British Labels Propagandizing To Children

EMI Exec Thinks You Shouldn't Be Able To Listen To Your Own Music Without Paying Again

from the no-wonder-they're-confused dept

Tue, May 31st 2011 7:20am — Mike Masnick

Via Glyn Moody, we get this bizarre story, which demonstrates how some "new media" execs at the major labels don't seem to understand "new media." A few weeks back, Michael Robertson had revealed the ridiculous demands that the major labels were making on anyone who wanted to license content for a cloud music player. Most of the demands made absolutely no sense and represented an ignorance of the technology involved. Remember, these services are about people uploading music they already have so that they can listen to it elsewhere. It's not about sharing music at all. Yet the labels, in their ultimate paranoia, continue to insist it is. Wayne Borean posted a link to Robertson's story on the astroturfing "Balanced Copyright" page, that is a front for the major record labels. Jeff Thistle, who is the "Director of New Media" for EMI Canada responded (also mirrored here), saying that these demands were "all reasonable." When Borean challenged him on this, Thistle replied:

What measures do you propose be put in place to prevent the uploading of major label owned content? I can't speak to the mechanism to determine what an annual fee would be (presumably it would be by percentage of catalogue * number of lockers that the content resides in), but asking that controls be put in place to prevent the service from becoming another illegal sharing vehicle is *very* reasonable.

How does that make any sense at all? Why should anyone, who has a legal and authorized copy of major label content, be prevented from storing it online to listen to it remotely? And most of these digital lockers don't allow downloads and are only for the one user who uploaded their own music. The claim that these will become "another illegal sharing vehicle" is a total red herring. So they make up a red herring and pretend they're doing this to "protect" that which doesn't need protecting... when the reality is that they're just trying to force people to pay over and over and over again for music they already paid for.

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Filed Under: jeff thistle, licenses, music, music lockers, streaming
Companies: emi

76 Comments

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The eejit (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 7:26am

I want some of whatever cocktail of drugs they're on. They'd put me back into reality soon enough.
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Mr. LemurBoy (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 7:31am

Because if we don't pay them to upload our purchased music, then how are they going to afford finding new artists to exploi... er... promote?
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vastrightwing, 31 May 2011 @ 7:35am

Forget the cloud!
The future is Micro-SD media. They can hold a lot of bytes in a small space and no paranoid, out of touch music execs will be able to regulate what you decide to copy to and from these devices. Most new phones have micro-sd slots. The "cloud" is a huge personal liability. It will be too hard to resist peeking into the personal storage of people and then it will become a nightmare. No, I like tangible media (hard drives, SD/Micro SD, DVDs, etc.) as opposed to cloud storage. I just don't have the love here. I am paranoid about what conclusions will be drawn if I store anything there and someone decides it's not private to me.
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John Doe, 31 May 2011 @ 7:36am

That explains it
And most of these digital lockers don't allow downloads and are only for the one user who uploaded their own music.

A friend of mine got an invite to Google Music and he uploaded his music but he said he couldn't find a way to download it. I hope people don't delete their music after they upload it or they will forever be married to Google Music. All this to try to prevent piracy, which hasn't been prevented or even slowed down but does greatly inconvenience paying customers.
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fritz43 (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 7:41am

We have already won.
Because the speed at which they are losing this war has now shifted from impulse power to warp drive.

"They got the guns but we got the numbers." Jim Morrison ("Five To One")
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Donnicton, 31 May 2011 @ 7:43am

Re: Forget the cloud!
Might this be the birth of MP3 Runners, soldiers of fortune who act as special mules who hide Micro SD cards loaded with music in false molars across state borders to states that have not been authorized by the record companies to listen to their music?

It will be a dystopian future ala Mad Max or Waterworld, where MP3s will be more valuable than gold!
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 7:46am

Re: That explains it
The only way you can download music (that I've seen) with Google Music is threw the android app. You have to tell it to be available offline. I can't find where it puts the download though.
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CarlosFromPhilly, 31 May 2011 @ 7:50am

Re: Forget the cloud!
Idunno about that...
I've been saying SD (and then MicroSD) was the future for many years now.
It's become apparent, though, that this isn't the case.
Physical media is only promoted when there's large scale cooperative corporate support of the format (see: Compact Disc, DVD, Blue Ray, etc); There isn't any reason for major labels and distributors to buy into the format.
Furthermore, anything that exists as an additional layer between purchase and consumption is a step in the wrong direction at this point.
The cloud allows instant, high availability access to media; An SD card is just a slightly more streamlined Compact Disc, which isn't what we need to be exploring (especially considering that the vast majority of consumers don't have SD slots on their primary music players; small physical footprint doesn't solve the sorts of problems they care about, and as such won't lead to switching to a platform that DOES support SD).
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 7:54am

