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Study Says Pirates Buy Plenty of Legitimate Digital Music

Bart Salisbury — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:01:59 -0600

The traditional music industry has long been busy building the image of music pirates as scofflaws and reprobates, the type of people that would kick granny to the curb and steal candy from babies; an evil that must be crushed at any cost. Pity the industry didn’t actually expand that same energy trying to understand them as consumers in an emergent marketplace, thus better positioning themselves to meet the needs of that market rather than threaten it with a cudgel.

A United Kingdom research group, Demos, did just that, and surprise, surprise, they discovered that those people who confessed to pirating music were also those who spent the most on music. Pirates spend, on average, $126 per year on CDs, MP3s, and vinyl. Non-pirates (landlubbers?), on the other hand, only spend, on average, $72 per year.

Interestingly, only 10% of the respondents fessed-up to having illegally downloaded music. But, as the study was conducted in Great Britain, where the repercussions for illegal downloading are way more severe than in the United States, it’s surprising any did. (The Performing Rights Society (PRS), Great Britain’s RIAA doppelgänger, is presently pushing legislation to ban from the Internet any one caught illegally downloading music three times--a modern day version of walking the plank.)

Respondents indicated they were willing to buy more music, provided the price is right. It might be that, as consumers, they’ve recognized that downloaded music is a quality notch or two below CDs, and pricing should better reflect that differential. The tipping point appears to be 73 cents, at or below purchasing becomes more likely.

"Politicians and music companies need to recognize that the nature of music consumption has changed and consumers are demanding lower prices and easier access to music,” says Peter Bradwell, a Demos researcher.

Image Credit: blong219/Flickr

CD Sales Still Shrinking; Digital Distribution Still Growing

Andy Salisbury — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:31:09 -0600

As digital music stores become more common and convenient, the age of the compact disc as the preferred medium is coming to a close. In fact, according to year-end sales figures released by The Nielsen Co., sales of CDs are down a whopping 20 percent.

The sales of physical discs have dropped from 450.5 million in 2007 to only 362.6 million in 2008. And during this time, digital album sales made a gigantic jump of 32 percent over their previous year’s sales.

Apple’s iTunes music store has been particularly successful, having broken the 1 billion song mark with 1.07 billion sold. Along with this, their sales went up 27 percent over the previous year.

Image Credit: Apple, Inc.

Microsoft Takes Aim at Apple with Zune Price Cuts, Software Push

Mark Edward Soper — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:17:07 -0600

This holiday season, Microsoft is taking aim at arch-rival Apple's iPod - and its companion iTunes software. This week, Microsoft cut the retail prices on 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB Zunes as well as on the Car Pack, Home/AV Pack, and Dock Pack. With the 8GB Zune now selling for $139 (was $149) and the 16GB model now selling for $179 (was $199), Microsoft is undercutting the price of comparable Nanos by $10 (8GB) and by $20 (16GB). The 4GB Zune anchors the lineup at $99, down $30 from its old price.

The Car Pack now sells for $69 (was $79), but the Home/AV Pack, also formerly $79, is now just $59. The Dock Pack is also cheaper at $39 (was $49).

To help PC users get more interested in Zune hardware, Microsoft has borrowed a page from Apple's use of its iTunes software to drive customers to iPods. In a new video ad, Microsoft plays up the Zune's PC software companion, Zune 3.0.

Will Microsoft's one-two hardware-software combination be enough to make significant inroads into Apple's market dominance? Only Black Friday and the rest of the holiday shopping season will tell.

What do you want under your Christmas tree? An iPod, a Zune, or a third-party media player? Hit Comment and tell us what's on your wish list.

Wal-Mart Decides To Maintain DRM Servers

Justin Kerr — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:34:08 -0500

Intense customer backlash has forced the online music arm of Wal-Mart to reverse its position on its controversial plan to deactivate all DRM authentication servers on October 9th. The move would have left countless customers with music files that could never be re-authenticated should they wish to play them on a new PC. Deactivating DRM server’s isn’t a new trend, but the announcement differed from other vendors simply because of the sheer lack of notice customers were given to backup music. The first notice only went out on September 28th giving a mere two weeks warning. For those who aren’t sure if they are affected, the DRM servers are only necessary for authenticating tracks purchased prior to February 2008. In February the retailer made the popular shift from DRM-ed WMA’s to unprotected MP3’s. Even though the servers are safe for now, the vaguely worded email from Wal-Mart continues to urge customers to make backups of their music by burning them on CD. Music burned to an audio CD can be copied back to your hard drive DRM free using many free applications such as iTunes, but unfortunately not without an unavoidable loss of quality. No new dates are given for the server deactivation but the email doesn’t suggest the retailer’s commitment to the DRM servers will be long term. With the industry shift to copy protection free music well underway, this and other similar announcements are a lesson to us all. No authentication server (Apple included) is likely to be around forever. Now is as good a time as any to backup your tunes.

