's a third group - people that say that they used to not have a problem with it, then decided that it wasn't fair to the 'poor, starving artists' and the 'service workers that make minimum wage.' This in despite that almost all the cost of CDs and DVDs go to the companies' bottom line (and the CEOs already fat wallet), while the artists and the support folks that don't even make it to the "special thanks" lists nobody reads (unless you're looking for Bill Prescott's name in a Tesla album) receive a few pennies - probably one of the reasons why Music Millennium closes because they're selling CDs for $13.99 while Circuit City and Best Buy are hawking discs for $9.99 or less.

Most people are becoming wise to all this, and even some are looking at their 401(k)/IRA investments and wondering "how much of my money supports this crap?"

Wow, if this didn't turn into a rant, I dunno what is... better stop now before my keyboard gives out (or the Internet Police close in)!

I rip a lot of DVD's, just so I can watch the movie only.

Also helps to use an open DVD player. For a long time, I ran Ogle on Linux. Was excellent. Three keystrokes and you are looking at the movie, no matter what the author of the disc put in the way.

Current licensing terms mandate players obey user restriction attributes applied to the content. This is why many Disney releases roll through 12 minutes of selling to you before you get to actually consider the content you paid for.

No thanks!

I continue to buy physical media often. I simply want something I can rely on. Current DVD and CD media is open enough to permit me to transcode, time shift, etc... however I see fit.

Digital media downloads do not always offer that option, and tend to get lost, won't play on all devices, etc...

Pain in the arse. Far easier to just buy the little plastic thing and get the bits off of it.

Speaking of P, did he ever retain the rights to all his masters? I remember the whole Warner Bro's feud he had in the 90's over who owned what etc...

If anyone watched the lecture circuit footage of Kevin Smith ( It's on DVD - I forget the name ) he tells a long story about how he was recruited by Prince to film a " Listener Party/ CD release " at Paisley Park Studios. For various reasons, it was filmed, but Prince refused to release it. He REALLY likes to have a LOT of control over his own stuff. He's got vaults FULL of unreleased videos, albums, everything.

It's really revealing about what kind of person Prince was at the time.

My dvd player allows me to fast forward, even skip a "chapter" of which the first 2 or 3 are the anti piracy stuff, ads for new movies etc.

Takes about 5 seconds. A lot less time than ripping the dvd, and its legal.

I have an older DVD-Video player, a '99 APEX AD500W, and I can do the same with it. What's really cool is it has a menu system called "PBC", in a tab-window layout kinda' like how Firefox works. Shows you the play time of a particular title, sound format, video format, and other technical stuff. If I need to (and I sometimes do) I can simply locate "Title 2" (or wherever) and start playing the movie right away.

I don't *think* it is fully DMCA-compliant.....I have been able to successfully record DVD-Video to VHS tapes (hey!? I do it for my grandparents!) and not have the colour drop out.

Oh yeah, I can also skip past the proverbial "FBI Anti-Fair-Use Warning", trailers and other junk in mere seconds.

(If anyone reading this should chance to come across one of these machines used somewhere--like Goodwill--and it's in good repair, definately buy it.)

Ripping a DVD is legal.

Distributing the result, as well as the "device" used to do the rip. If you roll your own, you are legal, period.

Also legal is transcoding, and that's moving your DVD to another format for use in your hardware devices.

I also do the rips for kid handling. It sucks to have made movies available, only to have them damaged from handling, so I just don't generally do this.

The APEX machines were great, as they did often suppress macrovision, and largely ignored the user restrictions.

The APEX is still kickin'. It has a thin layer of dust collecting on it (hasn't been used in a while.) I would have to say its one shortcoming is its MP3 audio demuxer. If you haven't heard MP3 audio playing back one one of those first-gen APEXes, well let's just say it makes an MP3 file playing back over a cellphone speaker sound like a big stereo system!!

"Distributing the result, as well as the "device" used to do the rip. If you roll your own, you are legal, period. Also legal is transcoding, and that's moving your DVD to another format for use in your hardware devices."

Definately, especially on the part about handling. I have recorded pretty much *all* my DVD-Video titles (that's about 20 at last count; mostly documentaries and motocross films) to VHS tape. (In fact, lately I have found myself using "Digital 8" instead of VHS since I got a new camcorder about a month ago.)

Thing is, VHS doesn't skip or "lock groove" if the tape is scratched. Basically shelf the original and wear out the tape. And when the tape is worn out to the point it won't play back well any more, I just go down to Walgreen's and spend $1.50 for a new tape and record a new copy.

Hey...it makes far better economic sense than spending $25 for a new copy on disc when the original gets damaged somehow!!

