Saturday, September 04, 2004
2. View the distance
2. View the distance
2.1 Digital Music will be the mainstream form of music instead of traditional disk/cassette finally
The following are the main matters that are on the way to developing digital music:
2.1.1 Support from the customers
To the customers, the most important things are convenience in using, good quality and reasonable price.
Nobody can doubt the convenience of using digital music such as MP3. Nobody can refuse the following lures: we can store all music programs into a single unit. There is no need to change disks/tapes when playing, no need to work at finding it when we want to listen a particular program, no worry about losing a favorite disk when we leave the house.
Using the computer compatible control system, we can realize a lot of functions such as locating given songs, freely combining playing, free repeating, auto loop playing, timing playing, random playing… actually any way a human could imagine. For example, player can play ‘Happy Birthday’ automatically at 8:00 AM when your birthday comes.
Players can display the lyrics or relevant information on its LCD screen, no need to research what the next song is going to be by taking a cover of CD anymore, everything is just there.
Of course, the good quality we talk about here is referring to timbre of digital music. Currently the most MP3 music programs we have got are not good enough, that is because most of them are converted from CDs by individuals. The timbre of their first copies are limited by the set and the source CD the converter using, even the consequent copies are as absolutely same as the first copies, the first copies themselves have distortion already. If the professional industries do the first conversion using a good ‘mother tape’ and good sets and computer programs, it gonna be prefect.
2.1.2 Support from the law
Necessarily the support from legal flied is needed, including explanation about the main definition of copyrights. Even though it may cost a long time in argument, counties of the world must achieve some interim or final negotiations by keeping the spirit of dealing with concrete matters relating to work, because the development of science & technology is unstoppable.
Support of building new laws: relating new laws needed to be build to ensure the new concept carry on.
Countries practically act on striking pirates: the developed countries are doing very well on this matter of when the public uses traditional music commodities. Developing countries include China, are adding their power on striking pirates. But the adopting of new information technology makes it more important and an emergency for countries to act in closer harmony.
We have noticed the two cases that occurred in year 2000: the RIAA against a web site named Napster and Universe Recording Co. against MP3.com. In these cases, the owners of copyright have achieved the final victory. Here we need say only that, not only in the United States, but also around our globe including the Internet, there is no market for pirated music. Countries could stop the pirates through the ISPs which are supplying services such as providing Internet gateway and web site space.
2.1.3 Support from the industries of music
The music industry must keep a positive and active attitude, they must realize striking at pirates is not equal to striking digital music. They must provide a way to let people use digital music legally by generating copyrighted digital music programs, and improve the quality of digital music through that. To ensure their own benefits, the music industry must take the initiative to join the process of building and consolidating the publishing and distribution systems under the new environment.
2.1.4 Support from the manufactories of software/hardware
The manufacturers involving to digital music player and tache of publishing & distribution have enough technology and resource already, they can do further things to protect copyright even without any further research or anything else. The problem is, they had no idea about protecting copyright of digital music and had done nothing before. They will be forced by new laws to act, however. They are joining to build a new industry standard of protecting copyrights of digital music. They are producing new players that meet the new copyright-standard. And they are joining the process of building new system of publishing & distribution.
2.1.5 Keep the distribution expedited
We have a perfect system for publishing and distribution of traditional music commodities. It has provided us a solid base of popularization of digital music commodities that Internet has very popular today and the wide bandwidth connectivity increases.
All we need is the people to establish a new idea of distribution. With the modification applied at point of sale in original music shops, identifying users via qualification, and training staff, we can easily change a traditional music shop into a digital one.
Basically, on web sites nowadays we can add new abilities or new professional web sites, and perfect methods of payment. We can also build a series of legal download systems.
2.1.6 Similar conditions of other fields
There are trends that digital products going more and more popular in other fields, especially the following two:
The digital cameras are taking the place of traditional film cameras:
The digital cameras are far convenience than the film cameras, with the increasing of definition and decreasing of price, it is believed that digital cameras could finally replace the film cameras.
The digital newspapers & magazines are taking place of traditional paper based publications:
Although the digital publications are not as popular as the traditional paper based versions, it is recognized that they are faster and more convenient than the latter. If they finally become as fitted to humans and easily carried as paper based publications, we believe they will be very popular.