How is this not reasonable, everytime you listen to mp3 you've bought you need to pay the recording industry money. Makes complete logical sense, there is no downside what so ever.
Really. Indeed. Absolutely. Affirm.
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techflaws.org (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 7:55am

Re: Re: Forget the cloud!
It'll rather be more like in Johnny Mnemonic.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 8:01am

Re: Re: Re: Forget the cloud!
That film was rubbish, much like emi's view on this. :D
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 8:02am

Re:
If you don't pay us every time you think about music you're a dirty thief.
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PaulClarkSaintJohn, 31 May 2011 @ 8:08am

Re:
So you must agree that you should be paying your car maker a fee per mile for every mile you drive. The purchase of your car is just the right to own it. To actually use it, there are additional fees per mile.

Every car transaction requires that you provide the car maker a valid credit card or Paypal account (Paypal needs to pay me now for plugging their product). Your car automatically uploads your mileage daily (along with all of your location information to the government in case you commit a crime. If you are not a criminal, you should not mind.).

Thinking about the logic, holding ISPs accountable for what people do on the network is like holding the government responsible when someone commits a crime and uses a road to get to and from the crime scence.
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-, 31 May 2011 @ 8:11am

Re: Re: That explains it
If it's worth it, people will create other tools to use that to share files. If it can be streamed, it can be downloaded, as simple as that.
So I find Mike's statement that they don't allow downloads misleading, explicitly they don't, but implicitly - yes, they do.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 8:14am

Recording industry needs it money. There in trouble, why doesn't everyone see that. Everyone is so mean to them. $_$
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Matthew Krum, 31 May 2011 @ 8:14am

Re: Re: That explains it
With Google music it syncs with your Android device as well as PC's that you authorize. I use it at home & work and if I upload music from home, it auto-downloads it to my work PC's music folder once I login on that PC. It's only stuck in the cloud if you leave it there.
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JEDIDIAH, 31 May 2011 @ 8:14am

All Turing Machines great and small.
This kind of thinking is exactly why Big Media is a threat to the rest of the economy. They think of neutral technological devices as something that only exists to access or steal their content. In the process of trying to suppress anything that might be used as a "piracy tool", they run the risk of ravaging the technology landscape in general.

Most computing devices have nothing to do with big content. However, they are infinitely flexible. If Big Content is allowed to run amok, we run the risk of every business use of computing being burdened by whatever limits Big Content might want to impose on the fundemental flexibility of all computing devices no matter how large or small.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 8:15am

when the reality is that they're just trying to force people to pay over and over and over again for music they already paid for.

Oh please. You know damn well that the music was never paid for in the first place. Thieves, all of you!

/sarc
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sam sin, 31 May 2011 @ 8:15am

their own greed will be the undoing of these corporations. problem is, it wont happen soon enough to prevent people from, not just being forced to pay multiple times for music they already own, but being conned over and over again. when will the copywrong industries learn?
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JEDIDIAH, 31 May 2011 @ 8:18am

Re: Re: Forget the cloud!
Micro-SD is just another manifestation of local storage.

Some device makers like to create anemic devices in this respect. That doesn't mean that there's no utility in local storage. Local storage doesn't suffer the problems of middle men trying to get in between you and your music.

There are many cool things I could do with an iPhone/Android. However, the new mobile usage caps make them pretty much all moot.
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Pickle Monger (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:20am

Playing Devil's advocate... sort of...
Well, actually, letting people share the music between their online storage spaces would be a natural evolution of the service. Not that the labels' demands make sense. JUst as easily people can share music in the physical world. What's next? Are they planning on attaching geolocation trackers to the CD's to make sure they don't leave our appartments?
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DEF (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:20am

"What measures do you propose be put in place to prevent the uploading of major label owned content?"

The last time I checked, once money changes hands, the content on that disc is mine. If it's still theirs, why do I bother paying for it at all?
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techflaws.org (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:21am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Forget the cloud!
I was of course referring to the short story by William Gibson!
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Ken (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:23am

stupid cloud
We already have a way to take our music with us. If they want to control the cloud so much, I say let them have it. I'll be using my mp3 player anyway!
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 8:25am

Stop buying music
Stop feeding them
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 8:29am

Dont feed the recording industry Troll.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 8:33am

Re: Playing Devil's advocate... sort of...
They're taking notes. Thanks a heap.
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Chargone (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:33am

Re: Re:
i think you missed some sarcasm there.
the last line is key.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 8:36am

Re: Forget the cloud!
dont worry they want to make you pay if you go that route too.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110516/02411614278/stupidity-you-must-be-criminal-copyright-t axes-sd-card-edition.shtml
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:36am

Re: Re: Re: That explains it
I'm looking at the music manager now, I see no setting to do that. I can see all my music, but only threw the Google Music website.
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:46am

Re: stupid cloud
This is the same kind of argument as "you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". You don't use the technology so why should you fear anything? I'll tell you why; today it's cloud music, tomorrow is the MP3 player. We give them the cloud they build momentum and start taking everything else.
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Any Mouse (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:48am

Re: Re: Re: That explains it
'If it can be streamed, it can be downloaded...'

