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Whatever happened to....Liquid Audio?
Jun. 26th, 2003 11:25 pmToday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced plans to pursue legal action against people who provide pirated music through peer-to-peer networks.
As a filker (and thus, an amateur musician), I know other amateur musicians, semi-professional musicians, and professional musicians. Some of them make a little money from their performances and works -- not enough to live on, but it helps to pay the bills. And a select few make their livelihood from their music.
Writing music is a lot like writing software. If I made my living as a software developer, I'd like to be able to get paid for my efforts. And as much as I like open-source software, I'm sure that many of the people who write open-source software have day jobs.
I can see the record industry's point -- they want their artists to get paid for their work, and the records companies to be profitable. But at the same time, I can see the music fan's viewpoint -- CDs are expensive ($15-$20) and if I'm only interested in 1 or 2 songs on a CD, I'd prefer to not buy it.
Then came the great idea of using the Internet as a distribution mechanism. But CD audio files were too big. Along came the MP3 format, and the online music craze exploded. MP3 files average out to 1 Mb per minute of listening time, and I haven't noticed a tremendous loss of information; i.e. fidelity. And then came places to swap music like trading cards, and peer-to-peer networks like Napster and its progeny.
So where's the middle ground? Where's the win-win situation where everyone -- musicians, record companies, and music lovers -- comes out happy?
Apple Music had a great idea -- charge people a small fee (roughly $1 per song) to download songs. It's been a smash hit. But they weren't the first to come up with the idea.
A few years ago, a company called Liquid Audio developed a music format, a player, and a mechanism to collect revenue for each song downloaded. But it never caught on the same way MP3s did. I'm not sure why, but I think the pay-as-you-go method was not favored by online music fans, who wanted their music for free. Another so-called feature of Liquid Audio was that it couldn't be translated into another digital format.
I first heard about Liquid Audio when Chris Franke released six tracks of music that he wrote for the Babylon 5: Into The Fire computer game. The game was never completed, as the company producing the game went under. The company was resurrected briefly, but the game was ultimately never released to the general public. Two or three years ago, I paid $9 to download all six tracks, which have since been burnt onto a CD.
Liquid Audio is still around -- version 6 of the player is available for download, and plenty of music exists in the Liquid Audio format -- but it's not often mentioned when online music is discussed. And that's sad.
As a filker (and thus, an amateur musician), I know other amateur musicians, semi-professional musicians, and professional musicians. Some of them make a little money from their performances and works -- not enough to live on, but it helps to pay the bills. And a select few make their livelihood from their music.
Writing music is a lot like writing software. If I made my living as a software developer, I'd like to be able to get paid for my efforts. And as much as I like open-source software, I'm sure that many of the people who write open-source software have day jobs.
I can see the record industry's point -- they want their artists to get paid for their work, and the records companies to be profitable. But at the same time, I can see the music fan's viewpoint -- CDs are expensive ($15-$20) and if I'm only interested in 1 or 2 songs on a CD, I'd prefer to not buy it.
Then came the great idea of using the Internet as a distribution mechanism. But CD audio files were too big. Along came the MP3 format, and the online music craze exploded. MP3 files average out to 1 Mb per minute of listening time, and I haven't noticed a tremendous loss of information; i.e. fidelity. And then came places to swap music like trading cards, and peer-to-peer networks like Napster and its progeny.
So where's the middle ground? Where's the win-win situation where everyone -- musicians, record companies, and music lovers -- comes out happy?
Apple Music had a great idea -- charge people a small fee (roughly $1 per song) to download songs. It's been a smash hit. But they weren't the first to come up with the idea.
A few years ago, a company called Liquid Audio developed a music format, a player, and a mechanism to collect revenue for each song downloaded. But it never caught on the same way MP3s did. I'm not sure why, but I think the pay-as-you-go method was not favored by online music fans, who wanted their music for free. Another so-called feature of Liquid Audio was that it couldn't be translated into another digital format.
I first heard about Liquid Audio when Chris Franke released six tracks of music that he wrote for the Babylon 5: Into The Fire computer game. The game was never completed, as the company producing the game went under. The company was resurrected briefly, but the game was ultimately never released to the general public. Two or three years ago, I paid $9 to download all six tracks, which have since been burnt onto a CD.
Liquid Audio is still around -- version 6 of the player is available for download, and plenty of music exists in the Liquid Audio format -- but it's not often mentioned when online music is discussed. And that's sad.