Prince also GAVE his last CD ( which was a very good recording ) away for free. People who are used to being able to profit off him freaked out. ( Legitimate, but hard to cry over ). As did other artists. ( They said it undermined the value of recordings - which made me laugh ).

He also has gone about as far as any touring performer can go to reduce the ability of scalpers shafting fans for tickets.

I don't know, he's trying to get what is his - and if he wants to give some things of his away, but not other things, that seems reasonable to me. Fair even.

Radiohead's new way of releasing music should be much more interesting; Let fans decide how much to pay for the MP3 download of the entire album. Right off the bat I know I'll pay 20 bucks. I like them. I want to support them. If it's half as good as a couple of their other albums, I'll tip them 10 bucks. They are putting their money where their mouth is.

I can meet them more than halfway on that. I wouldn't do it for very many bands. ( 10 or so at the most ) but Radiohead are working VERY hard to change things within the industry and they are doing it with self-effacing, lack of ego ways. I respond to that and will support it.

Amen.

This is an extremely smart move on their part. Chickenjuggler, you might enjoy this post I made to Ars Technica in 2000 or so...

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/174096756/m/544098989?r=178096999#178096999

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quote:

The RIAA is going to slit their own throats because they want to be the exclusive distributor of music to the masses period. Napster just destroyed that, but they don't see it --yet. This is not about lost revenue, because they really are not losing that much with Napster around. They are losing potential revenue; however, they have to be smart enough to reach out and take it.

Right now they are looking old, behind the times, and greedy. Just the way they always have been, but now Jow Q. Public knows it. That's going to be really hard to shake now with a reasonable offer on the table.

Somehow they (the RIAA) believe that they are going to squelch Napster, and at the same time come up with an alternative that everyone is going to like. A scheme that they came up with because they are distribution in their view. Something hip, new and of their own invention.

Problem with this is that people are using something that has been talked about for ages. Access to the music catalog on a track by track basis, without the usual hassle of finding something not on the top 100. This is here now and it is Napster, and I for one am quite willing to pay for it as I can get a very large selection of music that I can't get anywhere else. This is worth $10 a month to me. Anyone that says otherwise is about as greedy as the RIAA, or holds a very long grudge that they think somehow entitles them to something.

It could go this way...

1. RIAA -vs- Napster.

2. Napster gets neutered.

3. The slightly smarter consumer goes to one of at least 10 alternatives, or at the least just starts trading tracks through ICQ or something similar.

4. RIAA and friends push hard for content controlled inferior means of distribution. In doing this they blow much of the gift that Napster offers in the first place, but they take the long view, and decide maybe it is worth it, after all if they are the only means of distribution, even if it sucks, they will win in the end.

5. The slightly smarter consumer just moves the content off the content controlled platform, if they even buy any of it, and goes about business as usual...

6. The Fed watches in amusement as the battle goes on and on and on...

7. SDMI arrives stillborn, and is "supported on the windows platform", new players sporting lots of colorful logos appear. The slightly smarter consumer asks "Why?" I have that now!

8. The hardware guys don't like any of this so far because they just want to sell things, and the only way that works for the masses is if it is simple. People buy their stuff now, anything that makes that harder is not in their interest so...

9. SDMI gets about as much attention as AM Stereo did.

10 The Fed decides that they have been here before, and lays down the law. People like Hatch see that they can actually make some rules, and look good to the voters, so they do what they can to please the largest number of them. Soft money only goes so far. When push comes to shove, the RIAA does not have the numbers voterwise so they get the shorter end of this exchange.

11. Through all this the slightly smarter consumer has already found and mastered a number of alternatives. The hardware guys cater to these people as they are actually buying things. Easy, simple things, just the way they like to make them.

12. It takes the RIAA 10 years to pay off their investment in SDMI due to the lack of paying users on the "New Legit and improved" Napster like service that is essentially the same one that they could have just used 3 years ago. But again they take the long view and realize that they are getting paid anyway. Still bites them in the ass that it was not their design though.

13. RIAA licks wounds, and begins to market around the new service, and gets sued by the mainstream retailers, because of unfair competition and price fixing. RIAA is seen as trying to milk an old business model at the expense of their partners.

14. New labels sprout up that utilize an alternative distribution model. Reasonably easy online exposure, and marketing, along with free samples makes for a hit. They partner with Amazon, and those same angry retail outlets funding their law suit. Eager to level the playing field the new labels are more than happy to invest a little as they are now beginning to take the long view of things... Because they are young, and can adapt they are confident that they can compete in the new more open distribution channel, their future looks bright indeed.


