Face Of Appalachia

Hilary On Huffington

Hilary On Huffington

The new iPod my girlfriend gave me is a trap. Yeah, it is great looking and I really love the baby blue leather case but when, oh when, will Steve Jobs let me buy music from somewhere other than the Apple iTunes store and put it on my iPod?

And this is why Democrats are losing in D.C. Complete avoidance of the ISSUE!

The issue isn’t Apple not licensing Fairplay, it’s the usage of DRM
technology to begin with, and that’s secondary to the primary issue of DISTRIBUTION and how P2P eclipses the iTunes Music Store, Rhapsody and all of the other bullshit alternatives.

God, Apple’s success isn’t testimony to a bully forcing its viewpoint on the
populace, rather a forward-thinking company creating something SO hot that the
public clamors for it, buys it, even though it’s EXPENSIVE! If the record
business stopped beating up Apple and looked at it as a teacher, THEN progress
would be made.

The iTunes Music Store is a sideshow. Plain and simple. If Hilary Rosen
wanted to have an impact in the marketplace, she would talk about licensing P2P
distribution. But if she did that, her former employer, the RIAA, would freak
out. So, knowing who she owes, Hilary avoids the problem. THIS is why people
have tuned the Democrats out. They’ve sold their souls to the corporations,
but their main constituency is the PEOPLE! God, the corporations are the BASE
of the Republican party, in order to succeed as a Democrat, you’ve got to
give the PEOPLE something. The people aren’t clamoring to play copy protected
AACs on third party players, they’re desirous of avoiding being sued by the RIAA.

Apple has ninety percent of the hard drive-based marketplace. And even
though it only entered the flash business a handful of months ago, and had supply
problems, in the first quarter of 2005, it already captured 57% of the market
for THOSE devices. So, where is this huge group of people complaining that
they can’t use songs from the iTMS on their non-Apple players? Maybe those using
Rhapsody and all the competitors who not only employ Microsoft’s WMA format,
but don’t even make products usable on Apple Computers? And Apple’s the
culprit here?

FURTHERMORE, built into iTunes, which works on both Mac and Windows, is MP3
support. Which is a format all hand-held players use (except, of course, for
some Sonys, which use their own special format). Why isn’t Hilary beating up
Microsoft, stating that it doesn’t ship Windows Media Player with MP3-ripping
support? That you’ve got to purchase an extra module, which most ignorant
people aren’t even aware of. Yes, Steve Jobs creates a totally user-friendly,
seamless solution, and for this Apple gets SHIT??

And if the RIAA didn’t insist on copy protection, if songs were sold in an
open format, this wouldn’t be a problem to begin with, would it?

But people don’t want copy protected tracks for a buck. They want trading of
a boatload of product. The key is to license this. If someone would just
speak English in D.C., the public might pay attention, the record companies
could stop bitching and start reaping.

But no, here we’ve got old wave politicians spewing their encrusted, paid for
crap on the Internet. Just because you read it on a computer screen doesn’t
mean it’s enlightened.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/2005/05/steve-jobs-let-.html

By: bob | 2005/05/09 | Apple - Music Business - Online | Trackback | Comments [RSS 2.0]

14 Responses to Hilary On Huffington »»


Comments

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  1. Hilary Rosen
    Comment by Hilary Rosen | 2005/05/10 at 09:07:18

    Hilary Responds

    Just read the rest of your piece. Your point about p2p is a good one and I have been thinking a lot about what will ever change the dynamic in the licensing nightmare that currently exists. The volume is huge and a Grokster win for the industry (if there is one) won’t change a thing in the marketplace on that front. So unless people deal with it, the future stays limited.

     But when are you going to admit that mp3 quality sucks? And since we can get better compression with either aac or wma or anything else why settle for mp3 quality? What do you have against making the iPod better? Apple fanatics are so thin skinned that any criticism of the product automatically engenders a "BUT IT IS THE BEST THING OUT THERE YOU SUCK" response. Guess what, the best still isn’t good enough. Who cares about the DRM’s? yeah they aren’t very efficient and I don’t know that they guard against anything, but the DRM isn’t why Apple keep its system proprietary.

    I am not the record industry – anymore. Just a pundit like you. Wondering whether I even have the energy to be back in this conversation because every f_____g issue associated with it is still so polarized it almost makes the Senate look tame. La plus ca change, la plus c’est la meme choses.

    And by the way, Democrats are losing because we are too often a party of smug ranters, not thoughtful doers.

    For future bits of my take on the world, stay tuned to the Huffington Post cuz Arianna is an amazing woman and I’ll be a loyal follower.

