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OPINION TRUTH or LIES in the music business. There’s a fundamental discrepancy in the logic of the RIAA’s arguments against file downloading. Consider: iTunes recently announced that it was adding Podcasts to its product range (originally, iTunes sold only music tracks, priced per track). So now, Podcasts will be sold by the download. But who is it that produces Podcasts? It is almost entirely amateurs, with a handful of really large players (the BBC has recently entered the market with Podcasts of its radio and TV programmes). And what is in the ever-more-popular music Podcast? Tracks, of course, probably downloaded from the Net. So, just as Podcasts begin really taking off, the RIAA begin court action against downloaders! Then there’s radio. Once, the RIAA could claim that recording music from the radio wasn’t the same as downloading because the radio was inherently less-than-acceptable quality. There’s some truth in this. But now, radio is going digital. (See note , right) With digital radio, it will be simple to rip the radio station directly onto your hard drive. Then with a bit of simple editing you have a ready-made bank of tracks. Just eliminate the ones you don’t want. Then, you could use them to make a Podcast. And suppose you make that Podcast available over the Internet. And then are the RIAA going to sue you for filesharing? What, precisely, is the difference between making those songs available as a podcast, and the radio station broadcasting them? Only time-shifting! It’s rather like the RIAA suing TIVO for providing equipment that allows the time shifting of TV programmes. |
Digital Radio Europe is way ahead of the US in this respect. Way back, Europe got rid of its obsolete television band, the one still used in the US, and opened it. Instead, for a new digital radio service called ‘the multiplex’ (grief, it sounds like The Matrix doesn’t it!) which offers hundreds of brand new specialist radio stations in digital quality. But in the US, the existing radio stations hated the idea of—ugh—competition from new stations, and lobbied (for which read, ’bought’) the Federal Communications Commission to impose a system called IBOC, run exclusively for the benefit of the patent holders, Ibiquity Corp. IBOC totally screws the previous analogue transmissions—if you begin hearing a noise like a buzz saw interfering with your listening pleasure, this is why. |
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NEWS A new company called
BadFruit has anticipated Apple Computer's plans to add podcasting
support to iTunes with a software plug-in called "BadApple" that does
the trick itself. |
Support Independent Artists—and do yourself a favour, too. The wealth of new and superior talent is astounding. Soon, commercial radio will sound tired and stale to you. Try CD BABY |
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