U2 and Apple Collaborate On 'Non-Piratable, Interactive Format For Music' 358
Squiff writes U2 and Apple are apparently collaborating on a new, "interactive format for music," due to launch in "about 18 months." (A direct interview is available at Time, but paywalled.) Bono said the new tech "can't be pirated" and will re-imagine the role of album artwork. Marco Arment has some suitably skeptical commentary: "Full albums are as interesting to most people today as magazines. Single songs and single articles killed their respective larger containers. ... This alleged new format will cost a fortune to produce: people have to take the photos, design the interactions, build the animations, and make the deals with Apple. Bono’s talking point about helping smaller bands is ridiculous ... There's nothing Apple or Bono can do to make people care enough about glorified liner notes. People care about music and convenience, period. As for “music that can’t be pirated”, I ask again, what decade is this? That ship has not only sailed long ago, but has circled the world hundreds of times, sunk, been dragged up, turned into a tourist attraction, went out of business, and been gutted and retrofitted as a more profitable oil tanker."
Expert. (Score:5, Insightful)
" Bono said the new tech "can't be pirated" "
Since when is Bono qualified to have an opinion on this subject?
He should make songs and not talk about things he hasn't got a clue about.
Re:Expert. (Score:5, Funny)
Bono is an expert on media formats in the same way that Dr Dre is an expert on frequency response.
Re:Expert. (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, no, he's much, much less an expert than Dre is. As a respected producer at least Dre has some validity as a good ear, and he can evaluate the results of different parametric curves on tone signature, Bono can claim no such expertise in container formats unless he's gone back and studied CS while the world wasn't watching.
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Well, he's got a promising career in the NFL then.
Re:Expert. (Score:4, Funny)
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A "good ear" with respect to what's popular, or what might market well, that's one thing. But what you actually said is just elitist audiophile bullshit.
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I believe that Dr. Dre's PhD is in Electircal Engineering.
Re:Expert. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, the thing is, in order for something to be pirated, at least one person has to buy it. So he may actually be on to something here....
Remember (Score:2)
Remember, the world, err sorry the iWorld was pissed when he gave his music away for Free!
Re:Expert. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legacy Compatiblity (Score:5, Informative)
Thsi point is the ignored deal breaker that has killed all other formats that attempted this. If it won't play on any of the following, it's sales are already in decline.
Common MP3 Players
DVD players that play MP3 CD's
Computers Windows, Linux, Apple
Cell phones Android as well as Apple.
Only formats with compatability at a reasonable price will sell in volume.
Unique formats that require a specialised player will have very limited market penetration.
Do I need to list failed formats?
Sony Minidisc with serial copy protection
Microsoft Zune and protected WMA formats
Apple Itunes copy protected format
The Apple format had a reasonable market penetration because they were the first to market with a legal format, but had to drop the protection when other players entered the market at lower prices in more universally playable formats. Apple tried to market the unprotected verson at a higher price, but that was short lived too.
My questions are who is going to produce the compatible players that people will actually buy? Will the player play legacy formats that are not protected? This is important as a new player that won't play existing libraries won't sell much. Will the player import the legacy formats into a protected format? If so, this will cause a backup and archival issue. Will it be compatible with MOST in car infotainment systems?
Many cars have the ability to "Play" MP3's on a USB Thumb drive. How are you going to sell into this market?
Another incompatable format has a high barrier to market entry. Good luck.
Re:Expert. (Score:4, Funny)
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Only way to make music "unpiratable" is to not wirte and/or record it.
Re:Expert. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Expert. (Score:4, Interesting)
Bono is rich and famous and a leader of his music/concert/marketing industry, and for many people, that's what counts. Whether or not his new digital music format can or cannot be pirated is something that remains to be seen, and is so far away in the future, that you can ignore the rest of his words that the media is propagating today. (And history, regarding piracy in a technical sense, is not on Bono's side. I'll bet against Sir Bono).
Re:Expert. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Which is why my new album consists of nothing but sounds in the 96kHz+ range. Go ahead and pirate that.