    Best regards, Hilary

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  2. bob
    Comment by bob | 2005/05/10 at 09:08:18

    AAC is MPEG4, which anyone can employ, it’s the Fairplay DRM that makes it unique to Apple.

    As for hearing the difference between MP3s at 128 and AACs and WMAs at the same rip rate…can you hear the dog whistles too? Yes, AACs and WMAs at that rip rate, the one product is being sold at, are MARGINALLY better-sounding than MP3s at 128…but one is not limited to ripping at 128, hell, I rip at 160, and Roger Ames rips at 320, both options of which are included in the iTunes software. FURTHERMORE, iTunes allows you to rip in lossless, which many claim to be equivalent to the CD. So, I don’t quite understand the problem here. The issue is not how good files sound, but how much hard drive space you’re willing to sacrifice to hear good sounding music. Then again, most people listen to files through the abhorrent in the ear headphones Apple provides with iPods. AND, CDs sound so horrific I find that I actually like to listen to music on my computer speakers, I’m not constantly reminded how bad CDs sound when I play them through my big stereo.

    So, for those interested in a better computer listening experience, I advise a higher rip rate, better headphones and the best computer speakers you can buy. But, people have become inured to shitty sound because of the awful sounding CDs purveyed by the RIAA companies, so they don’t care that they’re hearing less than perfect sound. Then again, who killed vinyl, the best sounding format so far, the consumer or the RIAA companies? How do we start to rectify the wrongs? The major labels are now releasing a higher quality product in a format, the DualDisc, that adheres to no known standard, breaking compatibility with all that came before, everything manufactured to play red book CDs. Should Apple be forced to include higher quality headphones? Should Congress enact a law that no rip rate under 192 kbps will be tolerated? No, it seems that the customer is quite happy with what he’s got. After all, been stereo shopping recently? It’s not the seventies anymore, a stereo is an all-in-one boombox that delivers sound about as accurate as the reporting on Fox News.

    You’re right, we are knee-jerk supporters, because we BELIEVE in Apple Computer. We USED to believe in musical artists, but that was before the corporations foisted no-talent good-lookers like J. Lo and Jessica Simpson upon us. Yup, I’d rather have dinner with Steve Jobs than anybody on the Billboard chart, including Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. Jobs believes there are no limits, he releases insanely great products. We all need someone/something to believe in, to criticize us for placing our faith in Apple rather than today’s pop artists, never mind legislators, is to misunderstand human nature. Companies can no more decree we believe in the bogus acts they purvey than they can dictate who we fall in love with.

    Every time somebody tells me their PC has slowed down to a crawl due to malware, I beam. And when I go to the Apple Store, I recall going to Tower Records in the seventies. I’m in a religious haven, with like-minded believers. And based on the population at the Apple Store and that at Tower Records, it seems that a lot more people believe in Apple than music. And that’s just plain sad. Because Apple just manufactures tools, art makes the world go round, and a record is great irrelevant of whether it’s ripped in AAC, WMA or MP3. Hell, we fell in love with some of the greatest tracks of all time as they emanated through the single speaker in the dashboard of our parents’ station wagons. Via AM no less!

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  3. Jim Griffin
    Comment by Jim Griffin | 2005/05/11 at 08:20:36

    The RIAA doesn’t insist on copy protection. Songs are sold in an open format
    (hundreds of millions of compact discs a year), so this isn’t a problem, is it?

    🙂

    No companies sell more unprotected music than do RIAA member companies
    through record stores. If they insist upon copy protection, they ought to practice
    what they preach, eh?

    Of course they will not end the sale of "red book" audio discs — the
    installed base is too large to ignore … telling technology companies to do as they
    say, not as they do is just another of the hypocrisies surrounding the
    problem. It has always been voluntary to pay for music, and it is becoming more and
    more a choice we make every year. This will escalate regardless of the best
    efforts of lawyers and technologists until sharper minds bring new business
    models that attack the motive, not the mechanism, in much the way that licensing a
    thousand channels of video for a flat fee has destroyed our desire to use our
    video cassette recorders to record.

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  4. Paul Logus
    Comment by Paul Logus | 2005/05/11 at 08:21:00

    regarding rip rate. most people i know, not in the biz, rip at a rate where
    it is passable so they can get max music on their hard drives. guess what they
    pick???? 128. i cant even listen to music like that. it really says a lot
    about people and how they perceive things. most of my ipod is at 160. i do 192
    when there is something sonically deep going on. most new material is so ‘brick
    wall limited’ it doesn’t matter.

