Open Letter From OK Go, regarding non-embeddable YouTube videos - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Daniel_ · 01-26-2010, 12:25 PM

I saw this today, whilst reading about the new OK Go album (which is great by the way).

Open Letter From OK Go - OK Go

Quote:

Originally Posted by OK Go

To the people of the world, from OK Go:

This week we released a new album, and it’s our best yet. We also released a new video – the second for this record – for a song called This Too Shall Pass, and you can watch it here. We hope you'll like it and comment on it and pass the link along to your friends and do that wonderful thing that that you do when you’re fond of something, share it. We want you to stick it on your web page, post it on your wall, and embed it everywhere you can think of.

Unfortunately, as of now you can’t embed diddlycrap. And depending on where you are in the world, you might not even be able to watch it.

We’ve been flooded with complaints recently because our YouTube videos can't be embedded on websites, and in certain countries can't be seen at all. And we want you to know: we hear you, and we’re sorry. We wish there was something we could do. Believe us, we want you to pass our videos around more than you do, but, crazy as it may seem, it’s now far harder for bands to make videos accessible online than it was four years ago.

See, here’s the deal. The recordings and the videos we make are owned by a record label, EMI. The label fronts the money for us to make recordings – for this album they paid for us to spend a few months with one of the world’s best producers in a converted barn in Amish country wringing our souls and playing tympani and twiddling knobs – and they put up most of the cash that it takes to distribute and promote our albums, including the costs of pressing CDs, advertising, and making videos. We make our videos ourselves, and we keep them dirt cheap, but still, it all adds up, and it adds up to a great deal more than we have in our bank account, which is why we have a record label in the first place.

Fifteen years ago, when the terms of contracts like ours were dreamt up, a major label could record two cats fighting in a bag and three months later they'd have a hit. No more. People of the world, there has been a revolution. You no longer give a shit what major labels want you to listen to (good job, world!), and you no longer spend money actually buying the music you listen to (perhaps not so good job, world). So the money that used to flow through the music business has slowed to a trickle, and every label, large or small, is scrambling to catch every last drop. You can't blame them; they need new shoes, just like everybody else. And musicians need them to survive so we can use them as banks. Even bands like us who do most of our own promotion still need them to write checks every once in a while.

But where are they gonna find money if no one buys music? One target is radio stations (there's lots of articles out there. here's one: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/20...ouse-senate.ars ). And another is our friend The Internutz. As you’ve no doubt noticed, sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Blahzayblahblah.cn run ads on copyrighted content. Back when Young MC's second album (the one that didn't have Bust A Move on it) could go Gold without a second thought, labels would’ve considered these sites primarily promotional partners like they did with MTV, but times have changed. The labels are hurting and they need every penny they can find, so they’ve demanded a piece of the action. They got all huffy a couple years ago and threatened all sorts of legal terror and eventually all four majors struck deals with YouTube which pay them tiny, tiny sums of money every time one of their videos gets played. Seems like a fair enough solution, right? YouTube gets to keep the content, and the labels get some income.

The catch: the software that pays out those tiny sums doesn’t pay if a video is embedded. This means our label doesn’t get their hard-won share of the pie if our video is played on your blog, so (surprise, surprise) they won’t let us be on your blog. And, voilá: four years after we posted our first homemade videos to YouTube and they spread across the globe faster than swine flu, making our bassist’s glasses recognizable to 70-year-olds in Wichita and 5-year-olds in Seoul and eventually turning a tidy little profit for EMI, we’re – unbelievably – stuck in the position of arguing with our own label about the merits of having our videos be easily shared. It’s like the world has gone backwards.

Let’s take a wider view for a second. What we’re really talking about here is the shift in the way we think about music. We’re stuck between two worlds: the world of ten years ago, where music was privately owned in discreet little chunks (CDs), and a new one that seems to be emerging, where music is universally publicly accessible. The thing is, only one of these worlds has a (somewhat) stable system in place for funding music and all of its associated nuts-and-bolts logistics, and, even if it were possible, none of us would willingly return to that world. Aside from the smug assholes who ran labels, who’d want a system where a handful of corporate overlords shove crap down our throats? All the same, if music is going to be more than a hobby, someone, literally, has to pay the piper. So we’ve got this ridiculous situation where the machinery of the old system is frantically trying to contort and reshape and rewire itself to run without actually selling music. It’s like a car trying to figure out how to run without gas, or a fish trying to learn to breath air.

