It is astounding just how out of touch the music industry appears to be with the average consumer. When they’re not suing customers for copyright infringement, they’re trying to push another physical format down our throats – this time it’s albums on a USB stick.
The tech is known as DDA, and it comes with “online extras” to go with the physical product. Albums are identified by a card attached by a piece of string. On top of that, each stick comes with the proprietary DDA media player you’ll need to activate files from the USB, although the music can be transferred into iTunes easily and comes in both MP3 and WMA formats for your portable music player of choice.They’ll be available through HMV, Sanity and Virgin music stores.
But the biggest question of all around this new format is “why”? Sure, CD sales are sagging, but do music companies seriously believe that consumers want to buy hundreds of USB sticks to listen to music they can buy cheaper online? If MiniDisc – a format that had the potential for greatness – failed, why the hell do they think something like this will work?
What about you? Would you buy your music on a USB stick for the same price as a CD?
[via News.com.au - Thanks Kevin]
StevoTheDevo
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 1:19 PMSounds like an OK system to me..
What’s your problem with it?
It has added “value” to encourage people to buy their music rather than pirate, it comes in a physical form but can be transferred to other devices, there’s no DRM on the files once you get them off the stick.
Is it just the physical form factor you don’t like?
fear
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 1:22 PMMusic Industry is just plain stupid and always behind just like the movie industry. You think they would have a R&D department that does something
Nick Broughall
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 1:50 PM@StevoTheDevo – But would you buy your music this way? Sure, the fact that it’s open is great and all, but so’s a CD. We’ve seen albums come on SD cards and other similar physical media before and none of them have worked – And I can’t see this working either.
Jack
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 2:40 PMSorry, but fail. Why complicate the process? Who needs a little usb dongle thing? Surely they are aiming for the absolute minimum cost in distribution – if not, people won’t pay.
I would like to get most of my music from an online store, DRM free, and at a good price. Is it such a big ask?
One of the biggest problems with the music industry at the moment is that it is so much harder to do the right thing than it is to pirate it. If you buy a CD there is the hassle of ripping it, tagging it, etc, not to mention going to the shops to get it. Alternatively, Google it, and have it on your ipod in 15 minutes (not that I’m promoting piracy, but it’s true).
I’m really surprised by how long it is taking the music industry to understand their problem.
Dave
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 5:58 PMI am not sticking anything from the music industry into my USB drive. I don’t trust them… they probably have spyware on there.
hugh
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 6:32 PMwhat is the bit rate like? whats wrong with good old CD they mostly sound good (barring death magnetic) and only today i found out they have 30 odd megabytes to store album art and lyrics and other data how cool is that. why didn’t anybody every use this?
Terry
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 6:52 PMMinidisc always was more popular in radio circles – the ability to carry around a handful of those discs was much easier than cds. These days it’s long dead thanks to ipods/etc. But I have plenty in my cupboard. I even own a proper album on minidisc – Radiohead’s The Bends. :)
j walll
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 8:23 PMi dont believe this system will work, yeh cd sales are down heaps everyone will just keep on getting cd’s of the net for free and through d/l servers and what not, they just dont get it why pay 20 dollars for say the kings of leon album when i could go to my mates and get all three albums for FREE……. thats just me though meh
Nathan
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 10:27 PMSlotMusic is the way to go as music is stored on a microSD card allowing you to play your music on a mobile AND a PC using a USB adepter. Also DDA has not been backed by the major aussie labels as yet where SlotMusic has US labels already spitting out albums
Paulus
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 10:37 PMAt first, I thought this was an ok idea. I love mp3 files for their convenience, though I don’t download (legally or otherwise) much music simply because I don’t like not having art work or something tangible to hold, nor do I find appealing only having my tunes stored purely on a hard drive which could go belly up.
With this DDA caper, the music is stored on a smaller device, AND the artwork’s there. But at the same price as a CD? And the artwork’s attached on a bit of freakin’ string? You’ve got to be kidding me. How the hell do you store this crap – I have tons of USB drives hanging around, and those tags are begging to be used as coasters. Another thing, at least with CDs, the ‘raw’ file is always there to encode to mp3 should my hard disk blow up, or I suddenly become even more nerdy and obsessive and convert my music to a loss less format (and in turn have even more hard disks to potential fail). DDA? Kiss my arse.