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  5. Dan Backhaus
    Comment by Dan Backhaus | 2005/05/11 at 08:21:35

    How many people under 30, other than her kids, does Hilary know? I’m 28,
    EVERYONE I know has an iPod and a Mac and because of my side job I deal with High
    School kids in NYC on a daily basis. I have NEVER EVER heard of anyone
    complaining about mp3 quality. Never. Never ever. Hilary forgets that the rest of
    us don’t get a $5,000 stereo installed at work as part of our contract…
    That for the rest of us the factory installed car stereo is about as good as it
    has ever been, so quality is a distant second to quantity. The ONLY thing
    anyone complains about is availability of songs on Limewire, et al. Fuck Hilary
    for being so smug.

    And by the way, the Major Labels are losing because they employ people who
    can’t even type the word "fucking" in their emails for fear of the effect on
    their image.

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  6. Mark Montgomery
    Comment by Mark Montgomery | 2005/05/11 at 08:22:07

    Wow, double wow…

    "The volume is huge and a Grokster win for the industry (if there is one) won’t change a thing in the marketplace on that front."

    First, I’m not sure if that is an admission from a former general or
    not…but if it aint, it’s close…i think. You are beating the right drum, when are
    these guys gonna wake up and smell the coffee? DRM is a fallacy, at the end
    of every digital device is an analog transfer (and that’s the old fart way
    around DRM – how bout a magic marker?)

    And…

    "But when are you going to admit that mp3 quality sucks?"

    When are they gonna figure out its not about the format? It’s about connect with music fans. Christ, I’m an audiophile, former studio rat (gone as far as
    to shoot out multiple manufacturing plants with multiple formats – single
    speed from 1630 blah blah blah – in one of the better mastering studios on the
    planet with a shitpile of great engineers, contemplating the fuzz in our
    bellybuttons) but at the end of the day it’s about the SONG, the PERFORMANCE, and the
    ARTIST!! I burn my mp3’s at 192k in iTunes (37 days of music on an external
    firewire…) and it’s good enough for me!

    Here is why Apple rocks. I’m sitting on my deck (lemme pull up dashboard –
    ok, 66 degrees) the birds are singing, and in the background I’m listening to
    David Mead served out from my computer in the house wirelessly to my stereo,
    while controlling the tunes from my laptop on the deck…ohh wait, an audio chat
    from a friend in NYC, iTunes automatically turns itself down until my chat is
    over…SORRY, build a better mouse trap and you WIN!

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  7. Andy Adelewitz
    Comment by Andy Adelewitz | 2005/05/11 at 08:23:32

    But when are you going to admit that mp3 quality sucks?

    The 1% of all music consumers who care enough to notice the quality
    difference admit it with alarming regularity. They won’t shut up about it.

    Everyone else notices that it’s a non-proprietary, universally accessible
    format which delivers very good (sure, not GREAT, but very good) sound quality at
    a far more manageable, and transferrable, file size than WAV or AIFF or other
    non-proprietary formats.

    Guess who wins?

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  8. Jenni Sperandeo
    Comment by Jenni Sperandeo | 2005/05/11 at 08:25:20

    "And by the way, Democrats are losing because we are too often a party of
    smug ranters, not thoughtful doers. For future bits of my take on the world, stay tuned to the Huffington Post cuz Arianna is an amazing woman and I’ll be a loyal follower.".

    That’s actually two solid examples of why the Democrats keep losing.

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  9. Michael Fremer
    Comment by Michael Fremer | 2005/05/11 at 08:25:55

    What a great exchange…..to hear someone from the RIAA suddenly talk about
    sound quality just astounds me. I published a full color glossy perfect bound
    magazine that readers compared to MOJO (though it was done basically by 2
    people with outside writers) distributed at all the big bookstores and record
    outlets, yet I couldn’t get ANY ADVERTISING from the major labels…this was a
    really cool mag and it dealt with SOUND QUALITY and the listening experience,
    though of course music was the main event……this was just before the internet,
    and computers and MP3s and the industry didn’t give a flying fuck about sound
    quality…they were riding the CD boom to oblivion……

    But she is right that MP3 sound does suck. I can’t listen to it, even on my
    computer…but then I have good computer speakers and a good outboard D/A
    converter. Once kids hear vinyl on a good stereo, they know what they’re being
    cheated out of…

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  10. Michael Patterson
    Comment by Michael Patterson | 2005/05/11 at 08:30:20

    I can’t believe that she was the spokesperson for our industry. I am actually in shock by some of her comments that make it clear that we are doomed if people like this are speaking for us. From her original article

    "Now, the music fan is on the cusp of riches in their options – free of the viruses of the pirate sites."

    What pirate site viruses? I USE A MAC. This is not a problem.

    "If he isn’t careful Bill Gates might just Betamax him while the crowds cheer him on."