(And in the course of making that joke, I discover that the actual HD music format uses 192kHz as its ceiling. You win, audiophiles, you win.)
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There is a subset of audiophiles who also are dog people. Gotta keep your purebred happy, too - and that means supporting high frequency.
(Though as I make this joke, I find out that even dogs can only hear up to 60kHz...)
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Re:Expert. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether or not his new digital music format can or cannot be pirated is something that remains to be seen
Can you listen to it with your headphones of choice? If so you can connect line out to the line in of any computer and record a very pirate-able wave file. Any distortion will be insignificant compared to what compression adds to it these days.
Even if they start to send the audio encrypted to the headphones I can still place a high quality microphone in them and record the audio. (Assuming that the output from the headphones isn't crap, but then I don't want to listen to the original either.)
You don't have to wait to see anything. It is not possible to prevent piracy. (Unless you shut down all forms of communication, if people can't communicate with each other they can't spread undesired information.)
Even when it comes to concepts like sending an encrypted video stream to the TV to prevent movie piracy it doesn't work since a single person can just open the TV and grab the video data as it is sent to the LCD. (And as a worst case, point a video camera at the screen.)
There is no point at where the prevention method is good enough to make it impractical to break it.
Computer game companies are way ahead when it comes to copy protection and there we clearly see that it only requires one dedicated person that works through the binary to disable to protection, even server connected software have been proven breakable.
The music and movie copy protections do not require even a fraction of the work compared to that and even then it is still not enough.
The Titanic is UNSINKABLE. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, hubris! One of my favorite old-timey sins.
You are of course correct. The signal must become analog at some point to make it into your head, and we have had the capability to capture analog signals since the dawn of the television age. You can crack open LCD panels and intercept signals for a more modern high tech version of this concept, of course.
But you are forgetting the other side of the equation. When when someone makes that statement - "THIS CANNOT EVER BE PIRATED" - you are throwing down the gauntlet. And invariably some bored teenager will say "oh really is that so?" and make them eat their words. Usually by the following Saturday. Yes you can do an analog capture but by the time you warm up your soldering gun some kid in the Netherlands will have already got the torrent up.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch a Blu-Ray movie on my Linux box.
Re:The Titanic is UNSINKABLE. (Score:5, Insightful)
Devil's advocate:
Things are different from the 2000s when everyone and his brother, sister, grandmother, and father in law was coming out with an "unhackable" DRM scheme. For one, the market has shifted from PCs/Macs to consoles for gaming. The PS4, Xbox One, and others have not been cracked yet, so piracy and hacking is at 0% on those platforms.
We also didn't depend on user accounts. A background process like VAC or Blizzard's Warden didn't exist that would completely cut off access to services. All it would take is Apple running a similar process that sits in the background and looks for cracking tools, then locks any AppleIDs suspected of doing so. The days of running "unfuck.exe" are long gone, since it would get detected, and all access lost.
Of course, there is video. Yes, there are SD copies and screeners, maybe even someone ballsy enough to cam and slip that on BitTorrent, but 1080i (true, not upsampled) movies are rare. Satellites have not have any real hacks in a decade. Even Apple's movie format has no working cracks with no deprotection utilities out, unless one wants to capture video and re-encode it with the generational quality loss.
Yes, we will see some "cracks", such as saying World of Warcraft is cracked because someone is running a server emulator, but I will be surprised to see available, unprotected works that were protected in this format.
Yes, DRM has been cracked in the past, but it gets harder and harder each cycle. Even Blu-Ray hasn't been fully cracked yet (it is still a race with each individual movie.)
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Of course, there is video. Yes, there are SD copies and screeners, maybe even someone ballsy enough to cam and slip that on BitTorrent, but 1080i (true, not upsampled) movies are rare.
Say what?
Dude, either you haven't been paying attention, or you don't know how to use teh intertubes. Every movie is available as a torrent in full 1080p pretty much the day the blueray disks hit the store shelves. Many are available even earlier.
Even Blu-Ray hasn't been fully cracked yet (it is still a race with each individual movie.)
