DRM-Free music from EMI

My most hated music publisher, EMI, purveyor of the CD scourge that is Copy Control, has just announced DRM-Free music. It was a joint announcement involving Apple who will be providing the distribution channel with the iTunes Store.

Interesting!

DRM “protected” music, where you are limited in how you can copy or play your music, has been an absolute disaster for everyone involved, especially consumers. While removing DRM (and having to trust consumers not to pirate) is a terrific step in the right direction there are some details that could also make this effort a failure too. It appears that it’s going to be expensive; US$1.30 per track. You cannot purchase lossless tracks; 256bit AAC tracks is it and, while that is excellent quality, it is still worse than CD. Did you notice that for an album CD’s will generally be cheaper? Better quality and cheaper, hmm…

I almost want to commend EMI for taking what appears to be a fairly bold step but the reality is that this is something they had to do and should have done earlier. CD sales have been in decline for years and online sales, while increasing, are a small share of the market – probably because the product is inferior and expensive. Unfortunate this announcement doesn’t really change the situation. I look forward to v2.0 of DRM-Free music from EMI/Apple where the price is lowered and lossless is a (no extra cost) option.

I can’t see myself buying anything but (non copy-controlled) CD’s in the foreseeable future.

Thursday night

I’ll probably be heading to the Nightcat (as usual) for some Salsa action but afterward I’m going to head out to my mate Barts’ pub Gertrude’s Brown Couch where they’re having their first birthday party.  Come one, come all!

Scouta

I met Richard Giles while I was in California last year. I knew of him through the G’day World podcast where he was co-hosting with Cam for some time. It was through the podcast that I’d heard he was going to be in San Fran while I was in CA – a couple of emails later and we’d planned a meetup and geek dinner.

Kinda funny really: Rich is from Perth, I’m from Melbourne and, naturally, we meet in San Francisco.

Only a couple of people came to the geek dinner – mostly because Rich was disorganized and neglected to send out reminders or book a restaurant (is that right or just how I remember it Rich?) – but strolling around San Fran with Rich, taking the odd photo and talking tech and startups was a great way to spend a day.

He kept hedging around this idea that he was working on. “It’s in stealth mode at the moment” he’d say, “so I can’t tell you much…” but it was obvious he was excited about his pet project. He promised to keep me posted…

A few months ago I received an email from Rich asking me if I’d be interested in beta testing (how web 2.0!) Scouta. Finally I could play with his project! Unfortunately I was intensely busy with work during that period and I suspect I was the worst beta tester he could ask for. Scouta progressed nonetheless.

Scouta has since been released publicly and is getting it’s fair share of interest (Tech Crunch covered them recently).

So what is it? It’s a service that recommends media for you to watch based on what you like and what people like you like. The idea is that since online content is growing exponentially it’s going to get increasingly difficult to find the stuff you like. Scouta will help find media of interest to you.

Initially I didn’t think I’d need such a service (I subscribe to many blog feeds and so have my ear fairly close to the ground) but since playing with it again recently I think it’s something that will grow on me. A killer feature for me was to use iTunes to subscribe to feeds, say of comedy or tech content, that the system will recommend to you. iTunes will then download the content and deliver it to your iPod. Nice.

If you watch much online content (or spend any time in YouTube!) you ought to check out Scouta.

The ‘mascot’ kinda reminds me of Rich.

Ski Double Up

My yoghurt of choice is a Ski Double Up (mixed berry is the best).  Makes yoghurt taste like a desert! But the Ski Double Up has an Achilles heel.  A flaw.

The lid sucks.

I always tear the foil lid no matter how carefully I peel it back.  So Ski, if you’re listening, make the lids tougher, OK?