So what’s there to do? On the macro level, well, who the hell knows? There are a lot of interesting ideas out there, but this is not the place to get into them. As for our specific roadblock with the video embedding, the obvious solution is for YouTube to work out its software so it allow labels to monetize their videos, wherever on the Internet or the globe they're being accessed. That'll surely happen before too long because there's plenty of money to be made, but it’s more complicated than it looks at first glance. Advertisers aren’t too keen on paying for ads when they don’t know where the ads will appear (“Dear users of FoxxxyPregnantMILFS.com, try Gerber’s new low-lactose formula!”), so there are a lot of hurdles to get over.

In the meantime, the only thing OK Go can do is to upload our videos to sites that allow for embedding, like MySpace and Vimeo. We do that already, but it stings a little. Not only does it cannibalize our own numbers (it tends to do our business more good to get 40 million hits on one site than 1 million hits on 40 sites), but, as you can imagine, we feel a lot of allegiance to the fine people at YouTube. They’ve been good to us, and what they want is what we want: lots of people to see our videos. When push comes to shove, however, we like our fans more, which is why you can take the code at the bottom of this email and embed the "This Too Shall Pass" video all over the Internet.

With or without this embedding problem, we'll never get 50 zillion views on a YouTube video again. That moment – the dawn of internet video – is gone. The internet isn’t as anarchic as it was then. Now there are Madison Avenue firms that specialize in “viral marketing” and the success of our videos is now taught in business school. But here's a secret: zillions of hits was never the point. We're a rock band, and it’s a great gig. Not just because we get to snort drugs off the Queen of England (we do), but because the only thing we are expected to do is make cool stuff. We chase our craziest ideas for a living, and if sharing those ideas takes 40 websites instead of one, it doesn’t make too big a difference to us.

So, for now, here's the bottom line: EMI won't let us let you embed our YouTube videos. It's a decision that bums us out. We've argued with them a lot about it, but we also understand why they're doing it. They’re aware that their rules make it harder for people to watch and share our videos, but, while our duty is to our music and our fans, theirs is to their shareholders, and they believe they’re doing the right thing.

Here’s the embed code for the Vimeo posting:
<object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8718627&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8718627&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/8718627">OK Go - This Too Shall Pass</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user2495615">OK Go</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Go forth and put it everywhere, please. And buy our album. It’s great.

Yours Truly,

Damian (on behalf of OK Go)

I found this interesting, and highlights that there are a number of acts out there (OK Go and NIN immediately come to mind) who are open to embracing new ideas but not welcomed by the industry.

Jetée · 01-26-2010, 12:52 PM

Yeah, I glanced over this article a week ago. Not sure what it is advocating, other than complaining in some regard about being rock musicians in the 21st century hurts thier baggy pockets now more than it ever did before (oh, really?) or that record labels don't like to share free content for free anymore.

And EMI, in my opinion, really blows the fun out of YouTube. Copyright claims and all that jazz, even when its the original artist who uploads the goshdarned video. (Can't ever embed another Röyksopp video here)

Martian · 01-26-2010, 01:20 PM

The whole thing highlights that the system as it stands today is more or less obsolete.

OK Go is invested in the internet as a vehicle, and it seems to me that a lot of what they're doing today is trying to recapture the success/phenomenon/magic of A Million Ways (see also Here It Goes Again, the new video as featured in the above letter).

There's a shift happening between bands and their labels that I think is significant, and I think the assumptions made in the letter above are a bit off the mark on that one. What's certain for everyone who pays any attention at all is that the times they are a-changin' and the music business in 5 or 10 years isn't likely to bear much resemblance to the music industry of the past or present.

I have a lot more to say on this subject, but I'm a bit short on time right now. I'll revisit this later, if the details haven't been hashed out by the time I get back to it.

Baraka_Guru · 01-26-2010, 01:45 PM

Yes, the business models in virtually the entire cultural industry are changing. (Just think of how things are for traditional distributors in a digital world.)