If by "race" you mean that the various release groups are tripping over each other in order to see which one can get theirs up in the shortest amount of time, then yes. "X-Men Days of Future Past" won't be available for purchase for another 3 weeks, but there's
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Satellites have not have any real hacks in a decade.
Probably because cardsharing is easier, more reliable and more profitable for the people selling it than full hacks.
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If so you can connect line out to the line in of any computer and record a very pirate-able wave file.
Aren't they working on/already have Stereo Mix-less boards? Or have they just disabled it the latest version of Windows or something.
(Assuming that the output from the headphones isn't crap,
Which it will be. Using headphones as speakers? My god, man.
All these analog solutions will technically work but it seems pretty clear we're talking about lossless "digital" pirating.
Computer game companies are way ahead when it comes to copy protection and there we clearly see that it only requires one dedicated person that works through the binary to disable to protection, even server connected software have been proven breakable.
We can live in hope. The amount of effort BluRay people etc. put into encrypting all their shit the entire way down (JVMs on BluRays, HDMI...) has made me less sure than I used to be that the hack
Bono Singing (Score:2, Funny)
Bono's singing sounds exactly like Ned Beatty's squealing in Deliverance.
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Nooooooo! Please don't make more songs! (Also do not talk about things he doesn't have a clue about.)
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We already have this tech already. Pixelmags does exactly this with magazines in their DRM-ed format. Adobe Flash can do this as well, and has been doing so since the VideoWorks days.
So, I'm guessing Apple is going to be making something similar to a password-protected HyperCard stack I made in 1989 that had the menubar hidden, with a special extension to tell what tracks/sectors the file takes up and automatically exit if the file resides somewhere different?
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Dear Bono,
If your song can be played, it can be pirated. Maybe it would be difficult to pirate the album artwork as it's interactive, but 99% of the time people are listening to music on devices that are stuck in their pockets. So, a screenshot would work just fine. If DRM and copy prevention mechanisms worked, how do you explain the fact that each and every one has been bypassed?
I, personally, am willing to pay for the music and media that I consume. Mainly because I believe that the artists deserve to
confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it shows that neither know what they are talking about. If I can HEAR it, I can copy it. And the quality can get pretty damn good depending on how the sound is captured.
Maybe when they build a gizmo that broadcasts the sound directly in to your brain...
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The only way I can see something like that working is a robust audio watermark containing the purchasers iTunes information. Won't stop copying directly, but would theoretically allow them to go after a "source" and possibly publish revocation lists that some devices could support to suppress "pirated" music.
Of course, that would onl
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They just turned down the density, it's still there it can be detected with a long enough sample. It's similar tech to what they use in their film prints. I am acquainted with this issue.
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it shows that neither know what they are talking about
no kidding - you could make a drinking game about how many elements of this story sound like they're from 2002.
The industry already settled on mp3, sans DRM. The market is not demanding anything Apple is offering.
And Bono can keep on trying to make sure poor African kids can never listen to his music (they'll never pay two days' wages for his post-Zooropa music). It's just sad that he pretends to care otherwise.
Re:confused (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would Apple -- go back to pushing the full album when they pushed for single song downloads over a decade ago or why would they push for DRM when they encouraged the music industry to get rid of it.
(And before anyone says they were forced to get rid of DRM by the competition, check when Jobs published "Thoughts on Music" and when the other stores started selling DRM free music.)
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They'll go back to DRM because they can make it so they have the only music store on many peoples' phones and tablets. No choice in vendor, helping insure they get their music from apple, then no choice in players so they must buy apple devices to listen to iTunes music. It's not a cornered market, but purposeful vendor lock-in isn't exactly unheard of.
Re:confused (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:confused (Score:5, Informative)
Once Amazon started selling MP3s, I jumped ship from iTunes and never looked back. I imagine even if there was no court order mandating they remove DRM they would have for competitive reasons anyway.
