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Editor's Letter
March 2000
My way
Once a consumer buys a music title, that person should have the freedom to listen to the music via any medium.
Maury Wright, Executive Editor
MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson has had his share of critics, and even enemies, ever since launching his digital music venture nearly two years ago. But the January introduction of the My.MP3.com service, has, as a well-known TV chef often states, "kicked it up to notches unknown."
Robertson calls My.MP3.com a virtual CD player. You still must buy a CD; you just don't need to have the CD physically with you to listen to the content. Instead, via streaming audio, the Internet becomes your jukebox. Today, you can listen via your office PC. Tomorrow, you might use a cell phone or PDA connected wirelessly to the Net.
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"If you price the content fairly, you won't have to spend all your time trying to keep people from copying it." |
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It took the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) all of two weeks after the service's launch to file legal action on behalf of a group of leading music labels. Not long after that, MP3.com sued back. I profess no knowledge of legal issues, and I don't want to wade into them here. (You can go to www.mp3.com to read the lawsuit and the ensuing flame war between the RIAA and MP3.com.)
Perhaps Robertson was a tad on the bold side when he launched the new service without explicit approval from the music producers and copyright holders. On the other hand, this is a group of companies that appears almost impossible to reason with. They do own the content, but I've never believed that they act fairly in setting prices. In several cases, I've paid full price for copies of the same content in album, cassette, and CD form. Now they want me to pay full price again to get the same content electronically.
Regardless of any legal outcome, Robertson is ethically correct in his opinion that once a consumer buys a title, that person should have the freedom to listen to the music via any medium. I'm not suggesting that I should receive a free CD of The Beatles' Abbey Road just because I once purchased it on vinyl. But at least I should get a reduced price, the same way I get a break on software upgrades.
My.MP3.com raises many technical and security issues. MP3.com claims it can verify that you actually own the CD in two ways. Either you buy the disc from an online retailer, who notifies MP3.com of the sale, or you insert your copy of the CD into your PC for verification. Once you register ownership, you can listen to the content anywhere you can get online. You needn't be a brain surgeon to figure out that you could borrow a CD to register, although the My.MP3.com license agreement forbids such action.
We can work out the security issues down the road. But if the RIAA and its members want to serve consumers, they need to cooperate in deploying services like My.MP3.com. As for Robertson, I applaud his bravado stance. If I held stock in MP3.com, I wouldn't be thrilled about the potential legal and financial risks. But Robertson understands that you can't move the RIAA with a subtle approach.
I've got some more news for them: If you price the content fairly, you won't have to spend all your time trying to keep people from copying it.
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