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Are YOU a music or video pirate??

Australia launched a newly updated "Music Industry Piracy Investigations" site today and sent us all an email which claimed that one of the big features of the site was helping you to determine if YOU are a music pirate. This type of site is yet another "let’s criminilize the public" website, just like the SPA.

Featured on the site is an "Am I a Pirate?" page which invites us to ask ourselves questions which should, hopefully, reveal whether we have been infected with this little-understood disease.  Plus, they encourage us to report anybody we spot!

I think their list is missing some items.  So, in the interest of the public good, I put forward my own…

Questions to Ask Yourself If You Think You Might Be A Pirate

1. When iTunes tells you to insert any CD into your computer and makes it playable on your iPod, are you tempted to believe what you are told and click "yes"?
2. If your phone comes with software that lets you take a CD you own and make it into a ringtone, do you try it?
3. When you buy music from iTunes, and discover it won’t play on your PSP,
   are you tempted to convert it to a format that allows you to play it?
4. When a television program you love is released two years later in your
   country than it is in the rest of the world, are you tempted to go to
   Google and search for it?
5. When you go to a band website and there is a music download, are you tempted to click on it without hiring legal investigators first?
6. After losing digitally purchased music several times because of "software bugs", are you tempted to make back up copies?
7. When a video starts playing on a MySpace page you visit, do you continue to listen, or instantly close your browser?

While I am certainly an advocate of legal media use, it’s important to realize that the industry is sending consumers very mixed messages.  Stakeholders like Apple, Microsoft, and Nokia have a lot to lose if consumers "avoid" their new media features, so they encourage consumers to copy, encode, create ringtones.  In addition, none of the promises of technology are panning out for consumers.  So, people buy something, then discover the things they bought don’t work where they expect them to.  No wonder people seek alternatives, and no wonder the integrity of "industry promises" is in doubt.  Consumers are just behaving normally, following the path of least resistance, and glad to open their wallets if they get something useful for a reasonable price.

Most people are inherently honest.  Let’s start giving them credit for that.  If there are problems to fix, they’re problems with the industry, not the consumer.

iTunes and Online Music Buying

iTunes is fantastic.  It’s also a total rip-off.  Last night it all became obvious to me when I, for the first time, made a rather innocent, typical consumer goof.  I accidentally bought something I didn’t want.

Now really, it’s my mistake.  I wanted ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery, which iTunes doesn’t have.  Instead, they have something called "Then and Now".  After sampling a track or two they sounded like the original tracks.  After purchase, I discovered that they really are a collection of live performances that are (to me at least) far inferior to the original recorded performances.  So much so, that I will probably never listen to them.

iTunes refund policy?  All sales final.

Now, If I had bought this at my local record store, I could do the following:

1. I could take it back and my local record store would give me my money back, especially if I had my original receipt and the disc was in like-new condition.
2. I could hold onto it until somebody I know turned up and I said: "Hey, do you want this ELP album?"  They would smile and say "thanks!" and greater friendship may result.
3. I could give it as a gift.
4. I could take it to a used record store and trade it.

At iTunes, I paid just about as much as I would have for a real CD.  Maybe more even.  And…

1. I cannot return it.  In fact, Apple’s customer service policy front-line with respect to refunds is practically "We do not offer customer service.  Fuck you."
2. I cannot give it to anybody else.  The DRM’d files play only on my computer, and unless I authorized somebody else to play ALL my music, I cannot allow anybody who is not a family member access to the ELP album I just bought.
3. I cannot give it as a gift in any way possible.
4. There is no way I can trade it for something.

So, the score?  My record store gets four points.  iTunes zero.

By the way, I also use eMusic.  Because eMusic uses a trust model and ships MP3’s, I at least have the ability to give my purchases as a gift.  Of course, the emusic selection isn’t as good.  But, as an online music vendor, they clearly provide more value, and at a better price.

Now really, I love the online music buying experience.  But, Apple is really selling us crap and charging us a premium.  Ten years from now, when everyone looks hard at their iTunes DRM files, it will be more obvious.  For now, Apple wins.  Customers lose.

Off to Queenscliff

I’m taking a break this weekend and accompanying the Roocast team down to Queenscliff for the weekend for the Queenscliff Music Festival.  I’m really looking forward to it, and will report back.  It promises to be a great festival, in one of the most historic little seaside towns in Victoria.

Reason 3.0 and Pro Tools

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve become excited about creating music.  But, for the past two weekends, I’ve spent some time learning Pro Tools LE and Reason 3.0 and have been, to say the least, amazed.  Everyone I talk to who is under 30 seems to know about these products and I’m feeling old!  I’ve been spending too much time doing boring stuff and missing out on some real excitement!

Everybody is loving GarageBand these days.  Rightly so.  It makes it easy to create multi-track recordings if you really don’t know much about music.  Great software, easy to use.

But, if you do know how to play, and if you have a MIDI keyboard, you’re making a mistake if you don’t RUSH OUT and buy Pro Tools and Reason and hook them together and create something.
Pro Tools is the industry-standard audio mixing suite, and it’s damned impressive.  If you don’t like learning complex software, maybe it’s not for you.  But, if you’d like to control everything, and appreciate software that is not only complete but comprehensive, Pro Tools is the one.

Reason 3.0, from PropellerHeads Software, is nothing short of miraculous.  A seemingly limitless array of studio quality synths, effects, mixers, all combined in a simulated rack-mount cabinet that is so convincing I can almost hear the cooling fans whirring.  I didn’t think there were software companies doing this kind of high-quality innovation any more and it’s renewed my faith in the whole software industry.

Beyond the technical junk, the truth is that this software is musical.  Once you get past the technical lumps, it’s fluid, fast, and doesn’t stand in the way.

Because I’m going to the USA (NAB/Las Vegas) for the first time in 10 years, I wrote a little "theme song" for my trip.  It’s a little rousing march reminiscent of the opening march in "A Few Good Men".  After all, why not be patriotic, eh?  It’s lighthearted, and I tried to create a convincing sounding marching band sound, mostly using the amazing array of processing and sample sources Reason 3.0 provides.

Keep in mind that 100% of this is created with Reason 3.0 and Pro Tools and all the parts were played on my Roland MIDI keyboard.  Sounds pretty real to me!  It may be cliche, but at least it’s mine!

Give it a try, and get a laugh.  It’s only 35 seconds long, but lots of fun.

Download "Going Back" March (349.6K MP3)