from the innovating-packaging-and-presentation dept.
U2 and Apple are collaborating on a new, “interactive format for music”, due to launch in “about 18 months”. Bono spoke to Time [paywall] about a new tech scheme which “can’t be pirated” and will reimagine the role of album artwork.
Although initial reports compared the project to Neil Young’s Pono, or to Apple’s early DRM-restricted FairPlay files, Billboard reports that this is a bit of a misunderstanding. “It’s not a new format, but rather a new way to package and present an album,” said an unnamed source “with knowledge of the situation”. “This is focused on creative advances, versus shifts in technology.”
Ultimately, U2’s venture may be much more comparable to iTunes LP, which Apple premiered in 2009. That technology lets artists bundle visuals, interviews, and bonus content with digital album purchases.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Professr on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:15AM
Be still my beating heart! I shall never again use the Pirate Bay, for there I cannot obtain visuals! Nay, thou canst not find interviews nor images on Google, and I most humbly beg for the privilege of paying $$ to see hour-long interviews of "why the sound guy ate this particular sandwich all the time"
Seriously?? I mean, good for the people who actually want this content, but 99% of us just want to hear the music
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:43AM
Exactly this.
I don't buy interviews. I don't need them bulking up an album with performance out takes and clap trap in the hopes of making it too big to pirate or too hard to separate the music from the crap.
After finally kicking DRM to the curb, why would they be trying find a palatable alternative? Who is going to walk willingly back into that quagmire?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday September 22 2014, @05:43AM
I *want* Neil Young's absurd and totally unnecessary production-quality audio format to become the norm. Amongst the idiot masses. That way, those of us who know about human hearing can get away with "low quality" CD rips, or even - horror of horrors - 320kbps VBR lossily compressed versions thereof. The idiots will be keeping HD prices low for me - heck, I'll be able to make do with their 2-year-old cast-offs, as they bloat into another larger RAID array. Ditto, they'll be be the incentive for internet speeds to improve too.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @10:52AM
those of us who know about human hearing can get away with "low quality" CD rips
You mean you're not going to save yourself future bandwidth for when you get android ears in 10 years?
Pfft! What a loser!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by davester666 on Sunday September 21 2014, @07:10AM
yeah, this really sounds like a streaming-only audio/video thing. you never get to download it, only listen/view it via iTunes on iOS or a computer on MacOSX/Windows.
with some clicking-around "interactive" bullshit to think you are getting something more valuable than a plain song, nevermind that you will normally only listen to it with the phone in your pocket or on your computer where iTunes is hidden/minimized because you are doing something else.
and of course, because of the 'value-add', it ups the price for a song from $1.29 to $1.49 or $1.99...or even better, back to the 'album-only' purchase of $14.99.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday September 21 2014, @11:26AM
Like most things Apple, yes, I would guess this is all about platform lock-in.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:49PM
I can't think of many things I've considered being worth listening to that wasn't worth buying in an entire album format. Stuff like Pink Floyd, the Beatles, and the Decemberists usually just can't get broken down to a single song and not lose impact.
Even a lot of other bands that have much more modular songs that have music worth actually buying generally have an entire album I'll listen through, rather than just one or two songs. Maybe it's an phenomenon resulting from living through the age of entire albums as the only option you have.
I don't buy a lot of music though anymore, and when I do it's sure as fuck not from iTunes, so I'm probably not the target demographic anyway.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday September 22 2014, @06:29AM
iTunes itself isn't a problem, as the music is relatively cheap and DRM free.
And the vast majority of music being "created" today are only an album in the sense that you can buy a CD with 10 or so songs on it from the same group.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Monday September 22 2014, @06:26PM
I still want my money back for Seamus. Meddle could have been the perfect album...
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:01AM
I sure bet they can't package an album like this [wikipedia.org] anyway.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:59PM
I've never been a Tool fan, but that does sound pretty awesome.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:58PM
It's a good album. I'd reccomend it.
To be fair, you'll actually gonna go through it, well, once, and then it's gonna collect the dust to the point where you can't even see through the "glasses" anymore, but I really like how they stuffed as much as they could into the album, not only music, but art-work, lots of it.
It's one of the first albums I actually bought, IIRC. You can't download things like this.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 3) by takyon on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:23AM
Can't be pirated, new interactive format, not a new format, collaboration between U2 and Apple... is it an app that streams a single song and bonus content from Apple servers?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @07:01PM
Unless they found a way to avoid the conversion to air pressure waves to be detected by the ear, the songs can certainly be pirated, using a device called microphone.
(Score: 3) by SlimmPickens on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:17AM
Didn't they just prove that all they had to do to not get pirated was write music?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:30AM
They just tried to give a U2 album away for free and nobody wanted it.
So much that everyone complained loudly when they got it for free...