That's what you call rewriting history. The only reason why there was ever DRM on the iTunes store was because the record labels demanded it. The only reason why Amazon was allowed to sell DRM-free music in mp3 format was because they record labels wanted a strong alternative to the iTunes store - I wonder how happy they are with this nowadays and when Amazon will turn on them like they are turning on the book publishers. At the same time Apple was still not allowed to sell DRM free; only after Apple agreed to raise all the prices.
Just a reminder: The two A's in AAC stand for "Advanced Audio" and have nothing to do with Apple. And AAC = mp4.
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It's even weirder than that. For reference:
.mp1 = MPEG-1 Layer 1 Audio, used by no one and basically a historical footnote
.mp2 = MPEG-1 Layer 2 Audio, used by the radio broadcast industry for archival above 224 kbps and the audio format of VideoCDs
.mp3 = MPEG-1 Layer 3 Audio, the most familiar and widely used consumer audio format in the world
.mp4 = Advanced Audio Codec, AKA MPEG-2 Layer 7 Audio, later updated to MPEG-4 Layer 3 Audio
And that concludes today's installment of worthless trivia.
Re:confused (Score:5, Interesting)
How exactly is this supposed to make the end user feel good about either U2 or Apple?
Both are disconnected from real life. You get that rich and you start believing your own marketing teams blather. There seems to be this idea that "Real" musicans are hurt by piracy. It's not even remotely true... most real musicians can't get a record deal or a show because Bands like U2 have the industry locked up. They are part of huge machine that produced devices that could play their music for them (CDs) then locked that format up in such a way that no regular musician could ever afford to produce one. The one album I was involved in back in the 90s cost $20,000 to finish. We got 600 copies and sold them all making a little over $6k back. That market only worked for huge bands like U2. And local bars don't have live music anymore because local bands aren't allowed on the radio. Bands like U2 pay to have their music played, which gets the public accustom to those songs even if they would have like the local bands better... So now the bars playing a CD they had to pay for AND pay royalties back to the RIAA. Often the live band would have played for FREE! But still can't get a gig.
Now... granted, my Band at the time was DeathMetal. So yea, our lack of gigs had a lot to do with our choice of styles. But this is true of pretty much all live music. I've been in dozens of bands since, from Blues to Bluegrass. It doesn't matter. It's a club and the doors are closed. But, unfortunately for them, they've made it far too easy to consume their product. Now people don't even want to pay for it!
The real solution? You can't pirate a live show. Go do some gigs U2.
Re:confused (Score:4, Insightful)
This comment just ain't quite right. There's gems in there but a whole lotta muck to dig through.
1) Getting a record deal isn't that hard... knowing that you don't actually *want one is the challenge. Todays world means I can create, promote and most importantly distribute my music *without some massive company stealing all of the profits. I might not go multi-platinum without a big marketing engine but I've had no problem at all selling enough albums (tracks actually) to pay for the work.
2) The '90s? Yeah... lets talk about history. In the 90s it was still expensive to produce a CD. Burners were just coming on the scene and were slow and expensive (and a lot of players couldn't play burned discs) so you still needed a big distribution company to produce them. Move to the late 90's into the Naughts and I could produce a saleable CD for pennies but the most important thing is we quickly were moving to the part where the physical CD didn't matter. I could now sell my music digitally with $0 physical production cost beyond the studio. Even the studio is less expensive! Unless you buy some expensive producer studio time / hr has dropped as the digital studio has taken off. Honestly I have all the gear to do it myself (and the ear and tech skill) so my studio cost is down to my time.
3) "Local bars don't have live music anymore." Are you kidding me?! I don't know where you live so I'm really sorry if your hometown has a depressing scene but where I live (and everywhere I travel to which is extensive) there is an exact opposite problem. Every single bar big enough to have a PA-on-a-stick in the corner has live music. The clubs are blowing up even bigger (not even looking at the stadium and big theater scene). Local bands are having trouble making music because on any given night of the week the people who choose to go out have SOOO much to choose from. Minneapolis is my home scene and we're just plan ridiculous on most nights (at least 5/wk if not 7) you have competition in every single major genre (including metal) so a great band is playing for dozens instead of hundreds of people (or the 'great' ones are playing for hundreds and the small ones are playing to the bar staff). You want a gig? I can get you a gig tomorrow. I just can't promise anyone will come to see you play.
