Some Fine Day...
March 27, 2000
...music will be sold as bits, and physical storage formats will
have no particular relation to digital formats. In other words,
you'll download music over the Internet, and whether you choose to
store it on a DVD, CD, or some new miracle chip will be up to you.
In fact, format conflicts will be a thing of the past, as all
hardware and software players will recognize all popular formats.
This is already happening with software players, and starting to
happen in the hardware world. The three main brands of streaming
media software (RealAudio, QuickTime and Microsoft - see my
previous article,
Web Audio 2000)
can all read each others' formats, so a listener no longer has to
be loyal to any particular format. Use whichever one you prefer,
or simply take your music in whichever format it happens to come
in.
On the hardware front, the new generation of DVD players can play
several formats of DVD as well as the older CD format. So it's to
be hoped that there will be no more format wars such as the Betamax
vs VHS disgrace. If someone invents a better format, the next
generation of players will simply upgrade their software to
accommodate it. This also nicely sidesteps the question of the
installed base of CDs. Since DVD players can play your old CDs,
there's no reason not to buy one. Sorry, record companies, you
won't be able to clean up by re-releasing all your old titles as
you did when CDs replaced vinyl.
The happy (?) day when music and movies are distributed as bits
is a long way off, however. None of the major record company sites
I've visited are offering music for sale in a digital format yet,
and it's safe to say that there would be few takers if they did
(A few smaller outlets are already doing it - See the list at the
end of this article). Physical discs are going to be around for
a long, long time for several reasons. The most obvious reason is
that people are used to them, and have invested lots of money in
gadgets for playing, recording and storing them (A piece of
furniture that can accommodate my CD collection, and fits my
wife's interior design scheme, costs ten times more than the
latest CD player).
Also, physical discs happen to be quite convenient. "Early adopter"
though I am, I still refuse to buy download-only software - I want
that disc. Why? Because I can take a disc with me anywhere, and
install it on any computer. File management consists of tossing it
in a cardboard box with all my other software discs. I don't have
to worry about backing it up, losing it in a hard drive crash,
transferring it to my laptop with Laplink or SneakerNet, etc. The
same applies to music. As Henry David Thoreau observed over a
century ago about books, "It can stand, and it can go."
Okay, in the future we'll each have a personal library on a secure
server somewhere, which is automatically backed up and upgraded,
which can be accessed wirelessly from anywhere in the Solar System,
and costs pennies a month. But that day isn't here yet, and until
it comes a bit closer, "virtual storage" of music isn't going to
catch on in a big way.
When that day comes, and the planet is bathed in a thick layer of
ones and zeros, online music distribution will be gargantuan. Right
now it's merely huge. Even though the final stage of most
transactions still consists of sending a CD through the mail, the
Internet is the ultimate channel for marketing and distributing
music (and movies, and...). The Net is the only medium that lets
you read all the stuff about an artist (including current tour
dates and other fans' comments), see all the pix, hear samples of
the music, and then order up the CD. It is (or will be) an album
cover, an album, a video, a book, a fanzine, all in one.
Now how much woudja pay? But wait! It's also a radio station - and
the coolest radio station (and jukebox) you could imagine, with
live broadcasts and music and video on demand from sources all over
the world, in every conceivable genre. Why buy music on CD or any
other way, when you can listen to any song you want any time for
free?
Traditionally, music broadcasting, supported by advertising, is a
different business from music distribution, supported by sales
(which are strongly encouraged by broadcasting). The Internet has
added another wrinkle to the scene - "samples" of music that can
be downloaded for free. Doubtless, the lines among these three
models will blur somewhat, but they still make useful categories,
so let's look at them separately.
Digital Distribution of Music
Digital Distribution of Music
Broadcasting Music Online
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