The Snocap pr blitz continues to use smoke and mirror announcements to blur many important issues. The “Major labels Alliances” announcement covered here ( http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/15/snocap-announces-alliances-with-major-labels/) does not merit a precursor to any major selling the content that they own without drm and without price and distribution restrictions. In fact the announcement surely point to the fact the Snocap has been around for more than two years and that they still dont have many deals with the majors to distribute any of much of their music in a non drm format. I only know of 3 bands that are currenlty using the serivce. If anyone knows where I can find more major label Snocap conten please point me to it.

Why do we need the labels ? Why don’t the artist sell their music on their own and keep all of the revenue from their music along with the rights to distribute and sell it where and at whatever price they want (This can be done using Darmik as well as many other places on the internet). DRM is not the issue; control of distribution channels and revenue from holding the intellectual property of artist is the issue. For many major labels it seems that their strategy is to own or shut down any and all independent avenues to sells and distribution for the artist. In my opinon the major labels want to make sure that the artist has no choice in who sells and distributes their content; and that the fans have no choice in price and format. The Majors want to be the only game in town.

I think that we should no longer look to labels for the solution to freeing music from its old world model. We should look to the artist and to the fans that purchase the music. The artist should be the group that charts their own destiny as far as price, format, and distribution point. The fans that purchase the music should be allowed to purchase the music in a format that works uniformly on the devices that they use to play the music. If the artist gives their permission fans should also have the ability to resell the artist content for them, and in exchange receive a portion of the revenue. Neither the artist or the fans needs a label or a technology company to force a model or a format on them. I think that if we asked the artist and their fans what they wanted as far as music formats, pricing, distribution and ownership that we would more than likely already know the answer.

Artist should control pricing of their content as well as the format (drm or no drm) and distribution points. There are DRM formats available to content owners, so the issue of drm or not is one that is up to the content owner not one that should be made by any technology that is used to distribute the content. The decision to use drm is one that the content owners must make based on many factors. The key point here is that there are choices available and that the content owner should and can make this decsion.

I think that we should write off any current music that the major labels own as content that will never be in an open format playable on any device. We should also understand that more than likely this content will only be available at distribution points and at prices that the label; not the artist or their fans have anything to do with. We must accept this and move on to the next phase of digital content distribution that will give artist and content owners the freedom to decide their own destiny.

As far as the Myspace love fest. It needs to end. Artist, fans, and consumers of content must know and understand that any revenue generated for Myspace (A Newscorp company) is going to continue to fund the operations of fox news ( http://www.foxnews.com/oreilly/) as well as the continued dismantling of independent media around the world. If as an artist or a fan or a user of the Internet you support any social issues or an independent and free media then myspace is not the place to become a member. By doing this you give them continued revenue and power.
 

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I agree that it would be great to live in a drm free world, that artists should control their pricing and that it is a frightening and dangerous fact that fox owns myspace, moreover that it seems like we would like to passively overlook this fact to continue on with our use of it.

However, the music industry is a huge entity with many different facets and I think that positives do lie inside this great digital shift. Snocap is offering unsigned and signed artists alike the ability to upload and sell their content at a price that they choose through myspace and Snocap's retailers, which imp is one of. Most artists choose to do this through their labels who for similar reasons choose to pay aggregators to manage their digital catalog. With hundreds of digital outlets most artists and labels simply do not have enough time, knowledge, or staff to do it for themselves. There are great independent digital aggregators who are making conscientious decisions for their labels.

Due to the decentralization of technology there are many snocap's and imp's surfacing who are combating the rigidity of drm and I think that this is an important step forward. I believe major labels, once they realize that the market has really shifted, will go into the drm free world, but that this will happen slowly and non-uniformly within majors labels.

The line between major and independent label has been eroding for some time and I don't agree that all major label owned content should be written off as drm forever. For instance, ADA, a distributor through Warner, has just announced that they will be going the mp3 route within Snocap. ADA distributes some amazing indie labels, for instance, Sub Pop, Polyvinyl, Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar and I am very excited to be able to promote their content through imp.

I think that you are correct in saying that part of the answer lies in the consumer and I would hope that, if aware, consumers would more likely purchase music that gives more money back to the artist. imp has tried to give the rights holders of content one of the highest splits on the internet and in the future we plan to allow fans to create their own stores for their favorite artists, through which they can sell content on their websites and blogs.

Thanks for your comments. I respect your ideas and hope that I have added to this dialogue. –alice-