In terms of the music industry, we've gone from a model based predominately on a product unit consumption: most revenues, I imagine, came from this, the selling of "albums." But now you have the free Internet. But you also get a number of other changes. But first, isn't it interesting how there are many individuals who would rather die than pay $0.99 for a song track when it can be had for free, yet they have at least one reason to pay $2.49 for the song's "ring tone"?

So, yeah, the model is broken, so what's to happen? Generally, media companies have to figure out how to move from the product model to the "monetization of culture" model. You have lost revenues in one area, but new opportunities in others. Making money from a website! That didn't exist 20 years ago. What about licensing music to films, television & radio commercials, etc. That seems to be happening a lot. Sure, the film industry also has issues in this new digital world, but if they pay the music guys for licensing, it's their problem now.

One book to check out regarding this topic is Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of a Radical Price. He's the author of that book The Long Tail, which explains another huge shift in consumerism in the Internet age. I've read the latter, but not the former; though I'm sure I'll check it out before long.

Martian · 01-26-2010, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

In terms of the music industry, we've gone from a model based predominately on a product unit consumption: most revenues, I imagine, came from this, the selling of "albums." But now you have the free Internet. But you also get a number of other changes. But first, isn't it interesting how there are many individuals who would rather die than pay $0.99 for a song track when it can be had for free, yet they have at least one reason to pay $2.49 for the song's "ring tone"?

I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that there are many people who 'would rather die' than pay a buck per tune. This isn't an ideological issue for most folks, but rather a value-driven decision. A consequence of cheap media storage and transport is that people no longer attach any real value to the media. The easy availability of free music with no real negative consequences has killed the prospect of charging money for music -- it's hard to increase the convenience factor substantially and you sure as hell can't beat the price. When it comes to piracy, there's just no way to compete.

Your ring tone example highlights the whole thing nicely, in fact. The cell phone providers have their platform properly locked down. They create an artificial scarcity to add value; if you want your cell phone to blast out Eminem's latest hit in all it's tinny glory when your BFF calls, you'll have to fork out your $2.49 to do it. The providers have prevented any other means of achieving the same result. If, on the other hand, you want to listen to Eminem on your iPod while you run/commute/whatever, there's no sense in paying for it. You can get it online for free. It may be illegal, but there's no real consequences and it's hard to convincingly portray multi-millionaire artists or multi-billion dollar corporations as victims. Ideology doesn't really fit into it, except on the extreme edges.

OK Go is an interesting example. Free sharing of their music (via Youtube primarily, in this case) is what turned them into a household name. They were around prior to the explosion of A Million Ways, but weren't 'big' in any sense of the term. They've stuck to a formula that's worked for them within the constraints of the limitations placed in front of them by their label, and that's done okay too.

The bottom line is that you can rail and rave against the ignorant masses who steal trillions of dollars in intellectual property every second, but it won't change anything. This is the new face of the cultural industry. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. All that's left to do now is adapt to it, and those who refuse to do so will inevitably perish.

The music and film industries are right in the middle of this, but with products like the Kindle being the next big wave, I have a feeling that the publishing industry is going to be the next front. Brace yourself.

Baraka_Guru · 01-26-2010, 04:48 PM

Of course, my indicating the choice of actually dying was a gross exaggeration, but I think we see eye to eye. Generally speaking, there's a large group of people out there who don't even consider paying a single cent for their music, movies, games, or software, etc. Yet they do spring for other things that, to me, have a much, much lesser end value. I think it's odd and worthy of examination.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martian

The music and film industries are right in the middle of this, but with products like the Kindle being the next big wave, I have a feeling that the publishing industry is going to be the next front. Brace yourself.

Amazon is making (or perhaps merely has been until lately) the same mistakes Sony used to (or perhaps still does to an extent) when it came to new technologies and their products in general. The attempt at proprietorship at something like eBooks ain't going to work in the long run. I see many people preferring the Sony Reader over the Kindle for that very reason. I think this has been rectified with the Kindle DX handling PDFs, but it was, at one point, an issue.

That said, smart publishers are realizing that they produce content, not products (i.e. books). It's a different situation than what the music guys face. Books are visual, so it's not quite the same thing. I'm interested to see how things will go down the road, but I can't see myself willingly giving up my paper-bound books. They're as close to a perfect invention as anything.

