4 ms·

Functionally, for the consumer, streaming is mostly identical to a recording. Want to listen to a song? Press play. The storage just happens to be on some serve

Functionally, for the consumer, streaming is mostly identical to a recording. Want to listen to a song? Press play. The storage just happens to be on some server somewhere.

Can_Not 9y ago
Except a recording is mine permanently and physically
- rebuilder 9y ago
  True, but most users don't seem to mind. Arguably, streaming is just a better storage medium for most users. Until the company providing the service screws its customers over, if course. I doubt that possibility weighs very heavily into many consumers' buying choices.
  - lostcolony 9y ago
    But the relative cost one would be willing to pay varies. Would I pay a streaming service $10 a month for 10 tracks, that I can only listen to on their service, but which I get unlimited plays of so long as I subscribe to their service? Hell no. Would I purchase an album of 10 songs, that are mine into perpetuity to listen to, make reasonable copies of, fair use of, etc, for $10? Yes. Would I pay a streaming company for on demand access to a broad catalog of songs? Yes. But note how my consumption and value varies. The thing is, streaming services are, fundamentally, gainining 'per listen' value, and that model is reflected into how they're paying rightsholders. That is, the more I listen to a track, the more value it collects for the owner. A purchasing model is how many purchases. Listens are not really correlated to that (at least, not to the price). That is, one user may listen to the purchased album 100 times, the other may listen to one song 100 times, and one user may listen to the album 1000 times. All paid the same, all generated the rightsholders the same. As such, I think treating streaming as a storage medium would be...poorly thought out. Not least of all because at that point you could make a strong case that the streaming service should be paying every rightsholder for every subscriber; they are, after all, -storing- that music for the new subscriber; nevermind if the subscriber ever listens to it or not.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    The key difference is your rights, isn't it? After all, this is a legal issue. I permanently have the right to listen to a CD I own as many times as I want. With Spotify, as far as I'm aware, they can yank any part of the catalog without anything owed to me as a listener. If I wake up tomorrow and the only thing available is John Cage's 4'33", I have no recourse. Spotify isn't offering me storage space.
- WhyNotHugo 9y ago
  Not entirely. You get a CD, and a licence to reproduce it under certain conditions. If you purchase a music CD, your rights to reproduce it can legally be revoked (though I can't think of any cases where this has actually happened). Perhaps, more importantly, it's easier for Spotify to enforce this, than a CD-making company.
- touristtam 9y ago
  You hold a physical artifact on which some data can be extracted and interpreted by a device build for that purpose, but the legality of you playing the data isn't implicitly tied up to the ownership of the artifact holding the data. That is what the licensing scheme is. The common assumption is to think that because you hold the storage, you are therefore entitled to decode the data held on it, but the laws about IP are there to limit this and allow to extract value from you using the device. Otherwise, you could just legally extract the bits downloaded onto your computer and keep the music files you have just streamed from Spotify or any equivalent service.
cjg 9y ago
It's just a really accommodating radio station that always plays your requests, no?
- rebuilder 9y ago
  Well, now we're getting into the question of what the intent is behind having different pricing and licensing for broadcast and distribution of recordings.
- saalweachter 9y ago
  How are jukeboxes licensed?
  - sirmarksalot 9y ago
    Guessing that would fall under "performance" as well, but each jukebox would be separately licensed. In the case of something like Spotify, it's n jukeboxes, where n is the number of total users. Of course, that's absurd, since most Spotify accounts are listened to a single user. I think the reality is that over 20 years after the development of Real Player, we still don't have a good legal framework to discuss streaming.

Functionally, for the consumer, streaming is mostly identical to a recording. Want to listen to a song? Press play. The storage just happens to be on some server somewhere.

Can_Not 9y ago

Except a recording is mine permanently and physically

rebuilder 9y ago
True, but most users don't seem to mind. Arguably, streaming is just a better storage medium for most users. Until the company providing the service screws its customers over, if course. I doubt that possibility weighs very heavily into many consumers' buying choices.
- lostcolony 9y ago
  But the relative cost one would be willing to pay varies. Would I pay a streaming service $10 a month for 10 tracks, that I can only listen to on their service, but which I get unlimited plays of so long as I subscribe to their service? Hell no. Would I purchase an album of 10 songs, that are mine into perpetuity to listen to, make reasonable copies of, fair use of, etc, for $10? Yes. Would I pay a streaming company for on demand access to a broad catalog of songs? Yes. But note how my consumption and value varies. The thing is, streaming services are, fundamentally, gainining 'per listen' value, and that model is reflected into how they're paying rightsholders. That is, the more I listen to a track, the more value it collects for the owner. A purchasing model is how many purchases. Listens are not really correlated to that (at least, not to the price). That is, one user may listen to the purchased album 100 times, the other may listen to one song 100 times, and one user may listen to the album 1000 times. All paid the same, all generated the rightsholders the same. As such, I think treating streaming as a storage medium would be...poorly thought out. Not least of all because at that point you could make a strong case that the streaming service should be paying every rightsholder for every subscriber; they are, after all, -storing- that music for the new subscriber; nevermind if the subscriber ever listens to it or not.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  The key difference is your rights, isn't it? After all, this is a legal issue. I permanently have the right to listen to a CD I own as many times as I want. With Spotify, as far as I'm aware, they can yank any part of the catalog without anything owed to me as a listener. If I wake up tomorrow and the only thing available is John Cage's 4'33", I have no recourse. Spotify isn't offering me storage space.
WhyNotHugo 9y ago
Not entirely. You get a CD, and a licence to reproduce it under certain conditions. If you purchase a music CD, your rights to reproduce it can legally be revoked (though I can't think of any cases where this has actually happened). Perhaps, more importantly, it's easier for Spotify to enforce this, than a CD-making company.
touristtam 9y ago
You hold a physical artifact on which some data can be extracted and interpreted by a device build for that purpose, but the legality of you playing the data isn't implicitly tied up to the ownership of the artifact holding the data. That is what the licensing scheme is. The common assumption is to think that because you hold the storage, you are therefore entitled to decode the data held on it, but the laws about IP are there to limit this and allow to extract value from you using the device. Otherwise, you could just legally extract the bits downloaded onto your computer and keep the music files you have just streamed from Spotify or any equivalent service.

cjg 9y ago

It's just a really accommodating radio station that always plays your requests, no?

rebuilder 9y ago
Well, now we're getting into the question of what the intent is behind having different pricing and licensing for broadcast and distribution of recordings.
saalweachter 9y ago
How are jukeboxes licensed?
- sirmarksalot 9y ago
  Guessing that would fall under "performance" as well, but each jukebox would be separately licensed. In the case of something like Spotify, it's n jukeboxes, where n is the number of total users. Of course, that's absurd, since most Spotify accounts are listened to a single user. I think the reality is that over 20 years after the development of Real Player, we still don't have a good legal framework to discuss streaming.