In the end, people are going to get what they have now. Access to a large music catalog unfettered with albums, and unwanted tracks. The hard truth here is not ethically correct, but simple. The service and technology is here now. Somebody is going to use it, and they are going to continue to use it. Somebody will force the issue, but they are not going to just make a new thing like this go away because everybody wants it. Would be political suicide.

Does the RIAA want their share now while pickings are good, or later when they have to fight with new strong competition?

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Sorry for the double post, but this is a topic I really enjoy. We are living in interesting times, getting to watch history being made. It's just cool.

I've also written a ton here on radio being a means to aggragate and distribute "cool", "Hip", essentially relevance.

This ties into the Radiohead move big.

Playing recordings is suffering the same value propsition loss that distributing recordings is. We all are carrying around portable devices that can play recordings for us. Those devices can be loaded with daily content for relevance as well.

So, radio has a problem; namely, how to add significant value.

That's where people come into play. Going forward, there is a growing pool of recordings. Some are worth a lot, some worthless. Smart people, able to make solid judgements about these recordings, add the value of context. From there we get "cool", and that's worth tuning for --worth a lot more than just recordings are.

Let's say Radiohead sees significant success. (I think they will) Now, they are directly addressing people, using the internet instead of the radio, to distribute the idea they are "cool" and demonstrating their work has value above and beyond others.

How is cool communicated?

People can just go sampling stuff and find cool, but that takes time and there is a not of not so cool stuff to pick through. Ugh...

People can talk to other people, and sample far fewer things to find cool. This happens now and will only continue big.

Radio then, needs to be populated with people doing this sampling. Listeners then can "talk" to the people and get their cool served to them on a platter! Huge value add.

Any radio station wanting to get in on this needs to be playing radiohead, and they need to be linking to the radio head site, as well as their own to help people find the cool, maybe win a prize and listen to an ad too.

The nice thing about this approach is that the major labels are just not a factor any longer. Artists and radio then do their own thing, no payola, no hassles, just people doing what people do; namely, consuming and making judgements and exchanging value.

Also, I think VT would do just fine here. I know that's not popular, but it's actually reality. If one consumes a daily podcast, containing cool, it's pretty damn relevant. The difference between this and "live" is really small. Small enough to not be a big deal, for all but a few cases.

Live still has the edge, largely because being the first to consume cool stuff has a lot of value. Why? Because then one can talk it up and become somewhat cool! That's worth more than a large percentage of us are willing to admit most days.

So, radio then can employ the same damn network to leverage their talented and cool people, and most importantly, their judgements all over the place.

Again, the subscription podcast is lining up to be extremely potent. Get your daily cool, delivered on your device nearly hassle free, or listen to the ads and get it for free on your local radio station.

A mix of live and VT in every market will prove to be a valuable source of talent and cool to be so distributed.

That all is powered by the "I heard it first" value add. Those subscribers, or live listeners will get to sample the coolest of the cool first and talk it up, or at the least get connected somehow.

Powerful stuff!

With the digital radio coming online, and extra channels, I still say the time to get this rolling is right fricking now. Load up those HD2's with cool people, make their podcast available free on a delay, or immediate for a small subscription and watch as the whole dynamic self selects the coolest people and stuff.

A few centralized payment and distribution systems developed for both radio and podcasters would be all that is required to focus this and make it more valuable than the pool of recordings available otherwise for free, if one is really wanting to just go dig through the crap.

There is one other element here, in play as well. That is cool only lasts for so long, then it's still cool, but it's old news kind of cool.

Back catalogs then are only really valuable when presented in an easy to use manner, searchable, and cost per track is very reasonable.

That's allofmp3.com, BTW. Best there is and about to come back online!

Free is here and it's not going anywhere soon. Competing with it is actually really easy. Make your stuff easy to consume, get your name known for the source that it is, leverage "new" to the fullest and also leverage "relevance" in the same fashion.

Artists making their wares available on their sites, and via searchable pools, with a revenue split, will make more than they will dealing with the *IAA overhead machine, particularly if they are not total mainstream artists.

The chance to attach relevance to ones works is largely denied to artists right now. Look at what happened to the Dixie Chicks. They sold a lot of CD's and a lot of people know them now that didn't before, but the return on that was the majors discouraging their works going forward.

If they were to do what Radiohead is doing, they then can address those relevant people directly and not worry so much about what the majors think. We will see better works, they will see more dollars and everybody, but the old school *IAA organizations will be happy!

Dammit! Third post.

Wonder why I will spend time on this subject?

I know we will hear better music works, if the dynamic I posted above, gets into greater play. This self-selecting machine will beat the corporate judges every time, and it will serve a far greater variety of people.

Mainstream will change and I'm eager for that change as I am very tired of what is being sold as mainstream right now.

That's it really.