With third party applications that have nothing to do with the streaming service? Yes, that is true. But as I just stated two sentences ago, you have to use another application that is not provided by the streaming service, and even then you are only recording the stream, just like the crappy audio cassette recordings of radio transmissions.

So, what about Mike's statement, instead of your own FUD, was misleading?
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crade (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:52am

In 5 years or so, pissing will be a copyright violation.
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John Doe, 31 May 2011 @ 8:53am

Re: Re: Re: That explains it
If it can be streamed, it can be downloaded, as simple as that.

What is even simpler is to just torrent or file share the music/movie and not go through the hassle of snagging a streamed file that is probably being streamed at a lower quality than the original file. So my point stands, you don't slow down piracy, you only inconvenience paying customers.
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:55am

Re:
Is that referencing how bad copyright is getting or how bad music is getting?
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DannyB (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:55am

Re: Re: Re: That explains it
> If it's worth it,
> people will create other tools to
> use that to share files.

That's true.

On the other hand, if prices are reasonable, it is not worth the trouble. It's quick and easy to pay $0.99 on Amazon to download a DRM-free mp3 file.

Piracy will probably never completely disappear. But reasonable prices would significantly diminish it.
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DannyB (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:58am

Re:
Some of us have already paid multiple times.

Vinyl. Cassette. CD.
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crade (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 9:00am

Re: Re:
copyright. Copyright isn't about music, it's about scamming people out of money and it covers more and more stuff all the time. Probably they will just record a bunch of people pissing, and charge everyone royalties for being too similar to their recordings.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 9:03am

Jeff Thistle,

You are a damn idiot that should be strung up. It is the greedy bastards like yourself that is killing the market and driving people to pirate.

Join your friends at the Real Ignorant Asshats of America
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ArkieGuy (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 9:07am

Tax the SD cards....
Michael Geist has an article describing the Canadian Copyright Collective's desire to "tax" SD cards. The plan is:

50� for each electronic memory card with 1 gigabyte of memory or less, $1.00 for each electronic memory card with more than one gigabyte of memory but less than 8 gigabytes of memory, and $3.00 for each electronic memory card with 8 gigabytes of memory or more

I guess even blank memory cards and blank CDs are potential pirate media. Maybe we should all just go back to listening to LIVE local bands. Oh wait... ASCAP would taxes that too.
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Grimby, 31 May 2011 @ 9:12am

If McDonald's started using the recording industries methods they would charge you for a Big Mac then charge you for each bite you take of the Big Mac. On top of it, any time McDonald's changes the Big Mac container you'll have to pay for all the Big Macs you've ever eaten all over again. Finally, you'd likely have to pay a fee or extra tax on toilet paper that goes to McDonald's because you're sharing your Big Mac with the toilet.
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ArkieGuy (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 9:19am

Yours?
You are licensing the right to a CD that has a copy of THEIR content on it. All you OWN is a piece of plastic, they own the music. Or at least that's the way they want it (and maybe what you "agreed" to by opening the package).
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PaulT (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 9:20am

Re: Re: Forget the cloud!
Sounds more like Mirror's Edge to me... underrated game :)
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KB, 31 May 2011 @ 9:25am

Drop
Wouldn't this be another case of shutting the gate when the horse has already bolted again? I use dropbox (and love it) and with drop tunes, from BoxyTunes on my ipad, I can listen to my library remotely anywhere I am. OK, the interface isn't absolutely superb, but I can still access my legally-owned content from anywhere I choose!
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PaulT (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 9:27am

Re: Re:
Music is just as good as it ever was. If certain, currently popular music, makes you think differently, you just have to look harder...

The sole difference between current music and that of the past is that time's gotten rid of some of the worse examples of former eras, leaving the classics. Not every song recorded in previous eras fitted the classic label.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 9:40am

Re: Yours?
The also OWN it for 95+ years. That piece of plastic will probably disintegrate before the content gets to be owned by everyone.
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crade (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 9:42am

Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, music is great, it's just the major labels and their marketting machine that seem to be in a rut. Stay away from whatever they are pushing and it's still moving forward and as good as ever.
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MrWilson, 31 May 2011 @ 9:44am

Re: Re: Re: Re: That explains it
$.99 (or .99� for Verizon mathematicians out there) is too high of a price-point for me.