4) "You can't pirate a live show": Actually people "pirate" live shows all the time. I'm a recording engineer and technically that's what I'm doing every time I record a show and put it up for free download. The difference is the bands *want me to do that because they understand that the exposure counts more than any $ they may make off that recording.
5) "Play some gigs U2": Um.. you are talking about the band that just played a 110 show *stadium tour spread over 2 years. They just released this album so I imagine we have another one coming. They *spent $1M per day on that tour and were in the red for some large percentage of that making $ only towards the end. Honestly U2 is one of very few bands that could have even pulled off that tour. Even the stadium market is saturated but they had the universal draw to sell out stadiums around the world else they certainly would have lost money on that tour.
So anyway... sorry your band didn't do well but don't blame the industry on that. It happens. A lot.
Back to the original article: Apple and Bono are being stupid... since I boycott Apple already (for other stupid stuff like this) and get my U2 through other channels this really won't affect me aside from reinforcing why I boycott Apple in the first place.
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You aren't looking at it from the point of view of U2 and Metallica and others. See they get a check every month from their record company. For a decade or so those checks were nice and stable and these people grew fat and lazy. Recently over the last decade those checks have been declining. When Bono and Hetfield get their checks and it's less than the previous month they call up the record company and ask why the check is smaller this month.
The record companies blame it all on piracy rather than tell them
Re:confused (Score:4, Informative)
And local bars don't have live music anymore because local bands aren't allowed on the radio.
I don't know where you live, but in Seattle there are three *pages* of live shows for *today* [1] and five *pages* of live shows for *this weekend* [2]. Granted that is both for bars and larger venues, but the vast majority are small local bars.
As to local bands not allowed on the radio?! There are plenty of radio stations that cater to music lovers and absolutely do play local bands. One of several Seattle (again, I live here; I don't think Seattle is unique) is KEXP. They even have an article on how to get airplay on KEXP [3]. While it's a local station, I know many of their listeners are from beyond the city limits so getting airplay on such a local station can have wider-ranging effects for an up-and-coming band.
I guess what "local" bars offer depends on locale but generally higher-population areas sustain more arts. That's always been the case, though. Artists and patrons congregate.
[1] http://www.thestranger.com/gyr... [thestranger.com]
[2] http://www.thestranger.com/gyr... [thestranger.com]
[3] http://blog.kexp.org/2011/08/0... [kexp.org]
Recording industry had brief monopoly. (Score:3)
Music has existed as a business since before history. It only became a huge industry when recording and cheap players became available to a mass market. We are now past this point. Previously recording music required huge amounts of capital in equipment and copying and distribution. But now copying and transmitting are essentially without cost and recording and editing equipment is on the same scale as the instruments. The huge music industry is dead. What will replace it is a return to the past. Paying for
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Challenge accepted! (Score:5, Insightful)
don't they realize when they make statements like "can't be pirated", a whole bunch of people reply with "challenge accepted!" and will go to great lengths to do so?
Non-piratable (Score:3)
/me presses the "Record" button on his memocorder; "So tell me, Bono, how exactly does this non-piratable media format work?".
Re:Non-piratable (Score:5, Funny)
Bullshit (Score:2)
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This DRM technology is fascinating. The player automatically senses if any listening devices are present, and adjust's the output volume such that the listening devices are unable to record the music. In effect, it will play music so quietly that no one will be able to hear it or record it!
This is the latest in DRM technology, and people are going to pay million's of dollars to have it. Only Apple and U2 could pull this technology off. It is so new, it won't work with Linux, BSD, Zune, Windows, Androi
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This DRM technology is already present in U2's music, it sends me diving for the fucking volume control every time...
Apple's new streaming service? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to make something unpiratable is to have it be a continuous interaction between a client and a server where you control the server.
I guess this music "format" is essentially going to be Apple's answer to Pandora, Spotify, et al.
