We have just released my debut album as a FREE HQ Mp3 download.

It was a tough decision for us to make because of the vast amounts spent on the album. We had two of the biggest record producers in the world work on it…. at Peter Gabriel’s Realworld studio and at Abbey Road studio in london.

Despite all that, we recognise the massive potential the internet and free albums in particular offers. We launched last friday and have already had 1000′s of DL’s all over the world.

Come over and download for FREE.. it takes 2 minutes to DL because we have a dedicated server.

http://www.jackrubinacci.com
Thanks
Jack

If the future, music CDs will be advertising, or made purely for collectible value of the packaged componants (not the music data itself) after the musicians are already famous.

1) to be able to listen to music over the internet, you MUST download them and store the music at least temporary in RAM or permanently on HDD.
2) to sum the repeated point of this former ASCAP guy up:
He wants another levy that the consumer should pay, even though there are in many countries already special levies on blank disks for example in place that goes to those copyrightowners.

Looks to me that Mr. Lincoff just used this “steve jobs incident” to bring up his old “sweeze even more money from consumers” sheme again!
Since i can’t articulate my self as I would want, I just second Mguel Caetano’s #18 post.

I think your proposal is very well presented and you seem to give an answer to every possible refutation. The problem is I think you misguide what is at issue when it comes to the distribution of digital music, because you tend to place too much emphasis on the distinction between the audio service provider and the consumer. This is overlooking the fact that in a not-so distant future every consumer will also be a distributor. In fact, nowadays BitTorrent and eMule/eDonkey, the two biggest file-sharing networks, already require the uploading of content in order to download. Consequently, any business model that is based on streaming will be obsolete. Thus, relying on this scenario of massive broadband access, what matters the most is what amount should we, as citizens, pay for a flat license fee for the distribution of digital content. I don’t believe in a universal compulsory levy, either. Your proposal tackles very efficiently the problem of digital transmission of music. But music should not be treated independently from other sorts of “data”, like video and text. This is a very complex and intricate question that must be considered globally, with due care for society’s overall well being. Therefore, it is most of all a matter of public policy that should not be exclusively handed by the representatives of the different creative industries. Ultimately, it is a government’s responsibility.

Tough luck. Let the songwriters perform instead of relying on royalties. This is more damaging to industry-backed songwriter teams of the Brill Building sort, than independent artist who write and perform their songs.

Who cares if Britney Spears’ songwriters will feel unmotivated to compose due to diminished royalty profits? I don’t, as long as Cat Power still composes and tours.

You pay a monthly, or yearly fee and you gain access to a a large library of games, many of which are old school games that can be played for free in some cases, but it’s hard to play on Windows XP or any of the latest OSes.

I gladly pay to gain access to games I used to play but cannot now due to lack of compatibility, or even old arcade games you can’t find anymore.

Subscription services is the only way to go.

Really though, I don’t think there is a solution. I think music artists should make most of their money from touring anyway. There albums should merely be publicity to get more people going to their concerts. Let’s face it, when an artist makes a record, the work is done ONE time, then copied over and over and over for pennies – yet, it’s always sold at the same price ($10-$15). By the rules of supply and demand, shouldn’t buying a CD cost about a quarter? And you wonder why people pirate.. lol.

First of all, thank you for having taken the time to read my paper and to comment on it.

You have raised an interesting issue: What impact might the Darknet have in a world — unlike today’s — where licenses are abvailbe for sharing of music through P2P networks?

Under current circumstances, where licenses are not available for P2P (at least not the type of P2P that most consumers want — completely free of DRM) consumers are faced with an unappealing choice. Either stop using P2P, or continue using it but risk liability for copyright infringement. Copyright owners are within their “rights” to sue consumers who chose to share files through unlicensed P2P networks. Of course, as you know from reading my paper, I think that the industry’s campaign of infringement litigation against consumers is misguided and unfair; but my opinion does not change the legal foundation of the industry’s lawsuits.

On the other hand, if licenses for P2P were available along the lines that I suggest in my paper, I think it is fair to expect consumers to use licensed P2P networks (where the license would be obtained by the network operator on behalf of all of its users); or, if they participate in decentralized networks, to obtain the license in their own right (again, as I suggested in the paper). If licenses were available on reasonable terms, I would have little sympathy for individuals who chose to hide in Darknets merely to avoid paying a copyright license fee. (To be clear, I do not support the course the music industry has taken; but I fervently believe that public policy should strongly support the opportunity of music industry rights holders to earn ample rewards from their contributions to commerce and culture.)

The music industry must take the chance that if given the choice, the vast majority of consumers will participate in networks that are licensed. I don’t doubt that there will be many who will chose the Darknet route rather than participating in licensed services and networks. But, as I said in the paper, the digital transmission right cannot be subverted by one (or even many) unlicensed sites, services or networks. This is an important way by which the new business model I propose is distinguished from the music industry’s traditional sales-based revenue model.

All else being equal, I think it would be wrong for consumers to turn away from licensed services and use infringing services instead. In any event, those who do infringe will run the risk of being discovered and sued by the record labels (or by other music industry rights owners)for copyright infringement.

Evian’s doing fine.

No, it’s a conscious decision to get access to the culture and knowledge that is interdicted to the humanity’s great majority, because of a prohibitive price that is fixed by a oligopoly-controlled market. And that is something that is often forgotten by those who criticize “piracy”, because they don’t know what is to be economically and culturally underprivigiled. That is why I think a voluntary global license is the only solution to the P2P conundrum. Otherwise, it will be worthless.

And the industry has never lost a penny though me but gained alot.

The use of P2P networks is a concicous decision to break the law. I’d bet most people don’t copy their DVD’s and put them onto BitTorrent.

They would happily download them however. who rightly invalidates a license they have? It’s NOT the majority that the RIAA would have you believe.

I haven’t brought a single track from the RIAA companies since this became an issue to me a few months ago. I doubt i ever will again.

Or did I just misunderstand Ernesto’s introduction?[/quote]

Let me clarify. The open letter is quoted in the post, and is a reaction to Jobs statements. The white paper was already there.

Or did I just misunderstand Ernesto’s introduction?

Quality, availability and pricing are the keywords. I bet that quite a lot of people are willing to pay for downloads if the quality is good (so no DRM) and the price reasonable.

The music industry needs to compete with piracy.[/quote]

will still be hard to compete with FREE, especially when people have become so used to it having done it for so many years.

Navin over at BT Inc. said it well though, that a service has to provide a valuable and worthwhile alternative to piracy if it is to succeed.

You’ve said it all, man. I still hope someday they’ll see that it’s just that simple.

Quality, availability and pricing are the keywords. I bet that quite a lot of people are willing to pay for downloads if the quality is good (so no DRM) and the price reasonable.

The music industry needs to compete with piracy.

I read your white paper with great interest, and while i’m not fluent in English, especially with Law-related terms, I think I managed to understand most of it.

There is however one question I could not find an answer to : how would you propose to regulate the future of Peer-to-Peer sharing, which would probably be “Darknets”.

Let me try to explain : how would you enforce the Digital broadcast licence in a decentralized peer-to-peer network using encryption and onion-routing technologies ?

These technologies are designed to anonymize all digital transfers in a way no one, not even the emitter or the receiver, can know “where” the file came from.

These technologies are already available to the technical-savvy users, and will be used in the next-generation of consumer-level peer-to-peer networks, meaning that in some years from now, it will be quite impossible to estimate the nature of network streams between users.

And I bet these users will use that anonymity to share music or other copyrighted works without paying any licence.

Thanks for your time,

Mister F.