    What crowds cheering him on? Are you high? Most kids today kids do not care about the limitations of itunes/Ipod. They are not buying the music from the sites you are talking about. They are using p2p’s and getting music from their friends drives. To think that Bill Gates will win because Apple won’t let you certain files shows that you have no concept of what is going on in America today. I was with two teens from Clarksville Tn this weekend (boy 19 football player, girl 17)who both said that they had not purchased a CD within the last year. The used p2p’s to get all of their music. When I mentioned that they were stealing from the artist their comment was oh well CD’s cost too much for them to buy it for just one song because most records only had one song they liked.

    "Why am I complaining about this? Why isn’t everyone?"

    Because you are out of touch with the consumer of today.

    "If you are really a geek, you can figure out how to strip the songs you might have bought from another on-line store of all identifying information so that they will go into the iPod. But then you have also degraded the sound quality. How cruel."

    If you include High School football players and Cheerleaders as geeks then you are right I guess. Most the kids I know who you would not think are geeks know how to strip these headers and info out and do it without thought. I will send you two files if you like, one stripped and not. Tell me if you hear a difference. How cruel it is to be old and out of touch." From her response:

    "But when are you going to admit that mp3 quality sucks?"

    It can suck if you rip it at a low bit rate but for the most part people can’t hear the difference between a CD and a MP3 at 190. Every A and R person and every artist I have worked with could not tell the difference when I have played back both AIFF and MP3 and asked them to pick the best sounding one. It does not matter as they can’t tell the difference. I upload mixes at 360 all the time for artist and labels to approve and no one seems to mind. I use in ear monitors as headphones but most of the world uses really crappy headphones, boomboxes and car stereos to hear music. Except in extreme cases no one in the world would care if they were hearing a 128 rip or an Aiff.

    "better compression with either aac or wma or anything else why settle for mp3 quality?"

    Who is to say it is better? On the last record I did we tested all of the formats at various bit levels. In the end MP3 won over AAC or WMA each time. MP3 at 360 sounded as good as the master files to everyone involved. To some it sounded better and serious thought was made to master from 360 mp3. The low end was tighter on the MP3.

    "What do you have against making the iPod better?"

    The IPod is an amazing unit. I am all for making it better but it is the best thing out there. You are confusing the issue. Your problem is with Apple’s policies not the way the IPod works. The IPod works with the following formats without a problem. AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF As an aside, why can’t I choose to download AIFF or wav files if I want from the commercial sites? I have 6mb DSL so it takes me no time to download an album of AIFF’s.

    "Apple fanatics are so thin skinned that any criticism of the product automatically engenders a "BUT IT IS THE BEST THING OUT THERE YOU SUCK" response. Guess what, the best still isn’t good enough."

    The products are so superior to anything else that the competition is not even close. Again the issue is not the products but the policy. How many people have bought an IPod. Seems like the best is good enough.

    I am not the record industry – anymore.

    Thank god.

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  11. Brad Serling
    Comment by Brad Serling | 2005/05/15 at 18:58:53

    Seems like a good time to chime in. Through the nugs.network we deliver all the live downloads for over 100 artists, ranging from Metallica to Phish to Dave Mathews Band to the to the Grateful Dead. We offer both unprotected MP3s at 128 and lossless FLAC files which are six times the filesize. Guess what? An average of 30% of our sales across all artists are to fans who pay more for the lossless files. Sometimes as much as $7 more, sometimes almost as much as an actual CD price. Maybe more than 1% of music consumers out there actually DO care about the fidelity of the music they’re buying. And clearly DRM is not a stumbling block here. I challenge you to find a complete copy of any one of our releases on any of the P2P networks. Fans know to buy directly from the band. They will gladly pay for quality of service. And they are happy to support the artists directly.

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  12. Keith Porteous
    Comment by Keith Porteous | 2005/05/15 at 18:59:11

    This is not Hilary coming "close" to a turnabout on P2P. This is it, a complete departure from where she stood while with the RIAA. She has acknowledged that the status quo is not working and that we need to explore options other than totally "free" vs. "totally protected" music files. She was the fiercest advocate of the major record companies strategy to NOT license P2P. I credit her for rethinking her position. The government will likely have to legislate a compulsory licence if the majors don’t strike a P2P deal soon.

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  13. Dave McNair
    Comment by Dave McNair | 2005/05/15 at 18:59:49

    We just moved to Montclair NJ, and the 14 year old kid that lives upstairs plays drums. I asked him about his band. He was excited to say they were playing their first paying gig at a Bar Mitzvah in a few weeks. I asked what they played. he says mostly covers. I say by who? He very nonchalontly replies, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Deep Purple, but not "Smoke On The Water" we do "Hush"…. I ask if he is into any new bands. He says he likes Nirvana and Soundgarden. His dad took him to see Motorhead last week!