2.2 Digital music has a very deep influence on the form of music issuing method
2.2.1 Characteristics of traditional issuing & distribution
The traditional publishing and distribution method are based on physical units such as disks (no matter if they are micro-groove or laser) or tapes. The characteristic is that what people purchase are things can be held and touched, buy one thing spend one piece of money, two things for double price, it is very clear.
The difference between copyrighted units and pirates are comparatively clear. Copyrighted units have been made using good ‘mother tapes’ and good material, so they have good quality. The pirates are made from CDs bought from market, and generally using worse materiel, so there is no guarantee for the quality of pirates.
Because the products are physical units, so it is comparatively easy to strike at the pirates.
Altogether, the characteristics of traditional publishing and distribution are:
Are based on physically existing commodities, the objects are physically existing commodities no matter marketing or recognizing.
The main method from the publishing perspective is to confirm whether a unit is pirated or not, it’s a pirate if it is published without authority. However, there are some small quantity of unapproved copies being published and sold, and these are pirates too, but these do not effect the whole framework.
2.2.2 Characteristics of future issue & distribution
Once the music commodities are sold in full digital form such as MP3, there is no relation to what storing unit will be used due to the excellent copy possibility, wild ways and non-distortion characteristics. Purchasing one equals purchasing a lot.
In this sense, consumers no longer to pay for the music storing units, what they need to pay for is the music itself, or in other words, the right to access the music.
Consumers have the right to access the purchased music programs during their whole human life. So the action of purchase should be recorded to protect the right of accessing, and so consumers should also gain a free restoration service when their own storing units experience problems.
Altogether, the characteristics of future publishing and distribution are:
Based on the right to access and no longer within the concept of physically existing units. It is nothing to do with the right of accessing if the storing units are damaged or missing.
Once paid, enjoyed for one's whole life
The passwords are the delegate of the accessing right. Passwords are normally contained on the SIM cards, and even the damage to the SIM card should have no effect to the authority. However, missing a SIM card means to lose the right of accessing for a certain time.
The meaning of pirate may not only be limited on the publishing time, but also extend to any unapproved accessing.
The music industry should adjust its relative policy to adapt these characteristics.
Here are the three main modes to purchase digital music commodities in the future:
1. Step out to shops to get copies with their own storing units
2. Download from the Internet
3. Purchase disks already containing programs
2.1 Digital Music will be the mainstream form of music instead of traditional disk/cassette finally
The following are the main matters that are on the way to developing digital music:
2.1.1 Support from the customers
To the customers, the most important things are convenience in using, good quality and reasonable price.
Nobody can doubt the convenience of using digital music such as MP3. Nobody can refuse the following lures: we can store all music programs into a single unit. There is no need to change disks/tapes when playing, no need to work at finding it when we want to listen a particular program, no worry about losing a favorite disk when we leave the house.
Using the computer compatible control system, we can realize a lot of functions such as locating given songs, freely combining playing, free repeating, auto loop playing, timing playing, random playing… actually any way a human could imagine. For example, player can play ‘Happy Birthday’ automatically at 8:00 AM when your birthday comes.
Players can display the lyrics or relevant information on its LCD screen, no need to research what the next song is going to be by taking a cover of CD anymore, everything is just there.
Of course, the good quality we talk about here is referring to timbre of digital music. Currently the most MP3 music programs we have got are not good enough, that is because most of them are converted from CDs by individuals. The timbre of their first copies are limited by the set and the source CD the converter using, even the consequent copies are as absolutely same as the first copies, the first copies themselves have distortion already. If the professional industries do the first conversion using a good ‘mother tape’ and good sets and computer programs, it gonna be prefect.
2.1.2 Support from the law
Necessarily the support from legal flied is needed, including explanation about the main definition of copyrights. Even though it may cost a long time in argument, counties of the world must achieve some interim or final negotiations by keeping the spirit of dealing with concrete matters relating to work, because the development of science & technology is unstoppable.
Support of building new laws: relating new laws needed to be build to ensure the new concept carry on.
Countries practically act on striking pirates: the developed countries are doing very well on this matter of when the public uses traditional music commodities. Developing countries include China, are adding their power on striking pirates. But the adopting of new information technology makes it more important and an emergency for countries to act in closer harmony.