Martian · 01-26-2010, 06:02 PM

Having discussed this in the past, I'm fairly certain that you're correct, in as much as we're more or less in sync on this issue. Regardless:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Of course, my indicating the choice of actually dying was a gross exaggeration, but I think we see eye to eye. Generally speaking, there's a large group of people out there who don't even consider paying a single cent for their music, movies, games, or software, etc. Yet they do spring for other things that, to me, have a much, much lesser end value. I think it's odd and worthy of examination.

You're attaching a mystery to this that isn't actually present. It's because you make an assumption that there's some sort of unemotional logic behind the purchase decisions being made.

You or I may think it remarkable folly to spend money on a ringtone, or immoral to obtain a video game or song for free. This may be due to ideology, or simple logic.

"Song X costs $0.99 on iTunes, but Rogers/Bell/AT&T wants $2.49 for the right to use a poorly rendered loop of it as a notifier. This is not good value."

Vs.

"I want Song X."

Indeed, it'd be folly to assume that we're above the same traps fallen into by 'the masses,' rather than that we simply have different value definitions.

Typical acquisition decision-making flows toward best value. It's not whether or not an item can be obtained, but rather what is the least costly way to obtain it. In that I think a delineation occurs between (to stick to the example) a ringtone and an mp3. An mp3 can be downloaded through bittorrent at virtually no cost and little inconvenience. This contrasts with iTunes, and for those who are savvy enough to use bittorrent and/or don't use an iPod and the attendant software (iTunes) is likely to be the best value. A ringtone, as the contrast, exists within a closed system. There's only one way to acquire it, and therefore the best value exists through that one way as the default.

I think on particularly high value items it's possible to cross a threshold where the purchaser decides that the product isn't worth the cost, but I think it skews when we're talking about amounts under $5. That's pocket change, and tends to be discounted by most.

This relates back to the larger discussion in that the perceived value of cultural content to the end consumer has fallen sharply. Even if piracy were eliminated, I don't think many people would be willing to go back to $20 per CD. That paradigm was irrevocably destroyed.

Which is why the smart content producers are realizing that they're not in the business of marketing a product, and are looking for alternate revenue streams.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Amazon is making (or perhaps merely has been until lately) the same mistakes Sony used to (or perhaps still does to an extent) when it came to new technologies and their products in general. The attempt at proprietorship at something like eBooks ain't going to work in the long run. I see many people preferring the Sony Reader over the Kindle for that very reason. I think this has been rectified with the Kindle DX handling PDFs, but it was, at one point, an issue.

That said, smart publishers are realizing that they produce content, not products (i.e. books). It's a different situation than what the music guys face. Books are visual, so it's not quite the same thing. I'm interested to see how things will go down the road, but I can't see myself willingly giving up my paper-bound books. They're as close to a perfect invention as anything.

Amazon's mistakes have been made by many producers. Apple, Microsoft, even Nintendo. There's an assumption that if you control the hardware you can control the content. This assumption is invariably proven false by the talented hobbyists who undertake the dismantling and undermining of these ideas.

If Amazon hadn't included .pdf functionality in their Kindles, either someone else would have marketed a product that did and made the Kindle obsolete, or someone with enough time, energy and knowledge would've created a hack to do it anyway.

You raise an interesting point, obliquely. The music industry forgot for a while what business it was in -- the Powers That Be got too caught up on marketing little plastic discs and forgot that the real value was in the content that's on them. I think this is starting to change, but it's painfully slow.

I sincerely hope that those in the publishing industry are smart enough to adapt to this as it comes, and not just because I have a friend in the biz. Marketing an experience (in the form of a paperback book, as the case may be) is one strategy. Understanding that there are other ways to leverage your content and being flexible enough to adapt to the changing landscape is going to be the key issue, however.

I don't think the masses are inherently evil, and out to rob the poor hardworking artists. I do think the masses are strongly resistant to having the will of others forced upon them, and now that technology exists to enable them to route around such things those days are pretty much over.

Daniel_ · 01-26-2010, 11:51 PM

Most phones I've used can take any mp3 and use it as a ringtone (this has been the case with every phone I've had for at least 6 years, and I'm pretty sure is standard across manufacturers).

All of them could plug into a PC to be loaded with content.