Below is a transcript of the email Wal-Mart sent to its customers.

NOTE: This is a follow-up to our email titled "Important Information About Your Digital Music Purchases" from 9/26/08.

Based on feedback from our customers, we have decided to maintain our digital rights management (DRM) servers for the present time. What this means to you is that our existing service continues and there is no action required on your part. Our customer service team will continue to assist with DRM issues for protected windows media audio (WMA) files purchased from Walmart.com.

While our customer support team is available to assist you with any issues, we continue to recommend that you back up your songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD. By backing up your songs, you insure access to them from any personal computer at any time in the future.

We appreciate your support and patience as we work to provide the best service possible to you. As we move forward with our 100% MP3 store, we'll continue to update you with key decisions regarding our service and your account via email.

Thank you for using Walmart MP3 Music Downloads.

The Walmart Digital Music Team

Tick, Tick, Tick...Burn Your DRMed Walmart.com Music to Audio CD Before It's Too Late

Mark Edward Soper — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:55:39 -0500

The market has spoken: getting rid of DRM shackles on digital music is a good thing. But what if you purchased music before the DRM handcuffs were removed?

If you bought music from Walmart.com before February 2008 (when Walmart.com started selling MP3 music), your ability to move music files from PC to PC has a very short shelf life. How short? Try October 9, 2008. That's the date that Walmart.com will shut down the DRM servers that control your ability to play non-MP3 music purchased from Walmart.com.

After 10/9/2008, you won't be able to move your music to another computer or access the songs on your system if you upgrade to another operating system or reinstall your current OS after a crash or to refresh its bits and bytes.

Fortunately, there's a bit of good news. While there's no way to extend the shelf life of that half-gallon of milk you lost a month ago in the back of your refridgerator, Walmart "strongly recommend[s] that you back up your songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD. By backing up your songs, you will be able to access them from any personal computer."

It's almost enough to make you agree with BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow, who posted Walmart.com's message (excerpted above) and added this rejoinder:

Boy, the entertainment industry sure makes a good case for ripping them off, huh? Buy your media and risk having it confiscated by a DRM-server shutdown. Take it for free and keep it forever.

My answer? I buy CDs and rip them myself. What's yours? Hit the Comments button and sound off.

The End of DRM, But Not Control over Music?

Mark Soper — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:20:24 -0500

It's been three years in the making (since May 3, 2004, to be precise), but Microsoft has now won a patent (number 7,266,697, for those of you keeping track at home) for what it calls 'stealthy audio watermarking.' In plain English, this new technology is designed to enable a song vendor to keep track of the origin of a digital music track, no matter how many times it's converted to other formats or distorted.

Beating 'Plausible Attacks'

According to ArsTechnica, the technique is designed to defeat a series of so-called 'plausible attacks' as identified by the RIAA, including sucessive digital/analog and analog/digital conversions, MP3 and other lossy conversion techniques, frequency response distortion, and others.

An End to DRM Without Losing Control? Implications of the Patent

If Microsoft's patent works as well in practice as the description states, it could enable music vendors to dump DRM via encryption without losing control of their content. As discussed previously here, some major music vendors are already selling unencrypted MP3 audio tracks as a premium-quality, more flexible to use alternative to standard encrypted WMA audio tracks. However, without watermarking, vendors can't be sure if their music is being redistributed en masse by purchasers. Digital watermarking can fix that, especially if each download is individually watermarked.

Beating 'Big Brother'

Although watermarking digital audio tracks doesn't run the risk of "I can't play this on my device" the way that current DRM methods do, it's still a potential privacy invader. Don't like the idea? Do something old-fashioned: create your own digital music tracks from your own CD collection. If you originate the digital music, the only 'watermark' you need to worry about is the one you left on the jewel case from setting a cold drink on it during the ripping process.

Apple Takes a Bite out of DRM

Michael Brown — Wed, 30 May 2007 10:37:56 -0500

Apple's iTunes store—in partnership with EMI—is now hawking DRM-free music at twice the bit rate of its standard fare (256Kb/s vs. 128Kb/s) and charging a $0.30-per-track premium for it. We’re all for DRM-free music, but 256Kb/s still seems like a pretty low bit rate—especially when you’re using a lossy codec.

