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Schroedinger's streaming service just died

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Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#4
Is this just wordplay? When you click "Buy now", are you just buying a license?

Is "ownership" just a byproduct of physical goods? If I say I own a record, the proof is basically in the pudding. But how do I prove I own an MP3 file? I'd probably need to do something like show a receipt for it. But then again, what if I have shown that receipt to 100 people I've sold "my" copy of the MP3 file to? With physical reality, exact duplication is difficult, and is already covered under those existing laws.

It seems like computing was big on licensing, even when tech was nascent and there wasn't clearly reams of money to be made in it, there must be a reason for it.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#6

Is this just wordplay? When you click "Buy now", are you just buying a license? Is "ownership" just a byproduct of physical goods? If I say I own a record, the proof is basically in the pudding. But how do I prove I own an MP3 file? I'd probably need to do something like show a receipt for it. But then again, what if I have shown that receipt to 100 people I've sold "my" copy of the MP3 file to? With physical reality…

It depends on whether you consider the difference in royalty rates to be just wordplay.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#7
> The confiscation of your rights to your digital media depends on the fiction that you are licensing the music, not buying it. The fact that there's a giant "buy now" button on the interface notwithstanding, tech and entertainment companies maintain that you are engaged in a licensing deal, like an advertiser buying synch rights for a hamburger commercial.

This post makes everything seem needlessly complicated - you are buying a licence, there is no contradiction here.

How else would digital media / sale of MP3's work without licences? Is the author suggesting that everyone should legally be able to freely transfer/distribute their MP3's to anyone with no legal limit?

I don't see any alternative to licences mentioned anywhere in the post - just lots of handwaving about some sort of wave function collapse (where wave function collapse just means a contract that has different terms for a digital purchase instead of a physical purchase).

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#8
post #2

I can't believe how long this battle has been going on. It's been decades since the whole music industry reshuffle, and both artists and consumers continue to get shafted.

Given a two-decade gap between 12% and 50% artist revenues, it seems like a series of label-oriented class actions should begin brewing, to the tune of tens of billions.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#9

Is this just wordplay? When you click "Buy now", are you just buying a license? Is "ownership" just a byproduct of physical goods? If I say I own a record, the proof is basically in the pudding. But how do I prove I own an MP3 file? I'd probably need to do something like show a receipt for it. But then again, what if I have shown that receipt to 100 people I've sold "my" copy of the MP3 file to? With physical reality…

It depends on whether you consider the difference in royalty rates to be just wordplay.

No, certainly not. It does seem wrong for one group to claim one thing, and then another group to claim a different thing, both of which serve their own financial ends and not the actual content creators.

Having said that, I was mostly talking about the difference between licensing and buying from a consumer's perspective. There are still a ton of restrictions which come with "owning" something, but those are just ignored by the author because those were laws passed by a legislature and not a license term by a private company.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#10

Is this just wordplay? When you click "Buy now", are you just buying a license? Is "ownership" just a byproduct of physical goods? If I say I own a record, the proof is basically in the pudding. But how do I prove I own an MP3 file? I'd probably need to do something like show a receipt for it. But then again, what if I have shown that receipt to 100 people I've sold "my" copy of the MP3 file to? With physical reality…

It depends on whether you consider the difference in royalty rates to be just wordplay.

> It depends on whether you consider the difference in royalty rates to be just wordplay.

Royalty rates are a completely different issue to the text shown when you are purchasing - but wouldn't you expect different royalty rates for different types of product/media as an artist?

As in, if I sell a vinyl record of your new single for $10 with your photo on the front and plaster it all over the record shops (with high distribution and manufacture costs) that the fee might be different than what I pay you for a $0.99 MP3 download (lower price but zero incremental cost), and that the $0.99 download fee might be different to the fee that the artist would charge for a live broadcast (highly dependent on licence context)?

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