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  14. Andy Adelewitz
    Comment by Andy Adelewitz | 2005/05/23 at 22:44:44

    Re: Brad Serling / nugs.network I’m gonna hazard a guess that it’s a pretty small (relative to all music consumers) and self-selecting customer base that patronizes services like this. Poll everyone who bought the last Gwen Stefani record, or the last Ludacris record, or the last Coldplay record, and ask them how many concert bootlegs they have of said band. There’s also a stigma in a lot of these bootleg communities, esp. among the jam bands kids, placed on MP3s vs. FLAC or other lossless formats, which leads a lot of those who don’t actually notice the minimal difference to opt for FLAC files anyway, since it makes them look like more "serious" bootleg traders and makes their source files look more impressive. I don’t think there’s any way that stigma translates to the mass market. And, as someone else noted, 128 is kind the minimum bitrate for quality MP3s. Of course some of the more discerning fans are shunning them; they might not be so quick to vote against MP3s at 160 or 192 or even higher, which are still very manageable file sizes. (Why is it impressive that people would pay almost CD price for FLAC files of a concert that as likely as not spans two or more CDs if you burn it to disc? People are paying almost CD price for a whole album from the iTunes store, and those aren’t FLAC or otherwise lossless files. The point is, you can’t walk into a record store and buy last night’s DMB show on CD, so you can’t really compare…)


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  1. Hilary Rosen
    Comment by Hilary Rosen | 2005/05/10 at 09:07:18

    Hilary Responds

    Just read the rest of your piece. Your point about p2p is a good one and I have been thinking a lot about what will ever change the dynamic in the licensing nightmare that currently exists. The volume is huge and a Grokster win for the industry (if there is one) won’t change a thing in the marketplace on that front. So unless people deal with it, the future stays limited.

     But when are you going to admit that mp3 quality sucks? And since we can get better compression with either aac or wma or anything else why settle for mp3 quality? What do you have against making the iPod better? Apple fanatics are so thin skinned that any criticism of the product automatically engenders a "BUT IT IS THE BEST THING OUT THERE YOU SUCK" response. Guess what, the best still isn’t good enough. Who cares about the DRM’s? yeah they aren’t very efficient and I don’t know that they guard against anything, but the DRM isn’t why Apple keep its system proprietary.

    I am not the record industry – anymore. Just a pundit like you. Wondering whether I even have the energy to be back in this conversation because every f_____g issue associated with it is still so polarized it almost makes the Senate look tame. La plus ca change, la plus c’est la meme choses.

    And by the way, Democrats are losing because we are too often a party of smug ranters, not thoughtful doers.

    For future bits of my take on the world, stay tuned to the Huffington Post cuz Arianna is an amazing woman and I’ll be a loyal follower.

    Best regards, Hilary

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    1. bob
      Comment by bob | 2005/05/10 at 09:08:18

      AAC is MPEG4, which anyone can employ, it’s the Fairplay DRM that makes it unique to Apple.

      As for hearing the difference between MP3s at 128 and AACs and WMAs at the same rip rate…can you hear the dog whistles too? Yes, AACs and WMAs at that rip rate, the one product is being sold at, are MARGINALLY better-sounding than MP3s at 128…but one is not limited to ripping at 128, hell, I rip at 160, and Roger Ames rips at 320, both options of which are included in the iTunes software. FURTHERMORE, iTunes allows you to rip in lossless, which many claim to be equivalent to the CD. So, I don’t quite understand the problem here. The issue is not how good files sound, but how much hard drive space you’re willing to sacrifice to hear good sounding music. Then again, most people listen to files through the abhorrent in the ear headphones Apple provides with iPods. AND, CDs sound so horrific I find that I actually like to listen to music on my computer speakers, I’m not constantly reminded how bad CDs sound when I play them through my big stereo.

      So, for those interested in a better computer listening experience, I advise a higher rip rate, better headphones and the best computer speakers you can buy. But, people have become inured to shitty sound because of the awful sounding CDs purveyed by the RIAA companies, so they don’t care that they’re hearing less than perfect sound. Then again, who killed vinyl, the best sounding format so far, the consumer or the RIAA companies? How do we start to rectify the wrongs? The major labels are now releasing a higher quality product in a format, the DualDisc, that adheres to no known standard, breaking compatibility with all that came before, everything manufactured to play red book CDs. Should Apple be forced to include higher quality headphones? Should Congress enact a law that no rip rate under 192 kbps will be tolerated? No, it seems that the customer is quite happy with what he’s got. After all, been stereo shopping recently? It’s not the seventies anymore, a stereo is an all-in-one boombox that delivers sound about as accurate as the reporting on Fox News.