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I am a DJ who frequently plays gigs in places aptly described as "out in the middle of nowhere". As a reference, the last two gigs both involved a client telling me, "If you need more power, let me know. I'll go get the generator". I sent an SMS to my wife at the start of my most recent gig, and it got to her when I got back in range, an hour an a half after I left. Connectivity is zero. If I need connectivity to play it, I can't play it. I will be happy to tell anyone at the gig why I can't play it.
Undeletable (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a new form of distribution, everyone gets a copy which is undeletable. They make money by charging for a removal tool.
Inspred by Bjork's Biophilia? (Score:2)
I wonder if this was inspired by Biophilia. That really blurred the lines between interactive art and music. But it was far, far, from a new medium that other individual artists could get into; it took a team of programmers and artists to pull off.
If piracy is the focus... (Score:2)
If piracy is the focus, then they're looking in the wrong place. Piracy is not a problem, it's a symptom. It'd be like if someone was slurring their speech because they were having a stroke, and you decided to solve the problem by sending them to a speech therapist.
Now, I don't think that you can't have rich, interactive experiences with music that are worthwhile. They may be 'glorified liner notes', but some of us have fond memories of liner notes. I thought the Bob Dylan app [apple.com] from a while back was act
This is silly (Score:2)
Like a lot of people, I listen to my music on the go on my phone. I don't have the ability to appreciate all this fancy new stuff.
The #1 thing Apple can do to improve my buying experience is to put lyrics in the USLT tags, so I don't have to hunt around the Internet or use some other tagging software.
The #2 thing Apple can do is offer songs in Apple Lossless. AAC was a good choice back when 128K was the bitrate of the day. But, in a world where everyone is selling 256K and 320K tracks, I'd rather get my m
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The #2 thing Apple can do is offer songs in Apple Lossless. AAC was a good choice back when 128K was the bitrate of the day. But, in a world where everyone is selling 256K and 320K tracks, I'd rather get my music in a lossless format and convert down to VBR MP3.
A thousand times this. It's been shown that ~192K VBR from a modern encoder is transparent to our ears, so these 256K or higher bitrates are the worst of both worlds: it's not lossless AND it's a waste of bandwidth.
Re:This is silly (Score:4, Informative)
But, in a world where everyone is selling 256K and 320K tracks, I'd rather get my music in a lossless format and convert down to VBR MP3.
LMAO. AAC is already VBR, at 256k from the iTunes store. So you want a lossless track so that you can convert it to lossy anyway, rather than getting a lossy track in the first place with no extra steps needed. Brilliant.
I'm no hardware expert (Score:2)
Bono should stick to his day job (Score:3, Insightful)
Or at a minimum he should have a day job.
I'm a U2 fan, I like their music, I saw their last show in Dublin and I was happy to pay handsomely for the pleasure.
But increasingly musicians are looking to become rent seekers. The ought to earn a living like everyone else. Get on the road, Play gigs.
The expectation of a royalties for longer than a lifetime is a symptom entitlement, based solely on 'because we can'. I'm going to rip their music for as long as I can. When I can't, I'll stop going to their shows.
And where does Bono's sense of entitlement come from, he's a fucking northsider.
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Northsider%20(dublin)
Re:Bono should stick to his day job (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only are they looking to become "rent seekers" the amount they feel entitled to has increases drastically year after year.
Not that I am a fan of his, but Elvis has net worth of $300MM. Not bad for a guy who's been dead for some time.
He also has 91 albums that received Gold, Platinum or Diamond award status so he sold a LOT of albums.
Now lets pick on a "modern artist", Jay-Z has 15 platinum albums, and a net worth of $560MM.
Brittany Spears biggest worry in life is how many ferrari's her boyfriends need.
When "artists" start living in the real world like the rest of us, i might consider supporting them.
How did that end up on my playlist (Score:2)
People can't downgrade to ios8 because of U2's crap taking up precious space.
