Music companies fear new 100-hour discs

New Scientist.com ^ | 12 March 03 | Barry Fox, Berlin

[aculeus]

The music industry this week condemned the launch of two recording systems that will let people copy between 30 and 100 hours of music onto a single disc. The launches, from electronics giants Sony and Philips, are being seen as a potential pirates' charter.

"It's a no-brainer. Anything which lets people pirate more music like this has to be very bad news for the music industry," says a spokesman for Britain's record industry trade association, the BPI.

The launches come as the global music industry suffers its worst downturn since the CD format was introduced. Free online downloading and disc copying have been widely blamed for the slump in sales.

Sony's system will use the ultra-efficient data compression system used in MiniDiscs, to squeeze 30 hours of MP3 music onto a single blank CD. The discs will play on a new generation of personal stereos, which cost less than £100. Philips's system uses a computer DVD recorder to save at least 100 hours of MP3 music on a blank DVD, which will play on a new portable DVD player.

Business model

Why Sony should want to launch a recorder that might make piracy easier may seem surprising, as its Sony Music division makes and sells CDs. While Sony Music did not want to comment on its sister company's launch, Mike Tsurumi, a president of Sony Consumer Electronics in Berlin, insists that the move makes sense. "The music companies need to change their business model," he says.

Tsurumi's colleague Simon Mori expects people to move towards downloading and paying for music from official music websites. One such site, dotmusic.com, was launched last week by telecoms company BT and 30 record firms, though at £1.49 per track, buying music this way is hardly cheap.

The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, which is relentless in its pursuit of music pirates, has not yet said how it will react to the new recorders.

[eno_]

Simple solution: Make CDs so cheap that buying a recorder for pirating makes no sense.

Ding ding ding!!! We have a winner.

Remember "blue boxes" and people stealing long distance telephone service? At $0.02/min. (this price on a Qwest calling card in my wallet) now, who would bother to steal it?

Sell high quality MP3s and OGGs at $0.10 per track, no copy protection, and you got a business. DRMed crap at $2.00 per track is DOOMED.

[Hodar]

ONLY 100 Hours?!?!?!?

With the new Blue-Laser recorders hitting the market, instead of talking about a measly 700 Meg (72 min) we are talking about 23 Gig!! 23 Gig/700 Meg = ~32.8

32.8 x 72 min = ~37.33 hrs in CD mode, and about 3,700 hrs in MP3 mode.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=2316801

[cynwoody]

WTF cares about the music industry?

[Boundless]

> The music industry this week condemned the launch of
> two recording systems that will let people copy
> between 30 and 100 hours of music onto a single disc.

What exactly is the "news" here?

Other than, perhaps, making it slightly more convenient
for the average person to burn an audio CD or DVD, the
technology to do this has been available for a couple
of years (DVD-R/+R) and over half a decade (CDR).

Well, at least the Hollywood lawyers are so busy looking
in the rear view mirror that they missed the real optical
storage news of the week, the Sony Blu-Ray system, which
puts 23GB on a 5-in disc. That's like, dude, 500 HOURS of
MP3s. Take ya a month just to play it back!

The RIAA needs to figure ways to make their product
easier to spend money on. It's too late to put the tech
genie back in the bottle.

[jejones]

Not to mention that there's nothing like being laid off to make one reconsider what portion of one's money to allocate to entertainment. (Somebody please forward a clue to the RIAA...)

[elfman2]

exactly!

[SamAdams76]

This new disc is lame - yesterdays news. My 80-gig hard drive holds 20,000 MP3s.

[visualops]

Exactly!!!

They are so exceeeedingly stupid and narrow minded, they can't see the 'net for the opportunity it is.
I have listened to (and bought!) more new, refreshing (and great!) music since the advent of the mp3 format allowed one to easily listen to music from all over the world.
Sorry for the American "recording stars" though- all of what I am buying are bands you don't hear on the radio or see in Billboard.

[ChadGore]

I think those new 8 track tapes are the wave of the future.

[Bobalu]

I have zero sympathy for these creeps... I hope the whole shebang goes bankrupt... sooner the better.

Price fixin bastards

[beavus]

Music is becoming passe' anyway. Almost nobody listens to it anymore.

[longtermmemmory]

notice to RIAA

We pay for songs NOT for formats.

and


Copyright is FINITE in scope and time.

finally

music distributors of old, your time is up...

[JoeSixPack1]

Gee, I would be so heart broken if musicians had to pass a hat for spare change. NOT!!!

Before there was a "music industry", musicians were akin to melodial artists.
Recorded Music turned the artists into businessmen. Businessmen turn profits.
If recorded music is deemed unprofitable other avenues will be found. Who knows?

There will always be rewards for musical entertainment, how to pay for it is now up for grabs. :-) I like it.

[supercat]

It's always a bit ironic when businesses and industries which could not exist without the protection of copyright are nonetheless so diametrically opposed to "the Progress of Science and useful Arts".

It's not really ironic, any more than it's ironic than Disney using public domain stories as the basis for movies (without paying royalties) and then seeking to ensure that those movies never lapse into the public domain.

[JoeSixPack1]

how come 8 track tapes only had 4 useable tracks? :-)

(Ever try to turn over an 8 track?)

[supercat]

I use mostly 96kbps .wma files; this means that an 800MB CD will hold almost 20 hours of music. If I went with 64kbps files, I could hold almost 30. This new technology sounds like something of an improvement, but hardly earth-shattering.

BTW, Blackstone Audio releases audio books on MP3's. I think War and Peace ships on four disks.

[meadsjn]

When singers and actors have to "sing for their supper" once again, we'll know that things are improving for the productive segments of the economy. The same holds true for athletes, artists, and those scumbags running those multi-billion dollar charity scams.

[PUGACHEV]

Yeah, not much news here really. I already burn MP3s to DVD-R discs that will play in most computers and DVDs. You can get 1200 MP3s, or about 60 hours of music on each disc.

[Willie Green]

Cool! One of those would be just about right to hold my Roy Orbison collection!