      You’re right, we are knee-jerk supporters, because we BELIEVE in Apple Computer. We USED to believe in musical artists, but that was before the corporations foisted no-talent good-lookers like J. Lo and Jessica Simpson upon us. Yup, I’d rather have dinner with Steve Jobs than anybody on the Billboard chart, including Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. Jobs believes there are no limits, he releases insanely great products. We all need someone/something to believe in, to criticize us for placing our faith in Apple rather than today’s pop artists, never mind legislators, is to misunderstand human nature. Companies can no more decree we believe in the bogus acts they purvey than they can dictate who we fall in love with.

      Every time somebody tells me their PC has slowed down to a crawl due to malware, I beam. And when I go to the Apple Store, I recall going to Tower Records in the seventies. I’m in a religious haven, with like-minded believers. And based on the population at the Apple Store and that at Tower Records, it seems that a lot more people believe in Apple than music. And that’s just plain sad. Because Apple just manufactures tools, art makes the world go round, and a record is great irrelevant of whether it’s ripped in AAC, WMA or MP3. Hell, we fell in love with some of the greatest tracks of all time as they emanated through the single speaker in the dashboard of our parents’ station wagons. Via AM no less!

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      1. Jim Griffin
        Comment by Jim Griffin | 2005/05/11 at 08:20:36

        The RIAA doesn’t insist on copy protection. Songs are sold in an open format
        (hundreds of millions of compact discs a year), so this isn’t a problem, is it?

        🙂

        No companies sell more unprotected music than do RIAA member companies
        through record stores. If they insist upon copy protection, they ought to practice
        what they preach, eh?

        Of course they will not end the sale of "red book" audio discs — the
        installed base is too large to ignore … telling technology companies to do as they
        say, not as they do is just another of the hypocrisies surrounding the
        problem. It has always been voluntary to pay for music, and it is becoming more and
        more a choice we make every year. This will escalate regardless of the best
        efforts of lawyers and technologists until sharper minds bring new business
        models that attack the motive, not the mechanism, in much the way that licensing a
        thousand channels of video for a flat fee has destroyed our desire to use our
        video cassette recorders to record.

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        1. Paul Logus
          Comment by Paul Logus | 2005/05/11 at 08:21:00

          regarding rip rate. most people i know, not in the biz, rip at a rate where
          it is passable so they can get max music on their hard drives. guess what they
          pick???? 128. i cant even listen to music like that. it really says a lot
          about people and how they perceive things. most of my ipod is at 160. i do 192
          when there is something sonically deep going on. most new material is so ‘brick
          wall limited’ it doesn’t matter.

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          1. Dan Backhaus
            Comment by Dan Backhaus | 2005/05/11 at 08:21:35

            How many people under 30, other than her kids, does Hilary know? I’m 28,
            EVERYONE I know has an iPod and a Mac and because of my side job I deal with High
            School kids in NYC on a daily basis. I have NEVER EVER heard of anyone
            complaining about mp3 quality. Never. Never ever. Hilary forgets that the rest of
            us don’t get a $5,000 stereo installed at work as part of our contract…
            That for the rest of us the factory installed car stereo is about as good as it
            has ever been, so quality is a distant second to quantity. The ONLY thing
            anyone complains about is availability of songs on Limewire, et al. Fuck Hilary
            for being so smug.

            And by the way, the Major Labels are losing because they employ people who
            can’t even type the word "fucking" in their emails for fear of the effect on
            their image.

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            1. Mark Montgomery
              Comment by Mark Montgomery | 2005/05/11 at 08:22:07

              Wow, double wow…

              "The volume is huge and a Grokster win for the industry (if there is one) won’t change a thing in the marketplace on that front."

              First, I’m not sure if that is an admission from a former general or
              not…but if it aint, it’s close…i think. You are beating the right drum, when are
              these guys gonna wake up and smell the coffee? DRM is a fallacy, at the end
              of every digital device is an analog transfer (and that’s the old fart way
              around DRM – how bout a magic marker?)

              And…

              "But when are you going to admit that mp3 quality sucks?"

              When are they gonna figure out its not about the format? It’s about connect with music fans. Christ, I’m an audiophile, former studio rat (gone as far as
              to shoot out multiple manufacturing plants with multiple formats – single
              speed from 1630 blah blah blah – in one of the better mastering studios on the
              planet with a shitpile of great engineers, contemplating the fuzz in our
              bellybuttons) but at the end of the day it’s about the SONG, the PERFORMANCE, and the
              ARTIST!! I burn my mp3’s at 192k in iTunes (37 days of music on an external
              firewire…) and it’s good enough for me!