Once the initial recording costs are paid, there's very little overhead for selling digital files. I'm willing to pay for music, but not for Lady Gaga's costumes or massive advertising campaigns trying to get me to buy Beyonce's next album. It's also impractical considering the storage capacity of devices these days.

You can store over 40,000 songs and much more on many devices. Nobody's going to spend $40,000 on music downloads though.

The value to the consumer is different than the value to the companies. If I have 40,000 songs, I may not hear the song very often in my rotation, so it doesn't make sense to pay $1 for listening to the song 5 times. I also can't sell it used like I can with a CD, so why am I paying more per track than I would for a CD (for which I might spend $5 at most these days)?

The price of gas, teh suck that is the economy, and the lack of good jobs versus the amount of financial aid debt for college grads makes luxury purchases like over-priced $1 music tracks so unimportant right now.

Thank goodness for jamendo.com.
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Jeremy7600 (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 10:02am

Re: Re: Re: That explains it
It does not download anything to your PC at work, unless you are using an app that I'm not aware of yet outside of the Music Manager and the android app (and the google music website). Unless you put the Music manager on your work PC and it sync'd that way? (Haven't tried that yet)

It IS stuck in the cloud, unless you use the Android app, as ChronoTrigger has pointed out.. (Or you are doing something we haven't tried yet)

As for the files, /mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.google.android.music/cache/music is the folder you are looking for.
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John Doe, 31 May 2011 @ 10:14am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: That explains it
The value to the consumer is different than the value to the companies. If I have 40,000 songs, I may not hear the song very often in my rotation, so it doesn't make sense to pay $1 for listening to the song 5 times.

You sir, just plain get it. Music/movies/books are not worth the price being asked. Too much content, too little $$$ to go around. Nobody is going to spend the kind of money it would take to have a decent library of music, movies and books. Lower the price significantly and many more purchases will be made. It is all basic economics and if the government will stay out of it, the market will settle the issue in a few years.
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crade (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 10:16am

Re: Forget the cloud!
It won't be long before DRM and tracking are built into every form of physical media that new computers or phones can use anyway.
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sumquy (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 10:16am

i think the article here, at techcrunch does a better job of explaining the complaints of the various studios.

looking over them, most of their concerns are overblown, but i think that umg actually has a legitimate concern. personally, i have about 20 gigs of music on my hard drives. about two thirds of it was acquired pre-drm-free itunes, and not paid for. not wanting to start a debate on my right to possession, i will just say that i will not be using any cloud locker that examines my music to determine if it has a digital receipt, and i doubt if i am alone in this. i doubt if any such system is even possible (how long until digital signature is cracked?), or practical from a service providers perspective (turns them into copyright police, which they should fight tooth and nail).
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crade (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 10:21am

Re: Tax the SD cards....
Everything is "potential pirate media". obviously anything that stores files could be used to store infringing material and "pirates" will obviously just use the cheapest thing they can find so they will just jump back and forth adding levies to the cheapest storage medium until something else is the cheapest and they switch to add levies to that. Great plan.. If you are ASSHAT and want to get money for nothing.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 10:27am

Re: Re:
Actually, a mileage tax is already being proposed in several states, making your analogy chillingly accurate.
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SmartSmart, 31 May 2011 @ 10:28am

I imagine that Netflix pays for the rights holder when i watch & re-watch Jersey Shore episodes.

I think the Netflix model is probably more reasonable for the rights holder & the consumer, only problem being is that we'd always need internet access.

To me 'streaming' is the answer - but you know... in music i honestly believe more people will want to 'buy' than 'rent'.
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-, 31 May 2011 @ 10:40am

Re: Re: Re: Re: That explains it
The service is moving files up and down the wire.
Whatever user interface they provide, it's a product that adds value to the service.
So no, their service allows dlding even if the product they supplied to let users access it doesn't.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 10:59am

Re: Re: Tax the SD cards....
Next stop: taxing your brain. Because you might remember a song, which is of course another performance.
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Jay (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 11:14am

Re:
We aren't. We're feeding the smart independent labels that are getting bigger by accepting reality.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 11:18am

Re: Re: Re: That explains it
Um, I think you're mistaking "auto-downloads it to my work PC's music folder" with " syncs and puts a directory folder on my work PC".
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The eejit (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 12:56pm