So we decided to test a random sample of our colleagues to see if they could detect any audible difference between a song ripped from a CD and encoded in Apple’s lossy AAC format at 128K/s, and the same song ripped and encoded in lossy AAC at 256Kb/s.

Our 10 test subjects range in age from 23 to 56. Seven of the 10 are male. Eight are editors by trade; two art directors. Four participants have musical backgrounds (defined as having played an instrument and/or sung in a band). We asked each participant to provide us with a CD containing a track they considered themselves to be intimately familiar with. We used iTunes to rip the tracks and copied them to a fifth-generation 30GB iPod. We were hoping participants would choose a diverse collection of music, and they did: Classical, jazz, electronica, alternative, straight-ahead rock, and pop were all represented; in fact country was the only style not in the mix. (See the chart at the end of the story for details.)

We hypothesized that no one would be able to discern the difference using the inexpensive earbuds (MSRP: $29) that Apple provides with its product, so we also acquired a set of high-end Shure SE420 earphones (MSRP: $400). We were confident that the better phones would make the task much easier, since they would reveal more flaws in the songs encoded at lower bit rates.

METHODOLOGY

We asked each participant to listen with the Apple buds first and to choose between Track A, Track B, or to express no preference. We then tested using the SE420’s and asked the participant to choose between Track C, Track D, or to express no preference. The tests were administered double-blind, meaning that neither the test subject nor the person conducting the test knew which tracks were encoded at which bit rates.

The biggest surprise of the test actually disproved our hypothesis: Eight of the 10 participants expressed a preference for the higher-bit rate songs while listening with the Apple buds, compared to only six who picked the higher-quality track while listening to the Shure’s. Several of the test subjects went so far as to tell they felt more confident expressing a preference while listening to the Apple buds. We theorize that the Apple buds were less capable of reproducing high frequencies and that this weakness amplified the listeners' perception of aliasing in the compressed audio signal. But that’s just a theory.

LEAVE IT TO THE OLD FOGEYS

Age also factored differently than we expected. Our hearing tends to deteriorate as we get older, but all three of our subjects who are over 40 years old (and the oldest listener in the next-oldest bracket) correctly identified the higher bit-rate tracks using both the Apple and the Shure earphones. Three of the four subjects aged between 31 and 40 correctly identified the higher bit-rate tracks with the Apple earbuds, but only two were successful with the Shures. Two of three under-30 subjects picked the higher-quality tracks with the Apples, but only one of them made the right choice with the Shures. All four musicians picked the higher-quality track while listening to the Apples, and three of the four were correct with the Shures.

Despite being less able to detect the bit rate of the songs while listening to the Shure SE420 earphones, eight of 10 subjects expressed a preference for them over the Apple buds. Several people commented on the Shure’s ability to block extraneous noise. While listening to the SE420s, one person remarked “Wow, I’d forgotten that wood-block sound was even in this song.” Another said “The difference between the Shure earphones and the Apple earbuds was more significant than the difference between the song encoded at 128Kb/s and the one recorded at 256Kb/s.” One of the two people who expressed a preference for Apple’s product told us “It seemed like I got better kick from the bass.”

THAT’S A WRAP!

To our subjects’ ears, there wasn’t a tremendous distinction between the tracks encoded at 128Kb/s and those encoded at 256Kb/s. None of them were absolutely sure about their choices with either set of earphones, even after an average of five back-to-back A/B listening tests. That tells us the value in the Apple’s and EMI’s more expensive tracks lies solely in the fact that they’re free of DRM restriction s.

And as much as we dislike DRM, we just don't think DRM-free tracks alone are worth paying an extra 30 cents a track for. We'd be more excited if Apple increased the bit rate even further, or--even better--if they used a lossless format.

In the end, Apple's move doesn't change our opinion that the best way to acquire digital music remains buying the CD: You can rip and encode it at any bit rate you want, you can transfer it to any device you want, you know you won't have any DRM issues to worry about, and you won't have to pay anything extra for it.

As for buying high-end earphones, eight of our 10 test subjects enjoyed listening to the Shure SE420’s more than they did Apple’s stock buds--an interesting finding since fewer listeners correctly identified the higher bit rate tracks with the Shures than did the Apples. We suspect that the performance of the Shures masked the flaws in the tracks encoded at lower bit rates.

Your audio system is only as strong as its weakest link, and if you're listening to cheap earphones, you're missing out on what your MP3 player is capable of delivering. The SE420's fit tight inside your ear canal, so they isolate your ears from extraneous noise. Many of our listeners found that they could turn the player's volume down significantly because the earphones weren't competing with environmental racket. That not only makes your listening experience more enjoyable, but it can also prevent hearing loss.