              Here is why Apple rocks. I’m sitting on my deck (lemme pull up dashboard –
              ok, 66 degrees) the birds are singing, and in the background I’m listening to
              David Mead served out from my computer in the house wirelessly to my stereo,
              while controlling the tunes from my laptop on the deck…ohh wait, an audio chat
              from a friend in NYC, iTunes automatically turns itself down until my chat is
              over…SORRY, build a better mouse trap and you WIN!

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              1. Andy Adelewitz
                Comment by Andy Adelewitz | 2005/05/11 at 08:23:32

                But when are you going to admit that mp3 quality sucks?

                The 1% of all music consumers who care enough to notice the quality
                difference admit it with alarming regularity. They won’t shut up about it.

                Everyone else notices that it’s a non-proprietary, universally accessible
                format which delivers very good (sure, not GREAT, but very good) sound quality at
                a far more manageable, and transferrable, file size than WAV or AIFF or other
                non-proprietary formats.

                Guess who wins?

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                1. Jenni Sperandeo
                  Comment by Jenni Sperandeo | 2005/05/11 at 08:25:20

                  "And by the way, Democrats are losing because we are too often a party of
                  smug ranters, not thoughtful doers. For future bits of my take on the world, stay tuned to the Huffington Post cuz Arianna is an amazing woman and I’ll be a loyal follower.".

                  That’s actually two solid examples of why the Democrats keep losing.

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                  1. Michael Fremer
                    Comment by Michael Fremer | 2005/05/11 at 08:25:55

                    What a great exchange…..to hear someone from the RIAA suddenly talk about
                    sound quality just astounds me. I published a full color glossy perfect bound
                    magazine that readers compared to MOJO (though it was done basically by 2
                    people with outside writers) distributed at all the big bookstores and record
                    outlets, yet I couldn’t get ANY ADVERTISING from the major labels…this was a
                    really cool mag and it dealt with SOUND QUALITY and the listening experience,
                    though of course music was the main event……this was just before the internet,
                    and computers and MP3s and the industry didn’t give a flying fuck about sound
                    quality…they were riding the CD boom to oblivion……

                    But she is right that MP3 sound does suck. I can’t listen to it, even on my
                    computer…but then I have good computer speakers and a good outboard D/A
                    converter. Once kids hear vinyl on a good stereo, they know what they’re being
                    cheated out of…

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                    1. Michael Patterson
                      Comment by Michael Patterson | 2005/05/11 at 08:30:20

                      I can’t believe that she was the spokesperson for our industry. I am actually in shock by some of her comments that make it clear that we are doomed if people like this are speaking for us. From her original article

                      "Now, the music fan is on the cusp of riches in their options – free of the viruses of the pirate sites."

                      What pirate site viruses? I USE A MAC. This is not a problem.

                      "If he isn’t careful Bill Gates might just Betamax him while the crowds cheer him on."

                      What crowds cheering him on? Are you high? Most kids today kids do not care about the limitations of itunes/Ipod. They are not buying the music from the sites you are talking about. They are using p2p’s and getting music from their friends drives. To think that Bill Gates will win because Apple won’t let you certain files shows that you have no concept of what is going on in America today. I was with two teens from Clarksville Tn this weekend (boy 19 football player, girl 17)who both said that they had not purchased a CD within the last year. The used p2p’s to get all of their music. When I mentioned that they were stealing from the artist their comment was oh well CD’s cost too much for them to buy it for just one song because most records only had one song they liked.

                      "Why am I complaining about this? Why isn’t everyone?"

                      Because you are out of touch with the consumer of today.

                      "If you are really a geek, you can figure out how to strip the songs you might have bought from another on-line store of all identifying information so that they will go into the iPod. But then you have also degraded the sound quality. How cruel."

                      If you include High School football players and Cheerleaders as geeks then you are right I guess. Most the kids I know who you would not think are geeks know how to strip these headers and info out and do it without thought. I will send you two files if you like, one stripped and not. Tell me if you hear a difference. How cruel it is to be old and out of touch." From her response:

                      "But when are you going to admit that mp3 quality sucks?"

                      It can suck if you rip it at a low bit rate but for the most part people can’t hear the difference between a CD and a MP3 at 190. Every A and R person and every artist I have worked with could not tell the difference when I have played back both AIFF and MP3 and asked them to pick the best sounding one. It does not matter as they can’t tell the difference. I upload mixes at 360 all the time for artist and labels to approve and no one seems to mind. I use in ear monitors as headphones but most of the world uses really crappy headphones, boomboxes and car stereos to hear music. Except in extreme cases no one in the world would care if they were hearing a 128 rip or an Aiff.