Re: Re: Yours?
CDs have an approximate shelf-life of 25 years. "Planned obsolescence," indeed.
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Any Mouse (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 4:28pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: That explains it
You're still laying the fault at the feet of the wrong people. Again, the stream provider is not sending a standard download. Streams are buffered, but the buffer does not reside on the hard drive. To convert it so it does so takes an act on the user side, thus making any 'downloading' their fault.
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The Devil's Coachman (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 5:51pm

For private use, I will copy whatever I want, period.
If my brother lends me a CD and I rip it to my iPod, too bad for the XXAA douchebags. They have no way to find out, and I won't volunteer that. If they actually think they have the right to examine the contents of my iPod and demand proof of purchase for all content, they can go pound sand. If they attempt to do so, I will be forced to deal with them using "extra-legal" means. I'm sure they could figure out exactly what that means.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 5:58pm

Re: Yours?
Then why are they only paying the artists royalties for Sales, instead of the higher royalties for Licenses?
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-, 1 Jun 2011 @ 5:55am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: That explains it
Whether buffer resides on disk, it varies from service to service and it's certainly not a factor that defines what is streaming and what is not.

When looking at the service alone, aside what happens with the data on the computer - there's really no differece between streaming and downloading.
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Wig, 1 Jun 2011 @ 6:31am

End of an era?
Of course the recording industry wants you to pay over and over again for the same music. That's been their business model all along. They have always tried to sell you the same music again and again, every time insisting that you didn't 'buy' it, but 'licensed' it under a different format (record, cd, tape, iTunes download, ringtone, whatever)

And frankly, the upgrade from the analog record to the digital cd was actually adding value for me as a customer, so I was prepared to pay for the same music again.
But to me there is no 'upgrade' or added value between a digital copy I buy on iTunes and the digital copy I created when I ripped the cd and put it in my iTunes collection. So I am not as willing to pay for it again...

And just to be absolutely clear: I see no reason why I should pay the recording industry for an upload to a digital streaming service. The only added value here is the availability of the music, and if anyone should be paid for that, it would be the provider of that service. The recording industry had nothing to do with making that possible. On the contrary...
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Jeff Thistle, 1 Jun 2011 @ 7:20am

Some context would be appreciated
My comment was in reply to a point from Wayne who suggested that most of the content he owned was indie. He was proposing that it was unfair for record labels to demand fees for content that they ultimately didn't own.

I don't mind participating in this conversation, but only if individual snippets of post aren't going to be taken out of context.
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Jeff Thistle (profile), 1 Jun 2011 @ 7:21am

Some context would be appreciated
My comment was in reply to a point from Wayne who suggested that most of the content he owned was indie. He was proposing that it was unfair for record labels to demand fees for content that they ultimately didn't own.

I don't mind participating in this conversation, but only if individual snippets of post aren't going to be taken out of context.
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shannon watkins, 1 Jun 2011 @ 7:38am

Demonizing what you don't understand.
reading this article, and many of the comments, it seems to me that people are jumping to their own conclusions about what the recording industry is looking for.
Just because a consumer wants to have rights to another's intellectual property, does not entitle them to it. Just because you do not understand the laws and regulations, does not mean that they are instituted by "idiots" and "assholes".
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Jeni (profile), 1 Jun 2011 @ 8:07am

Re:
"If it's still theirs, why do I bother paying for it at all?"

Exactly, DEF! I recently bought a movie - can't recall which one, but every 15 to 20 minutes this ugly, huge message splattered up my TV telling me how copying is stealing - it was annoying, invasive, distracting and totally ruined any "entertainment value" from the whole movie. I sat here thinking, "I paid to sit in my living room and be scolded for over 90 minutes - for something I didn't do???"

Won't buy another movie until/unless that nonsense stops. I'm finding out Wii is fun...
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The Devil's Coachman (profile), 2 Jun 2011 @ 3:29am

Re: Demonizing what you don't understand.
Just because you don't have a point doesn't mean you are entitled to come here and try to make one!
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Jeff Thistle, 31 Jul 2013 @ 12:04pm

Exec? Ha!
You retard. I built web apps for EMI.
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Jeff Thistle, 15 Aug 2013 @ 6:41am

Re:
In what way am I a greedy bastard?
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Jeff Thistle (profile), 20 Nov 2014 @ 8:13pm

Seriously, it's been far too long. Can we please take this defamatory article down the easy way?
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2015 @ 1:33pm

What sort of publication won't fact-check articles?
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2015 @ 1:35pm

Re:
One that needn't exist.
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Jeff Thistle, 7 Feb 2020 @ 3:25pm

Re:
How about now?
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