Not possible (Score:3)
It has been tried for several decades, despite the stupidity even believing it is possible. Fist, there is this thing that eventually, any music has to be made analog before it can be listened to. Analog can always be recorded again and with minimal effort and loss of quality these days by anybody that has a soundcard and some basic understanding of electronics. Second, even digital format cannot be secure against copying, unless you augment them with some death-corps that kills everybody that bought it immediately after they did.
This is on the same level of small children that think just wanting something enough will make it true. The children have the excuse of immaturity. These people have not.
lulz!!! U2 is disgruntled (Score:2)
It already works (Score:3)
These guys have their head so deep up their asses they don't even understand the problem. The problem is that an album shouldn't cost $15 (or a $20 CD) with only a small amount (say, $1) actually going to the band while the rest is pocketed by the label. I realize labels need to market and produce albums, and that's how they justify their huge share of a sell. But when you look at their annual profits, clearly most of the money isn't spent.
The small bands are doing just fine self-producing albums in a home studio and sell them online DRM-free for $5 (while pocketing most of that amount). Sure, the big bands will want an overpriced producer, record in an overpriced studio, and market their albums on huge billboards. But small bands don't need that. I LOVE spending $5 on a small band's album, as an incentive to them. I rarely buy big band albums, except when there are on sale or that there's a huge production and added value (like a making-of or some sort of documentary for instance).
The problem is not pirating. The problem is that music is overpriced, so people pirate it. Or, like me, people don't like, as a principle, spending money when I know that most of it will NOT go to the band. And they also need to remember that every single DRM to date has been defeated. Stop pissing against the wind.
Eat me, Apple (Score:2)
Don't they realize that by definition, "non-piratable" means less useful? How does Apple and Bono's new magical DRM know the difference between me putting the song I bought on my Nexus and copying it for a friend?
And you know what? Bono is becoming a little embarrassing. For that matter, Apple has become a lot embarrassing. You would think that after their recent, "You will take this album whether you want it or not" routine that they'd maybe take a deep breath before coming up with another brainstorm t
iTunes LP (Score:2)
Arrr... we'll see 'bout that, ye bilge-rat (Score:2)
How fittin' it is that this tail comes on talk like a pirate day. The lubber has no idea what the crew has ready, once we host the jolly roger.
Cross between a music album and a video game (Score:5, Funny)
.
Or to phrase it differently, it appears that U2 and Apple are proposing to make music more prominent in video games.
Re: (Score:3)
Jokes aside, they did stress the "interactive" part of this as a key feature.
I can't speak for all Slashdotters, but personally, I listen to music primarily at times that I can't interact with it (beyond the mostly-passive* act of "listening to it") - In the car, at work, while mowing the lawn, etc. When I actually have the spare time and attention to
Re: (Score:3)
So what exactly is going to be interactive about this new format? Or are they just using a word that doesn't mean what they thi
No audio involved obviously (Score:2)
CD-extra? (Score:2)
That is always one way (Score:2, Insightful)
"Trivial" (Score:3)
Apple's post-peak celebrity embraces (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does Apple keep investing themselves in post-peak celebrities?
Dre, Iovine and U2 may be influential but how much currency do they have among future music fans? Is it because the decision makers at Apple are all in their late 40s-to-50s and are merely caught up in the fandom of their youth?
Shouldn't they be forming partnerships with artists with a ton of pull with 20-somethings? Do kids in their 20s even listen to U2, or is it something that 40-something moms crank up in their minivans along with an illicit Marlboro Light on their way to pick up the kids at soccer practice?
If U2 had any hip credibility, it was 30 years ago. Can you imagine Apple rolling out the Macintosh in 1984 with a celebrity lineup of the Everly Brothers and Bill Haley & the Comets?
Re: (Score:3)
In 1984, the Beach Boys first record was only 22 years old.
U2's first album is 34 years old. If you went back 34 years from 1984, you're now talking Frank Sinatra territory. Like when he was a teen hearthrob.
Is Apple going downhill? (Score:5, Informative)
I have nothing personal against Apple or U2, but if Cook thinks he can keep Apple's overall positive image as a "cool company" (not to speak of rejuvenating it) by collaborating with a pop band whose peak of success was in the late 80s/early 90s, then I can only conclude that Apple has a rough future ahead.
