p2pnet - rss feed: SanDisk SlotMusic SneakerDisk
p2pnet news view | Music:- Flash memory chip maker SanDisk has come up with a revolutionary new idea.
SneakerDisk.
Actually, it’s not really called that. But you get the idea.
While Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG try to sue people into buying ‘product,’ at the same time trying to gain exclusive control of online music distribution, using P2P file sharers as their excuse, the Sneaker Net has been doing very well fine, thank you.
That’s when you save songs you want to share with other people on portable media — like SanDisk cruzer USB flash drives, for example.
Now, SanDisk has, “launched SlotMusic MicroSD memory cards that will carry full length music albums just like a music CD or a vinyl,” says GigaOm.
The ‘albums’ will be sold next to CDs in the likes of WalMart, says the story, pointing out “Four major record labels have joined SanDisk on this adventure”.
Four major record labels? Hmmmm. Wonder who they could be?
But, predicts the story, the venture is, “going to end badly”.
Surely not? Surely ace innovators Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG would never miss the boat when it comes to digital music offerings?
However, in the story, Om Malik insists SlotMusic will be, well, slotted, giving five reason why.
“People don’t much care about the ‘physical media’ very much these days,” he says, citing RIAA stats which say CD sales have dropped from 942 million in 2000 to 511 million in 2007.
# 2 - iTunes
iTunes? Yup. Malik is another of those who believes Apple’s user-funded iPod online front-end has some kind of significance when it comes to music. P2pnets, anyone? Indie musicians with their indie sites? Indie entrepreneurs? P2P file-sharing applications? Open source? Open everything?
For # 3, “SlotMusic will have 29 albums on day one - not enough for even the most curious to pick one up”, says the story, going on, “They are going to target phones with MicroSD card slots. That is a good approach, though I am not sure if people actually listen to full albums on their mobile phones. So not sure if this is the right format.”
Lastly, and possibly the most telling »»»
I think the cost structure of these devices is pretty strange. Depending on what the price is - between $7-to-$10 according to The New York Times, I wonder how much money is left for SanDisk after paying off the music industry Shylocks. On top of that SanDisk will offer an adapter to plug these cards into USB slots of computers, and even that is going to cost. Of course, if it is cheaper than blank 1 GB MicroSD cards it might be worth just buying and erasing the music. (That would mean that the music is totally worthless.)
Meanwhile, back in the real world of music ………………….
Sneaker Net - Sneakernet bigger threat than P2P file sharing, April 17, 2008
GigaOm - SanDisk SlotMusic Cards Are Destined to Fail, September 21, 2008
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September 22nd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
This is probably the stupidest thing they’ve come up with in a long while.
From what I can tell, the RIAA/MPAA lobbybots are schizoid: on the one hand, their marketing strategy seems to be totally wedded to the notion that “physical media == content” — such that the CD “is” the album you bought.
But when it comes to copyright, the situation is different: you may ‘own” the physical media, but, as far as copyright goes, THEY still claim to ‘own’ the content — digital or analog doesn’t matter to them. Moreover, according to them/their apologists, THEIR “rights” to the content trump your piddling permissions in regard to the physical media — which is why they’ve been trying to gut the “first-sale” doctrine for years.
This won’t work — it’s just another attempt to bind “content” to a particular physical medium, an idea which — thanks to the inclusion of CD-ripping capability even in Windows media player for years, strikes most people as completely bogus.
Not to mention that they’ll probably attempt to DRM the files/booby-trap the media in some way, which tends to piss off their users.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Yet another hairbrained scheme where the consumer is expected to fork over the money for new hardware to try it out. Certain HP computers come with memory stick readers, though I am not sure they would be the same for this item.
Most won’t have the readers in their computer so they will have to buy the readers and then install them or have them installed before they can even spend money on the songs. How crazy is that? The cd/dvd/digital work well enough for most folks. I don’t see many changing on this.
A one gig capacity sounds ok, but can you trust these labels not to use some of that for spyware or other nastiness with what is extra? They seem only to fear discovery. That’s another reason I would not go this route. Sony has already showed us what they will do and I want no part of such.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:11 pm
i smell drm ladin music in this product.
what Sandisk should do is sell these cards empty and allow people to fill them with what ever they want via a computer/loading machine beside them. and also make them mp3’s with no drm…
then I would be game with it but for now I guess p2p and ripping friends cd’s is for me
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:34 am
Anybody remember “Hit clips?”
If I recall correctly, it consisted of a really crappy “player” into which you could load these tiny little chip-lookin’ things, and play back single songs. Maybe albums, I dunno. Upshot was that it was shitty, and almost nobody remembers it anymore.
This looks like an attempt to re-try that concept without having to bother with inventing their own proprietary hardware.
September 23rd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I have been using SD cards for music for years. My Sansa mp3 player has an SD slot. This is like calling a bucket an innovative new way to carry water.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I read that one of the big sell points is the fact that most cell phones have a MicroSD slot, so people can supposedly just pop them in the phones. Only problem is with every phone I have used with a MicroSD slot the phone must format the chip…. which would delete the music that is on it. Yep what a great sell point. Maybe some of the more high end phones that run Windows Mobile can do it without formatting the card. Oh and supposedly the music will be DRM free. Wait the music I get from Amazon is already like that.