The Web Difference

Warner Music is seriously thinking of implementing a plan to bundle a monthly fee into consumers’ internet-service bills for unlimited access to music.

This article states how the traditional concept of “music as a product” is evolving to “music as a service”. Warner thinks the best way to adapt to this new model is to build a pool of money and split it up, instead of trying to control the distribution and sharing of sound recordings. Apparently, Apple and Sony are also exploring new business models that will allow users to have unlimited access to their music library at a fee. It’s interesting that Warner has conceded that this collective licensing model is being explored because of “loss of control” by the recording industry. Shows how the music industry is now recognizing that it has to adapt to the web difference brought about by the growth of P2P sharing services.

Of course, critics state that Warner’s plan is essentially a ” tax”, and is inequitable (even amounting to extortion) since the fee is imposed regardless of users’ preferences.

My personal view: I prefer Apple or Sony’s plans to impose a fee only on those who wish to access their music libraries. Warner’s plan is useful in obtaining a sizeable pool of money and relieving ISPs of the burden of monitoring users. However, there should be some kind of distinction between broadband users who are interested in downloading music, and those who hardly engage in copyright-infringing behavior on the web. I am inclined to agree with the critics that a blanket fee is not equitable, and likely to be met with opposition. It’s as if the recording industry is choosing the easy way out by asking the public to compensate them for their failure to control copyright infringement.

I thought this was relevant to our earlier discussions about blocking of YouTube. China is currently blocking YouTube after videos of foreign media reports about the crackdown in Tibet appeared on the site. The AP’s story is available here.

In somewhat of a tangent, this is similar to something Tom Clancy wrote about in one of his novels. In The Bear and the Dragon, Clancy suggested in 2000 that the CIA should broadcast CNN’s coverage of a war against China on a website available to the Chinese public to try to stir them into action. See the Wikipedia article here.

“The record business, or at least that of the major labels, is foundering, as CD sales spiral downward. But South by Southwest thrives on the plain fact that people still love music: making it, hearing it, dancing to it, even marketing it.” -Jon Pareles, NYT

The NY Times featured an article this past week on Austin’s South by Southwest music festival, and it made some interesting observations about today’s music industry that I thought were relevant to our discussion of the web difference in the music world. The author reiterates the point made in class that more and more musicians will turn to concert sales to make their living (as opposed to record sales). He ultimately characterizes the festival as “as close as the concert business gets to a level playing field.” He adds, “Big names and small play the same beery clubs, through the same sound systems, without their accustomed arena video setups or undistracted audiences.”

So in the growing popularity of these live music festivals, we see another example of the Web breaking down barriers to entry in the music business, a development which we in turn expect to improve information flow, increase choice, and drive competition.

I don’t know much about the festival, but Wikipedia says it is the largest revenue-producing event for the city of Austin – bigger than things like UT football games and even the more storied Austin City Limits music festival! (For more, see this article.) So it seems clear that the internet – by bringing about phenomena like the decreasing importance of major record labels, the popularization of off-label music on the Web, and increasing fan demand for live concerts – is also having a significant impact on local, non-Web entities like local governments/ economies. I think all this is interesting because music is one area where the Web has enabled a distinct online culture (MySpace, Bradsucks) to develop, but everything we’re seeing now suggests that the benefits from this online community are being transferred to (or at least shared with) the non-Internet world.

Brad of Bradsucks seemed to be focused more on the opportunities to make (and distribute) a new kind of music that have been made possible by the Web. He said he was less into the live performance opportunities, and is happiest when he’s at his computer, mixing and recording songs. But for many other musicians, the internet is changing the landscape of the live music industry and, in so doing, creating all kinds of opportunities to do what they love most – perform in front of a music-loving audience. All in all, it seems like the web difference in the music world has benefited all musicians. I wonder if this is truly a Pareto improvement vis-à-vis the artists themselves – or if there are some musicians out there who were happier before all these changes?

To build on what I said in class, while no one seems to have suggested using the statistically improbable phrases tool on Amazon to check for plagiarism, people are using both Google Books and Amazon’s ’search within this book’ tool for that purpose.

An article in Slate suggests Google Books could be used to discover long-existing plagiarism.

Similarly, another source suggests that Google Books and Amazon are the “greatest plagiarism detector ever created.”

I assume most of you have read online today about the picture of Barack Obama in traditional Somali dress.  Most of the news reporting about the picture credits The Drudge Report with driving the story. See here (The Politico) and here (AP). The picture itself seems to have been passed around by e-mail before arriving on Drudge’s doorstep. How much of a web difference do you think there is in a story like this? Would this story have still emerged? What about in how both campaigns reacted?

I was just reading a BBC news story about the tragic suicide of two young cousins. They both come from Brigend, in Wales, where 14 other young people have committed suicide in the past year. There hasn’t been any official explanation for the prevalence of suicides in this relatively small community but obviously people are looking for answers. In what seems at least questionable journalistic practice the following three one sentence paragraphs appear:

Police are investigating the deaths but say it is too early to say how they are linked.

It is thought both youngsters were members of the Bebo and Facebook internet social networking sites.

Relatives confirmed Ms Stephenson knew two previous young people from the Bridgend area who hanged themselves last year.

This is the only mention of social networking in the whole piece, with the implication being that this might be tied up with something happening on the sites. This may be true, but without any evidence to back this up I think the sentence is quite irresponsible. To be sure, there are problems that need to be addressed, but for now reporting like this won’t help ease the minds of worried parents. There is undoubtedly a “web difference” between some teenagers and their parents which creates an air of suspicion about online activities, reporting like this won’t help address the differences.

Two young cousins ‘found hanged’ - BBC News

An addendum to yesterday’s class notes - this is the link to the video that JP mentioned regarding the Beijing Olympics (to which I have tickets!):

http://www.runnerspace.com/news.php?do=view&news_id=680.

Says a Center for Media Research Brief:

According to a recently published market report from AccuStream iMedia Research, user Generated Video (UGV) scored 22.4 billion views in 2007, up 70% over 2006.

[Tags: media video participatory_media ]