p2pnet - rss feed: MP3s, teens and uncertain times
p2pnet.net feature:- An event long forgotten in the annals of digital music history is the October 1998 lawsuit of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against computer component manufacturer Diamond Multimedia (they soon sold off the line). At the core of the lawsuit was their new gadget, the Rio Portable MP3 Player, which was to be released the following month. Citing fears of increasing piracy, the RIAA wanted to stop this device from reaching the mass market.
The lawsuit was eventually dismissed, and eight years later these portable music players have become as ubiquitous as cell phones amongst Canada’s youth. Brands such as the iPodB are now household names, and have even spawned a new generation of words such as Podcasting. Still, the MP3 format is facing very uncertain times.
At the core of the issue is the fact that the MP3 revolution was one which the industry did not anticipate, or particularly want. Still, it was evident after the rise of Napster that the industry had to come up with a legitimate means to deal with this popular force.
The problem for them is that the format had not been designed with restrictions in mind. Therefore, there was a very real danger that releasing regular MP3s to consumers would lead to the unmitigated copying of their tunes. This horrified the executives, who considered the individual copying of CDs a threat worse than file sharing (the so-called “backyard piracy”).
The solution was for major online music vendors to release specially designed MP3s, which would feature built-in restriction technologies. However, these modified MP3s were not without their own problems. Because they weren’t following the original MP3 specifications, they were not compatible in all portable players. For instance, music legitimately purchased on iTunes could only be played on Apple’s own iPod. If you tried to play this “legal” music on any player other than Apple’s, you were out of luck.
Industry leaders have dismissed these issues as the consequence of being in a transitional period. Still, one has to wonder whether they’ve forgotten the core audience they were trying to appeal to through the rise of these legitimate solutions. A February 2006 CRIA/Pollara study found that 13-17 year olds were both the most likely to pirate and the most likely to own a portable MP3 player. It is uniquely difficult for minors to obtain legitimate MP3s.
The biggest and most obvious hurdle for teenagers is the unlikelihood that they own a credit card. Without one, a teen is effectively blocked from purchasing MP3s legally at any online venue. As MP3s are virtually all exclusively purchased online, this creates a severe problem. An adult with a credit card could buy music in their stead and pass the tunes to them. However, that would technically violate the contract terms of many of these services.
A possible solution might be for record shops to offer gift certificates to these services, thus allowing teens to use cash. As these certificates would represent competition to record stores, it’s unlikely we’ll see them crop up anytime soon. (Why exactly record stores don’t offer legal MP3s for purchase in-store is another issue, which I’ll leave alone for now).
Ignoring the question of availability, there’s still the problem of compatibility. The industry’s failure to come up with a congruent MP3 restriction system has resulted in music purchasers seeking their own solutions. These solutions appear in the form of software tools such as Hymn (formerly known as PlayFair) which are available on the internet. They allow owners of portable MP3 players to play the music they purchase on services that would otherwise be unplayable on their device.
The use of these tools is illegal in the United-States where legislation has been passed prohibiting the circumvention of any technological restrictions, irrespective of the legitimacy of the purchased content. Such activities are still legal in Canada, although the current government is pondering implementing similar amendments to the Canadian Copyright Act.
If this is indeed a transition period, one can only hope the industry will attempt to address the problems of technical incompatibility and access for the ever expanding under 18 market rather than simply opt for legislated restrictions. If the only way to obtain music online continues to be through illegitimate means, then we are no better off than in the days of Napster.
[This article first appeared in PC World.ca]
Also See:
Wired Magazine - Sample the Future, November, 2006
Newsweek - Take My Music . . . Please, October 7, 2006
Briana LaHara - Big Music mobile p2p attack, November 1, 2005
