From: "jondl" <
jondl@...>
> tomfinegan@... wrote:
> >
> Still i don´t understand, why the major
> > record companies don´t try to use this more often to attract more
> > ppl
>
> Because the major label's in association with the RIAA (boo, hiss) have to
> kill every good idea that comes along under the guise of copyright
infringement!
>
> The RIAA is solely responsible (well, them and the US Congress) for the
> advent of the SCMS protocol that crippled DAT from becoming a widely
> used consumer format and priced the early DAT machines out of the reach
> of ordinary musicians. MP3 scares the s∗∗∗ out of them and there is
> currently resumed litigation between the majors and MP3.com. They can't
> stand the fact that someone else can get their fingers into the
> distribution of music beyond their control. It completely breaks up the
> status quo and dominance of the majors. Yeah!!!! Have you heard the
> crap being played on american radio lately?!?! The majors no longer
> have a clue.
The case of the RIAA versus MP3.com is rather clear. MP3.com put 45,000
commercial, copyrighted CD's online. These are CD's from the traditional
record companies, not from MP3.com. Now you must have the original CD to
download the MP3's, but fact of the matter is that they infringed the
copyright. There's no doubt about that.
Did they have to do this? No.
Was this very stupid? Positively so.
Another reason why DAT failed is because it's expensive, cumbersome (it's
still a tape), it wears easily (rotating heads are always good for high
costs), different sampling rate (48 kHz instead of 44.1 Khz) and it wasn't
that much better than compact cassette.
Sound quality wise, yes, but regarding the fact that most people wouldn't
know if their speakers are in phase, they don't really care about the
superiour sound quality of DAT, they just want to listen to music.
DCC again was a tape, and it also failed. MiniDisc, although it had a slow
start, has become a success, and it also has the SCMS protocol. So my guess
is that SCMS wasn't the sole reason why DAT failed.
About MP3.com, they're just as commercial as record companies. They just
took a different posture, just like some bands (Metallica, Sex Pistols) sell
a lot of records with their anti-establishment posture.
> In addition, they're feeble attempts to enact a watermark security layer
> for encoded music distribution is a joke!!! Liquid Audio already does
> it - and does it better than anything this collective has prescribed.
> Roland and Emagic have already joined up with Liquid Audio creating
> interfaces from their hardware and a software DAW's to the Liquid Audio
> specification. I only hope other big names join in.
The trouble with encoded audio is that it has to be decoded somewhere along
the stream. And you can always pick it up at that point. Hey presto,
unencoded, high quality digital audio.
> MP3 may not be perfect but look at your alternatives :-(
I like CD's. :) I've found that, after downloading an MP3 file, I want to
have the record. And I mean the whole record, including cover art, booklet,
print on the CD... I suppose the record companies would stuff MP3 down our
throats if everyone was like me. :)
- Peter