There are many free tools ranging from full on editors (like audacity) to websites that let you load, identify and clip the part of a song you want as your ringtone from any mp3 file you have available.

So to contend that ringtones are a closed system is puzzling.

Regarding downloads, I buy the music I keep, but I sample a lot of music using a selection of free services - streaming radio, youtube, blogs and podcasts, etc. If anything, new distribution methods have caused me to purchase a great deal of old content (classic records that i had missed in the past, or lost copies of in format updates) that cost record firms nothing to produce, as the investment was recouped 20 years ago. These networks have also exposed me to new artists recording now that I woul dnot have bought speculatively, and who don't get radio airplay, so I have as a direct result of the facility with which music can be obtained freely ended up spending more on legitimate music.

It has been reported several times that the people who download the most "free" music have the most "bought" music also, whether the free stuff came legally or illegally. In essence, the fraction of music that a person pays for is probably fairly constant but some people have 10 cds that they paid for and 1000 tracks they downloaded, and some have 200 cds and 20,000 tracks.

From the invention of music, to the invention of recording, musicians could only make money playing to an audience. From the birth of recording, through to the 1950s, record sales made little money and concerts paid the bills. In the 60s and 70s that switched, and through the 80s and 90s the money was in cheaply made recordings sold in vast numbers.

In the 21st century, I think that the way musicians make their money will return to the original model for most players - recordings will generate awareness and maybe fame and fortune for a small number, but playing live will be the bread and butter wages for the majority.

If anything, new technology has taken us full circle to a medieval system where travelling players became famous and rich through patronage and ticket sales.

Martian · 01-27-2010, 12:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_

Most phones I've used can take any mp3 and use it as a ringtone (this has been the case with every phone I've had for at least 6 years, and I'm pretty sure is standard across manufacturers).

All of them could plug into a PC to be loaded with content.

There are many free tools ranging from full on editors (like audacity) to websites that let you load, identify and clip the part of a song you want as your ringtone from any mp3 file you have available.

So to contend that ringtones are a closed system is puzzling.

I'm basing this on my own limited experience. I understand that the cellular market in Europe is much more open than it is here. Perhaps it's gotten easier in recent years to do such things on North American phones too -- I wouldn't know, as I'm one of those Luddites who expects my phone to actually ring when I get a call.

Even if we take that as granted, the point still stands. Using a song as a ringtone requires some form of selective editing or uploading -- there are hoops to jump through that might make paying the small fee a more attractive alternative.

There is a correlation between extensive CD collections and extensive downloaded libraries. I think the most profound conclusion to draw from this is that people who love music will collect a lot of it. It's an open secret that I have a large collection of music on the very PC I'm using at this moment. Some of it is legally bought and paid for. Some of it was taken from my own CD collection. Some of it was not paid for in any fashion, and a good deal of that is stuff I'd just as soon do without than actually fork over cash to have. Perhaps that makes me a sinner. I prefer pragmatist. Why would I turn my nose up at free?

One of the absurdities of the current campaign being waged by the music industry (although it's winding down now) is the premise that every download is a lost sale. It presupposes that people who take something for free would be willing to pay a nontrivial amount for that same thing. This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about, although I suppose I'm maybe not looking at it broadly enough. Perceived value is tricky business in my mind; the price that any given individual attaches to an item may bear no relation to what others think it's worth, or what it cost to produce. Consider those old songs mentioned -- you're not the only one. I have a fair amount of material from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC and so on that's legally bought and paid for. I know for a fact that the other principal participant here to date has quite a bit of Beatles material as well. The investment made on this material was recouped ages ago and the marginal cost on production of the material in a new format is orders of magnitude lower than what's actually being charged. But we pay the amount on the tag because that's the value we attach to it.

Culture as a commodity is on the wane. I'm entirely convinced of this. The new commodity is the experience, I reckon, which is actually a commodity that's as old as time itself.