Ziggie
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 11:45 AMI feel a lot of people a missing the point completely with this technology! For so long people have scratched their CD & dvds by not storing them correctly or neglect. Having your files on a usb stick allows the listener to keep there music in mint condition. This enables me (as a consumer) to buy an album once and not have to replace it ever 2 years when I find a new scratch on an album.
Also take note that it did not say in any way, shape or form that album artwork will become outdated. As vinyls turned to tape and tape turned to CD then CD turned to mini disk and 5.1 followed and album artwork has only contained more and more information (now including CD booklets).
So I fail to see how USB would effect this… here we are looking at 1 very poor example of “music”. This may not be the case for every USB album to be released! I feel this only challenges the artist to create more appealing packaging so consumers will still buy their albums for artwork sake…
Because as we all know, only real music enthusiasts bother buying albums anyway! All you people that buy your music via itunes sickens me and I hope you all die horrible deaths!
If you really appreciated the art form of music you would go to JB HI-FI and pay full price instead of being all half arsed about it!!!
Being a musician myself I feel it most appropriate that I get on my soap box for the sake of art!
Saying this if I am paying full price for an album I expect a quality product and I believe usb could be the quality product of the future!
stEvil
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 1:02 PMgod bless/damn those bloody record labels/record stores and their devotion to the physical distribution model. the ‘new’ format, usb dda is just a usb stick preloaded with an album. oh wait, there’s more. it unlocks ‘content’ on the web that fans can then access as artists, say, upload their latest concert photos.
there’s already something like that. it’s called myspace. oh wait. how about the internet?
fucken’ corporate motherfucker’s trying to convince us to buy more shit we don’t need, or want. my prediction is that this will go as well as sony’s minidisc. or the dodo.
the news last night carried stories on the dda. they said it would satisfy a hardcore fan’s desire for a physical experience with the artist. like an lp. yeah, like an lp.
what’s wrong with these fucken’ dinosaurs in the industry that can’t let go of ‘the good ol’ days’? i’ve got news for you idiots, i don’t want to have to go to the local record shop or megamall outlet to be harassed by some fool that knows nothing about music or who knows so much that they’re a condescending dickhead. i like being able to sit on my lounge in my undies and get hold of the music that i like. as for the physical experience, well hell, i can do the same and order my vinyl of ebay or direct from the distributor.
actually, i don’t know why i’m bothering being upset by this flash-in-the-pan gimmick. i’m sure no one will actually take it up anyway. but it’s just shocking that in this day and age there’s still people trying to cash in on the way people use media, old and new. digital downloads are the biggest shock to the music industry, and record labels slowly changed their content delivery methods to suit. why they’d embrace this is beyond me. it screams novelty and gimmickery. oh, that explains it then.
The Gunslinger
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 3:40 PMIt’s a good idea, and I’d buy it, but I’m not letting record companies within six miles of my PC. No doubt that little USB stick is packed full of evil. Invasive DRM, spyware that arbitrarily screams ‘PIRATE!’ to the authorities whenever I run an application it doesn’t recognise, not to mention hijacking my internet connection and CPU bandwidth for said screaming and updates more ancient in structure than the dinosaurs.
Wizza
Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 11:22 AMCome on people, relax.
If you’d read the DDA site you’d realise there is no DRM. You can do whatever you like with the tracks. You can sit on the lounge in your undies, convert the tracks to any format you want, and maybe when you get enough momentum to get off the lounge to find that ipod hidden under those pizza boxes, you can even export them there.
As far as I understand it, this format is going against the move towards greater control of music.
Sounds ok to me…
DDCash
Friday, March 19, 2010 at 8:27 AMThe fact is this. This medium could easily clog your household with techno-clutter. Will it be around forever? No. Fact is the music industry is being reborn and downloads are clearly the method of choice. Newer listeners are not nearly as connected to physical mediums as older generations and therefore will be dictating the wave of the future. Fine by me. I say make it all available. Don’t be upset by this medium because it is in fact a reasonable solution that allows artists to sell a reusable medium full of content that will help create the world and lifestyle that an artist longs to evoke and share. Receiving traditional cash money for your music is a dying exchange. Fact is if you want to be successful you must be creative in ways that utilize the latest technological trends and partner up with professionals in other fields to create an enterprise that moves beyond the traditional music machine because that simply is not good enough anymore. USB drives?? Go for it. When they go away I will accept it then too.