                      "better compression with either aac or wma or anything else why settle for mp3 quality?"

                      Who is to say it is better? On the last record I did we tested all of the formats at various bit levels. In the end MP3 won over AAC or WMA each time. MP3 at 360 sounded as good as the master files to everyone involved. To some it sounded better and serious thought was made to master from 360 mp3. The low end was tighter on the MP3.

                      "What do you have against making the iPod better?"

                      The IPod is an amazing unit. I am all for making it better but it is the best thing out there. You are confusing the issue. Your problem is with Apple’s policies not the way the IPod works. The IPod works with the following formats without a problem. AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF As an aside, why can’t I choose to download AIFF or wav files if I want from the commercial sites? I have 6mb DSL so it takes me no time to download an album of AIFF’s.

                      "Apple fanatics are so thin skinned that any criticism of the product automatically engenders a "BUT IT IS THE BEST THING OUT THERE YOU SUCK" response. Guess what, the best still isn’t good enough."

                      The products are so superior to anything else that the competition is not even close. Again the issue is not the products but the policy. How many people have bought an IPod. Seems like the best is good enough.

                      I am not the record industry – anymore.

                      Thank god.

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                      1. Brad Serling
                        Comment by Brad Serling | 2005/05/15 at 18:58:53

                        Seems like a good time to chime in. Through the nugs.network we deliver all the live downloads for over 100 artists, ranging from Metallica to Phish to Dave Mathews Band to the to the Grateful Dead. We offer both unprotected MP3s at 128 and lossless FLAC files which are six times the filesize. Guess what? An average of 30% of our sales across all artists are to fans who pay more for the lossless files. Sometimes as much as $7 more, sometimes almost as much as an actual CD price. Maybe more than 1% of music consumers out there actually DO care about the fidelity of the music they’re buying. And clearly DRM is not a stumbling block here. I challenge you to find a complete copy of any one of our releases on any of the P2P networks. Fans know to buy directly from the band. They will gladly pay for quality of service. And they are happy to support the artists directly.

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                        1. Keith Porteous
                          Comment by Keith Porteous | 2005/05/15 at 18:59:11

                          This is not Hilary coming "close" to a turnabout on P2P. This is it, a complete departure from where she stood while with the RIAA. She has acknowledged that the status quo is not working and that we need to explore options other than totally "free" vs. "totally protected" music files. She was the fiercest advocate of the major record companies strategy to NOT license P2P. I credit her for rethinking her position. The government will likely have to legislate a compulsory licence if the majors don’t strike a P2P deal soon.

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                          1. Dave McNair
                            Comment by Dave McNair | 2005/05/15 at 18:59:49

                            We just moved to Montclair NJ, and the 14 year old kid that lives upstairs plays drums. I asked him about his band. He was excited to say they were playing their first paying gig at a Bar Mitzvah in a few weeks. I asked what they played. he says mostly covers. I say by who? He very nonchalontly replies, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Deep Purple, but not "Smoke On The Water" we do "Hush"…. I ask if he is into any new bands. He says he likes Nirvana and Soundgarden. His dad took him to see Motorhead last week!

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                            1. Andy Adelewitz
                              Comment by Andy Adelewitz | 2005/05/23 at 22:44:44

                              Re: Brad Serling / nugs.network I’m gonna hazard a guess that it’s a pretty small (relative to all music consumers) and self-selecting customer base that patronizes services like this. Poll everyone who bought the last Gwen Stefani record, or the last Ludacris record, or the last Coldplay record, and ask them how many concert bootlegs they have of said band. There’s also a stigma in a lot of these bootleg communities, esp. among the jam bands kids, placed on MP3s vs. FLAC or other lossless formats, which leads a lot of those who don’t actually notice the minimal difference to opt for FLAC files anyway, since it makes them look like more "serious" bootleg traders and makes their source files look more impressive. I don’t think there’s any way that stigma translates to the mass market. And, as someone else noted, 128 is kind the minimum bitrate for quality MP3s. Of course some of the more discerning fans are shunning them; they might not be so quick to vote against MP3s at 160 or 192 or even higher, which are still very manageable file sizes. (Why is it impressive that people would pay almost CD price for FLAC files of a concert that as likely as not spans two or more CDs if you burn it to disc? People are paying almost CD price for a whole album from the iTunes store, and those aren’t FLAC or otherwise lossless files. The point is, you can’t walk into a record store and buy last night’s DMB show on CD, so you can’t really compare…)

                            This is a read-only blog. E-mail comments directly to Bob.

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