Despite what Apple charges for a set of its replacement buds, the earphones that come with 90 percent of the digital media players on the market are throw-away items--they're only in the box so you'll have something to listen to when you bring the player home. Do yourself a huge favor and dump 'em. Spending a few bucks more for something that sounds better, feels better, and will last longer just makes sense; after all, you only get one set of ears in life.

[Editor's note, 6/4/2007: We removed our comment about paying a premium for buying the entire album at the higher bit rate, since iTunes Plus albums, according to Apple's FAQ "are generally available at the same price as DRM-protected versions of the albums." If, on the other hand, you previously bought the entire album at the lower bit rate, an upgrade will cost, again according to Apple's FAQ, "30 percent of the album price."]

Listening Results
ARTIST	ALBUM	TRACK	PICKED HIGH BIT RATE W/APPLES?	PICKED HIGH BIT RATE W/SHURES?
Nine Inch Nails	Year Zero	The Great Destroyer	Yes	No
Tea Leaf Green	Taught to be Proud	If it Wasn't for the Money	No	No
Guns & Roses	Use Your Illusion II	Civil War	Yes	Yes
Husker Du	New Day Rising	Celebrated Summer	Yes	No
Massive Attack	100th Window	Future Proof	Yes	No
Stevie Wonder	Original Musiquarium I Vol. II	Sir Duke	No	Yes
Mingus Big Band	Gunslinging Birds	Jump Monk	Yes	Yes
Sunday's Best	Where Are You Now?	Truest You	Yes	Yes
Andres Segovia	Legendary Andres Segovia in an All-Bach Program	Chaconne (from Violin Partita No. 2)	Yes	Yes
Steely Dan	Aja	Josie	Yes	Yes

Listener Comments
ARTIST	WHY THE LISTENER CHOSE THIS TRACK
Nine Inch Nails	"It has the typical chord progression of a pop song, and then it goes into this crazy, techno solo. I thought the variety would help me identify the differences in the bit rate."
Tea Leaf Green	"This is a CD that I listen to a lot; I'm very familiar with it."
Guns & Roses	"This song is meant to be played loud. Axl Rose's voice and the guitars should help me tell the difference."
Husker Du	"I've been listening to a lot of Husker Du lately. Sometimes you rediscover a band and wonder why you haven't listened to them for so long."
Massive Attack	"I know this song so well. I figured I'd be able to tell if I was hearing everything that should be there."
Stevie Wonder	"I thought I'd be able to hear the difference in the sound of the horn section at the beginning of the song. I think the track with the higher bit rate will sound brighter."
Mingus Big Band	"I'll be listening for dynamic range in the horns. I think I'll perceive differences in the sound of the piano solo and the upright bass."
Sunday's Best	"The drummer in this band is cymbal crazy. I think it will be hard to capture that sound accurately at a low bit rate."
Andres Segovia	"I've listened to this recording 40 billion times. I know every nuance in it."
Steely Dan	"This may be the world's most fanatical band when it comes to recording. One of the things I'll be listening for are the chimes in the opening."

Automatic MP3 identification that actually works

Will Smith — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 19:26:43 -0500

This morning, my pal Brian at Gizmodo posted a nifty video of a Sony Ericsson phone that could determine what song was playing, just by listening with its onboard microphone. The video tripped a switch deep in my brain, and I remembered a fledgling internet operation from a few years back attempting to do much the same thing with MP3s. A little bit of Googling turned it up.

MusicBrainz is an online catalog of music, similar to freedb or cddb, the difference is that instead of using the physical CD to identify the album and artist info, MusicBrainz goes a step further. MusicBrainz uses audio fingerprinting technology to identify tracks using the actual music. You point it at a folder of unlabeled, untagged MP3s, and it will scan the files, hit the Internet, and report back with all the metadata for the tracks.

MusicBrainz Picard app will identify and label your mislabeled MP3s by analyzing the actual music, and it works!

I vaguely recall using a similar app in the past, with very mixed results. However, this afternoon I ripped five random CDs sitting on my desk using EAC without automatically naming or adding tags to the files. I fed the raw MP3s into MusicBrainz Picard app and labeled all the tracks correctly.

The secret to MusicBrainz is that it harnesses the power of its users. When the app encounters an unknown song (which didn't happen, even when I fed it some MP3s from local bands I listened to in college), it prompts you to fill in the blanks, and submit the info to its online database. The whole experience was good. This weekend, I'm going to backup my entire music collection, and run it through Picard to see how bad my tags really are.