Thoughts of a multimedia madman

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

The problems of music downloads

Do you think anyone who pays more for less is gullible? Would you buy something that's supposed to be for life but could become unusable in 5 years? Do you prefer renting to buying even if it costs the same? Those are just some of the questions that come to be mind every time I think about music downloads.

I may be a multimedia madman but there are very few music download services I would even consider using. My main reason for this is they don't offer me any advantages over buying music CDs and the advantages there are don't outweigh the problems.

I think the biggest problem people don't realise when buying music online is you don't own it. When I buy a CD I own it and it can be considered my property to do anything I want to within the bounds of the law or more specifically UK copyright law. When you buy a music download online you are merely buying a licensed copy of the music, you don't actually own it you are agreeing to a contract before downloading the track. For maximum control you will probably find that the music store or copyright owner reserves the right to change the terms of the license at any point and include the potential ability to revoke your license at any point. So I could buy a track today and in 5 years my license could be revoked and I may be unable to access my music anymore. I believe governments are getting wise to this now as they are starting to realise they need to introduce laws to protect consumers.

Have you every considered how long each DRM/audio format is going to last and be supported for? Vinyl has lasted the best part of a century and still continues to be sold as a minority format and cassette tapes are still in reasonable use and still found in millions of car radios and home stereos. Now compare that to trying to play a 10+ year old multimedia file, go on try and play a RealAudio 1.0 file, a VIVO file or a Creative VOC file, not as easy as playing an MP3 is it? Also consider how long video files using ancient video codecs that have been around since Windows 3.1 will continue to play as we move from each generation of Windows to the next. Once the format becomes antiquated and commercial support is gone you may find your music could become very difficult to play.

One of the biggest factors for many people is price, and taking the dominant iTunes as an example if I recall the UK prices are typically 79p per track and £7.99 for an album. Well from an album perspective I ordered 5 CD albums from Amazon.co.uk and it cost me £15.90 including delivery that's approximately £3 an album, assuming each one costs £7.99 on iTunes that would cost me £39.95 over 2.5 times the price. The latest albums do tend to cost around the £9.99 in shops though typically you can be paying £7.97 for them in a supermarket like Tesco so the saving is either small or non-existent. 79p vs up to £3.99 for a single is a more favourable comparison and I would say for individual track purchases it may make sense economically to buy online if the music might be of no value to you in a few years time.

Device lock-in is another big factor that will make people hold off. Currently you fall into one of 3 categories either you have an iPod and can only buy your music from iTunes, you have a Windows Media compatible player that is (hopefully) compatible with the DRM used by your preferred store or you buy unrestricted MP3 music from the very limited selection of stores and artists that offer it. I could add in Sony Connect as well here but seeing as no-one really uses it we'll forget about it. If you are currently buy your music from iTunes then you are risking not being able to transfer your music to your next portable music player if it's not made by Apple, also the restrictions on the number of devices that you can transfer your music to could easily be exceeded within 10 years of hardware upgrading and replacement. This are all the classic signs of a format war like VHS vs Betamax which are bad for everyone particularly you the consumer if you choose a loser you could be making an expensive mistake.

The final big worry I see is backups. There is as well known saying that goes "There are those who will lose data and those who already have lost data" which for anyone who has used electronic devices and storage for any length of time has already experienced. You can lose physical products as well as data but when you have hundreds or even thousands of music files on a single computer you better hope you have good backups in case you are unable to access them anymore as that would be a huge investment to lose. It's not clear how easy it is to retrieve your data after loss, I assume you do so by either proving you bought it or by retracting the license on the lost data. Some government regulation may be required here to ensure there are some safeguards for consumers.

Overall I believe digital music files are the way forward for most people however I feel that anyone jumping in now is likely to get their fingers burnt when the novelty wears off and the reality of the DRM restrictions and licensing become apparent. It's also advisable to wait because as with the introduction of any new technology it takes a few years to get up to speed in terms of quality, price and compatibility. Where possible I would recommend sticking to the only format that has universal support, MP3.

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