"Your music isn't worth free. Get that crap off my device."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @06:04AM
Aside from the fact that U2's music seems to be undesirable lately altogether...
If at some point their unable-to-be-pirated music winds up being able to come out of someone's speakers, then it certainly can be pirated. I'll be glad to accept their challenge.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Sunday September 21 2014, @07:25AM
Oh great - we can look forward to recorded music of roughly the same quality as camcordered movies.
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:48AM
In addition to being unable to pirate it, will they also be unable to remove it from their devices?
(Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:30PM
At any point during the media "consumption" does the signal turn analog? Do we hear sound waves being generated (say by a speaker?) or see photons being generated (say by a monitor?)? If at any point the signal goes analog, it can be pirated. It might take more time, or reduce "quality" a little bit, but since humans, the primary consumption of media, are inherently analog, that pretty much means that no matter what crazy scheme you come up with, for it to be useful for me, it also means that it can be pirated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:10PM
Exactly so.
If it has a speaker jack, it can certainly be redirected to any INput port and copied to your new U2less crap free format.
And now U2 sucks even more, so we won't want to copy your crap anyway...the best protection you can make.
(Score: 2) by DrMag on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:31PM
Anyone want to join in a pool on how many hours after the album release it takes to appear on the piratebay?
(Score: 2) by TK on Monday September 22 2014, @01:54PM
Does this pool accept negative values?
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:56PM
I'm picturing a point where a device Apple has implanted in your skull that wires into the nerves that are responsible for transmitting audio/video to the brain.
It's hdcp enabled and causes long term amounts of existential longing if you haven't bought anything new recently, but it's got rounded corners and comes in piano black or high gloss white, so you'll buy either way.
A year later Google comes out with one similar that doesn't cause the existential longing, but it allows anyone to track anything you do at any time.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday September 23 2014, @09:54PM
Well, technically it's not able to be pirated at all.
I'll explain.
You were under the impression they meant you can't "steal" the music. What they really meant, was you can't steal the EXPERIENCE.
Would you pirate the music? Hell yes. But can you still get premium insider access to the crotch of your celebrity? Can you enjoy listening the private rantings of Metallicock and how much they hate the "jelly anus dickweeds" ripping off their music? Can I not even with Taylor Swift and enjoy the sublime merging of our fertile cycles? Can I not worship Bono's enourmous ego as a separate entity in of itself?
Of course not you fucking hippie pirate. That's why it's impossible.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by Atreidin on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:57PM
This collaboration will solve everything. When people think of elite software designers, they think of U2.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:55PM
Wow...the degree to which this industry doesn't get it never ceases to amaze me. If it's "non-piratable"...and I'm guessing it's some sort of streaming-you-never-really-own-it-windows-or-mac BS...then it's just more of the same crap that nobody with any sense will fall for.
The only solution is selling non-DRM protected content...period. The industry won't broadly accept that because it amounts to a move to an honor system, but news flash guys...that's already what you have!!.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:07PM
There really is a way to make music non-piratable: Put it in the public-domain.
U2 was soooo close to figuring that out with their Apple release. Apple paid U2 $100M for their latest album and then they gave it away. That was almost the largest example of the ransom model [wikipedia.org] in the real world.
Too bad it sounds like they are retreating from those ideas instead of going all-in.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Sunday September 21 2014, @06:03PM
I kind of wanted to see the look on Bono's smug assho... err, "face" when he found out that people were getting pissed off at receiving U2's music for free. Generally, "you can't even give that away" has never been a positive thing for anyone anywhere looking to sell something.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Sunday September 21 2014, @11:29PM
relevant anecdote: an old teacher of mine told me of the value of 'free' vs 'paid' his story involved trying to give away a spa pool in the 'free' section of the paper... no one was interested at all... he then listed it for $300 and it sold the first day... sometimes people can be suspicious of anything given away for nothing.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 22 2014, @01:15PM
Yes, it's a deeply embedded social phenomenon. Perception of value is a very interesting dynamic that economists have been studying for years (and still don't understand). Laffer came up with his famous "Laffer curve" that said, in contravention of traditional economic theory, that in certain cases a higher price can lead to higher, not lower, demand, because it sends a message to customers that the good or service is more desirable.
There is so much material ubiquity in the world now, especially in the industrialized nations, that if that social perception were to shift either through economic pressure or a new, emergent consumption ethos, it would rapidly lead to a cascading series of deflationary spirals. For example, if you had the means to recycle in place material you have and no longer need or want (an old CRT monitor, say), and output new objects you do need and want (a voice-activated tablet for the kitchen to display recipes while you cook and have flour up to your elbows), then the entire economy of China would go *POOF!*
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday September 21 2014, @03:38PM
Can't be pirated? Most content protection is broken before the product is generally available.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)