Perhaps I am missing the grand picture here but it's hard for me to imagine anything less innovative and more boring than this U2 bullshit in combination with a wrist watch that looses power after one day.
Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Interactive? Music? Apple? That's easy. They're going to make "Music apps" for iPhones and iPads.
But those won't work on the iPod shuffle, the iPod nano and I'm guessing it won't work directly with the future Apple Watch either.
If it's music, I don't want to "interact" with it, I just want to listen to it.
I do want digital albums (Score:4, Interesting)
I really do want digital albums, complete with very high resolution art, full lyrics, liner notes, and extras.
I'd actually like to have the ability to buy the "full album" that would include video files of each music video from the album, "B" sides from old 45 releases of songs from the album, backstage videos, interviews with the artist, whatever.
The old album covers from the 70's, the ones that were supposed to be on large vinyl record jackets... I want to be able to put those up on a large flatscreen TV while the album is playing. Preferably not just a scan from a CD printing, but the original image scanned in high resolution. I'd like to be able to see all the details in Hipgnosis images like the jacket art to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway [bo.infn.it] or Wish You Were Here [tumblr.com]. (Hmm, someone made an animated GIF for that last one... heck, I'd like it both ways in the digital album, original and new animated version.)
Of course, I want this all using open file formats (FLAC, JPEG, HTML). But since nobody else got around to doing this, Apple is doing it first, and of course with Apple it will be proprietary, opaque, and likely patented somehow for maximum lockin.
I don't think this will revolutionize music, but it really is something I want.
Audio Fingerprinting? (Score:3)
success (Score:3)
release an album no one wants for free and it won't be pirated.
Non-Piratable (Score:3)
I keep hearing that word since my VIC-20 days.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
Future headline (Score:4, Funny)
Apple engineers unable to plug Bono's analog hole.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Can't be pirated = doesn't play.
You buy it, it doesn't work on your MP3 player or in your car. It probably doesn't work on my PC unless you install some malware, and probably doesn't work on your phone or tablet unless it's got an Apple logo on it.
So basically, it's worth a fraction of the value of a normal CD with "interactive" booklet and fan website that posts better content than all the corporate bullshit designed only to make you buy more of their defective crap, yet probably costs as much or more.
DRM
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Apple, U2 and Metallica. The trio of the apocalypse.
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Can't Be Pirated is the holy grail of the copyright idiots. It's more important than profit, fame or success. It won't let common sense stand in its way.
The only format that can't be pirated is a format that you cannot listen to. Hey I'm going to encrypt this music and then hand your player the decryption keys! We can try moving the decryption closer and closer to your ears, or to your eyes (as in
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I created 20-30 albums, but only in my mind, never recorded them or played even a single note. Not piratable at all ;)
Re: (Score:3)
You only have to rip something once. You don't even have to do the ripping yourself. Someone else can do it for you.
DRM on a BluRay is only slightly more of a nuissance than the DRM on a DVD. Both are well cracked formats with lots of suitable tools that are readily available.
That particular battle was lost a long time ago.
Now this new format will remain intact only so long as no one cares about it. As soon as it becomes relevant, it will get cracked. Admittedly, obscurity is one thing Apple may have going
Re: (Score:3)
Apple is adding the "bone phone" to their headphone lineup and it's only a slight tweak to convert that fingerprint scanner to detect ear signatures.
So YES -- Apple will use ear authentication and a combination of ultrasonic and sonic frequencies to compile the sound "in ear".
Unless we hack the nervous system -- this music can NEVER be pirated. /s
Re: (Score:3)
Let them bring "DRM" to the ipod, given the trackrecord you list, it will just compel someone to create a better product.
Once you reach a certain market share you treat your customers with disdain, and someone else comes along and eats you up, perhaps it is Apple's try at the "customers are all criminals and we need DRM"?
SonyMD is a good example, it was actually a great product and far ahead of its time, but DRM'd to death and it frankly sucked and died off.
Few things worse then stating "MP3" on the box, on