Cory Doctorow doesn’t listen to streaming music much. This is obvious from his responses to Don Tapscott’s questions. But here in the UK we’re finally getting the idea.
Spotify, the latest media darling, has an outlet in many homes that got it in time for a free invite.
We already had last.fm’s Pandora-like service (which kicked in about the time that Pandora was switched off to UK IP addresses) and a bunch of other less well known services before that.
Spotify has a USP or two but the reason it’s taken off is mostly because the infrastructure is pretty much in place. Not only do most homes here now have broadband, but — crucially — many mobile phones now have unmetred internet connections (mine costs me a fiver a month) and our cities have largish patches of 3G, making streaming viable on the move.
[Lucky you, Chris. Here in Canada, our only choice is no choice - Jon 
]
But despite his obvious bias towards the traditional download, Doctorow still makes some valid points: Do we really want third parties tracking our taste? (“Yes!” shout back avid last.fm scrobblers.) Ok, try again: storage is cheaper than bandwidth, you can’t receive streams at the bottom of a coal mine or (yet) on aeroplanes, and – to add one of my own bugbears – none of these services carry anything like even popular music’s full canon.
Oh, and yes, because technically every stream is really a download anyway, a gentleman’s agreement to destroy immediately the transient copy made in your computer’s cache is necessary.
Assuming your client abides by this. Spotify doesn’t, as I mentioned here before. Now its owners even charge listeners to play back the music it has stored in encrypted folders on their own hard drives, in “offline mode”.
Insulting, maybe, but this is almost the right idea.
The best streaming solution, at least from a listener’s point of view (artists, as we already guessed, are being screwed over payments from digital services) will be a mixture of both on- and offline content: our own local music library, enhanced by on-demand streaming services like Spotify, last.fm, Napster, Rhapsody and newcomer MOG, plus maybe a cloud service like MP3tunes thrown in as well.
The embryonic Playdar is a first step towards this, it provides a way to pull content from wherever it can to play requested songs. Playdar will require adoption by media players or web apps before it’s ready for everyday use, but it’s only a matter of time, and such ‘content resolver’ applications are only going to get slicker. (Though Spotify doesn’t seem to want to play this game; their development kit currently only works on some Linux versions, and has punishingly restrictive terms of use.)
Playdar could be helpful in developing that p2p streaming app I wrote about. On-demand access to the world’s music collections, a truly open cache, merged seamlessly with your personal music files for offline use too. And no lining labels’ pockets.
However things develop, the applications that get the traction will be the ones which increase our access to music when we want it, and – sorry, Cory – that includes on the move.
Chris Ovenden – The Peer
[Ovenden, tech manager for a2f2a.com, is a self-confessed technology freak who says he always ends up writing about culture, or who is perhaps a culture nut continually drawn towards the hi-tech, he plays guitar, makes websites and teaches. Editorships of various on- and offline publications lurk in his past, "and possibly his future".]
December 6th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
So, is it “haben oder sein.” –Fromm
December 7th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I’m sorry, but the Erich Fromm thing just seems to be in a different key and time signature than the current song that’s playin’ on this page.
December 7th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
It’s just because you don’t seem to get it. Is it all about ‘having’ the files or simply ‘using them’? Streaming versus downloads. Completely relevant.
December 7th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
“Streaming versus downloads. Completely relevant.”
It MIGHT be somewhat relevant, if streaming was actually POSSIBLE in the venue we’re talking about. (It’s not, by the way.)
And you say *I* don’t get it?!
Indy, I’m only going to say this one more time: You need to trade in those beliefs you have on how the internet works for the proper realities. Wherever you’re getting your information is leading you down some strange garden path and I don’t even want to know where it goes.
What I don’t understand is your readiness to immediately and summarily tell ME I’m wrong about stuff like this, and not even give that a second thought. I’m a career veteran of this technology, and I’m sure you were already told that. It would be one thing if you were just “green” and innocently looking for help on the topic, but you just keep thumbing your nose at each and every one of the non-negotiable basics I try to give you, and comin’ off as some “know-it-all-can’t-be-told”.
Given this persistent disingenuousness toward those who certainly know better, how would you have me perceive you? Should I believe you’re here in answer to the a2f2a mission, or in pursuit of some other personal goal?
Earlier in this forum, you asked if I would help you understand some of these things, yet you’ve refused every crumb I have thrown so far. I only help those who want that help.
December 8th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
If I listen to a song 100 times, then streaming that song uses 100 times the bandwidth of a one-time download. I expect we’ll see internet service providers joining in this debate pretty soon, since it’s their resources that are going to be used to needlessly send the same data over and over again.
December 8th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
@Andrew:
The whole “streaming” proposal is just a ruse anyway.
The ones behind it ARE thinking how much of of a cash cow it WOULD be for them if people just jumped all over it without thinking.
I wouldn’t be surprise if certain ISPs (who want to ultimately charge everyone by the byte for being connected) contributed to the idea.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:59 am
e.g.: we all know that streams and downloads are the same thing. We’ve been arguing with the record industry about it for about 5 years. The record industry still wants 50p for a download and 1p for a stream. In my mind, there has never been any difference between the two. It’s only the method of delivery that is. It’s similar to the old ‘format’ issue of cassette versus cd in their minds.
December 10th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
EDITOR’S NOTE:
If there’s no difference between the two, then you have only ONE delivery method. This is very important to note, not just for “technical” reasons.
(And people wonder why I make a big deal out of this.)