We have noticed the two cases that occurred in year 2000: the RIAA against a web site named Napster and Universe Recording Co. against MP3.com. In these cases, the owners of copyright have achieved the final victory. Here we need say only that, not only in the United States, but also around our globe including the Internet, there is no market for pirated music. Countries could stop the pirates through the ISPs which are supplying services such as providing Internet gateway and web site space.
2.1.3 Support from the industries of music
The music industry must keep a positive and active attitude, they must realize striking at pirates is not equal to striking digital music. They must provide a way to let people use digital music legally by generating copyrighted digital music programs, and improve the quality of digital music through that. To ensure their own benefits, the music industry must take the initiative to join the process of building and consolidating the publishing and distribution systems under the new environment.
2.1.4 Support from the manufactories of software/hardware
The manufacturers involving to digital music player and tache of publishing & distribution have enough technology and resource already, they can do further things to protect copyright even without any further research or anything else. The problem is, they had no idea about protecting copyright of digital music and had done nothing before. They will be forced by new laws to act, however. They are joining to build a new industry standard of protecting copyrights of digital music. They are producing new players that meet the new copyright-standard. And they are joining the process of building new system of publishing & distribution.
2.1.5 Keep the distribution expedited
We have a perfect system for publishing and distribution of traditional music commodities. It has provided us a solid base of popularization of digital music commodities that Internet has very popular today and the wide bandwidth connectivity increases.
All we need is the people to establish a new idea of distribution. With the modification applied at point of sale in original music shops, identifying users via qualification, and training staff, we can easily change a traditional music shop into a digital one.
Basically, on web sites nowadays we can add new abilities or new professional web sites, and perfect methods of payment. We can also build a series of legal download systems.
2.1.6 Similar conditions of other fields
There are trends that digital products going more and more popular in other fields, especially the following two:
The digital cameras are taking the place of traditional film cameras:
The digital cameras are far convenience than the film cameras, with the increasing of definition and decreasing of price, it is believed that digital cameras could finally replace the film cameras.
The digital newspapers & magazines are taking place of traditional paper based publications:
Although the digital publications are not as popular as the traditional paper based versions, it is recognized that they are faster and more convenient than the latter. If they finally become as fitted to humans and easily carried as paper based publications, we believe they will be very popular.
2.2 Digital music has a very deep influence on the form of music issuing method
2.2.1 Characteristics of traditional issuing & distribution
The traditional publishing and distribution method are based on physical units such as disks (no matter if they are micro-groove or laser) or tapes. The characteristic is that what people purchase are things can be held and touched, buy one thing spend one piece of money, two things for double price, it is very clear.
The difference between copyrighted units and pirates are comparatively clear. Copyrighted units have been made using good ‘mother tapes’ and good material, so they have good quality. The pirates are made from CDs bought from market, and generally using worse materiel, so there is no guarantee for the quality of pirates.
Because the products are physical units, so it is comparatively easy to strike at the pirates.
Altogether, the characteristics of traditional publishing and distribution are:
Are based on physically existing commodities, the objects are physically existing commodities no matter marketing or recognizing.
The main method from the publishing perspective is to confirm whether a unit is pirated or not, it’s a pirate if it is published without authority. However, there are some small quantity of unapproved copies being published and sold, and these are pirates too, but these do not effect the whole framework.
2.2.2 Characteristics of future issue & distribution
Once the music commodities are sold in full digital form such as MP3, there is no relation to what storing unit will be used due to the excellent copy possibility, wild ways and non-distortion characteristics. Purchasing one equals purchasing a lot.
In this sense, consumers no longer to pay for the music storing units, what they need to pay for is the music itself, or in other words, the right to access the music.
Consumers have the right to access the purchased music programs during their whole human life. So the action of purchase should be recorded to protect the right of accessing, and so consumers should also gain a free restoration service when their own storing units experience problems.
Altogether, the characteristics of future publishing and distribution are:
The music industry should adjust its relative policy to adapt these characteristics.
Here are the three main modes to purchase digital music commodities in the future:
1. Step out to shops to get copies with their own storing units
2. Download from the Internet
3. Purchase disks already containing programs