01-26-2010, 12:52 PM	#2 (permalink)
Jetée The Reforms Location: Rarely, if ever, here or there, but always in transition	Yeah, I glanced over this article a week ago. Not sure what it is advocating, other than complaining in some regard about being rock musicians in the 21st century hurts thier baggy pockets now more than it ever did before (oh, really?) or that record labels don't like to share free content for free anymore. And EMI, in my opinion, really blows the fun out of YouTube. Copyright claims and all that jazz, even when its the original artist who uploads the goshdarned video. (Can't ever embed another Röyksopp video here) __________________ As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves. —Mohandas K. Gandhi

01-26-2010, 01:20 PM	#3 (permalink)
Martian Young Crumudgeon Location: Canada	The whole thing highlights that the system as it stands today is more or less obsolete. OK Go is invested in the internet as a vehicle, and it seems to me that a lot of what they're doing today is trying to recapture the success/phenomenon/magic of A Million Ways (see also Here It Goes Again, the new video as featured in the above letter). There's a shift happening between bands and their labels that I think is significant, and I think the assumptions made in the letter above are a bit off the mark on that one. What's certain for everyone who pays any attention at all is that the times they are a-changin' and the music business in 5 or 10 years isn't likely to bear much resemblance to the music industry of the past or present. I have a lot more to say on this subject, but I'm a bit short on time right now. I'll revisit this later, if the details haven't been hashed out by the time I get back to it. __________________ I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said - Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

01-26-2010, 01:45 PM	#4 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	Yes, the business models in virtually the entire cultural industry are changing. (Just think of how things are for traditional distributors in a digital world.) In terms of the music industry, we've gone from a model based predominately on a product unit consumption: most revenues, I imagine, came from this, the selling of "albums." But now you have the free Internet. But you also get a number of other changes. But first, isn't it interesting how there are many individuals who would rather die than pay $0.99 for a song track when it can be had for free, yet they have at least one reason to pay $2.49 for the song's "ring tone"? So, yeah, the model is broken, so what's to happen? Generally, media companies have to figure out how to move from the product model to the "monetization of culture" model. You have lost revenues in one area, but new opportunities in others. Making money from a website! That didn't exist 20 years ago. What about licensing music to films, television & radio commercials, etc. That seems to be happening a lot. Sure, the film industry also has issues in this new digital world, but if they pay the music guys for licensing, it's their problem now. One book to check out regarding this topic is Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of a Radical Price. He's the author of that book The Long Tail, which explains another huge shift in consumerism in the Internet age. I've read the latter, but not the former; though I'm sure I'll check it out before long. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

01-26-2010, 11:51 PM	#8 (permalink)
Daniel_ Evil Priest: The Devil Made Me Do It! Location: Southern England	Most phones I've used can take any mp3 and use it as a ringtone (this has been the case with every phone I've had for at least 6 years, and I'm pretty sure is standard across manufacturers). All of them could plug into a PC to be loaded with content. There are many free tools ranging from full on editors (like audacity) to websites that let you load, identify and clip the part of a song you want as your ringtone from any mp3 file you have available. So to contend that ringtones are a closed system is puzzling. Regarding downloads, I buy the music I keep, but I sample a lot of music using a selection of free services - streaming radio, youtube, blogs and podcasts, etc. If anything, new distribution methods have caused me to purchase a great deal of old content (classic records that i had missed in the past, or lost copies of in format updates) that cost record firms nothing to produce, as the investment was recouped 20 years ago. These networks have also exposed me to new artists recording now that I woul dnot have bought speculatively, and who don't get radio airplay, so I have as a direct result of the facility with which music can be obtained freely ended up spending more on legitimate music. It has been reported several times that the people who download the most "free" music have the most "bought" music also, whether the free stuff came legally or illegally. In essence, the fraction of music that a person pays for is probably fairly constant but some people have 10 cds that they paid for and 1000 tracks they downloaded, and some have 200 cds and 20,000 tracks. From the invention of music, to the invention of recording, musicians could only make money playing to an audience. From the birth of recording, through to the 1950s, record sales made little money and concerts paid the bills. In the 60s and 70s that switched, and through the 80s and 90s the money was in cheaply made recordings sold in vast numbers. In the 21st century, I think that the way musicians make their money will return to the original model for most players - recordings will generate awareness and maybe fame and fortune for a small number, but playing live will be the bread and butter wages for the majority. If anything, new technology has taken us full circle to a medieval system where travelling players became famous and rich through patronage and ticket sales. __________________ ╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗ Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air, And deep beneath the rolling waves, In labyrinths of Coral Caves, The Echo of a distant time Comes willowing across the sand; And everthing is Green and Submarine ╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