After the Portable CD player and the Walkman, a new format was needed, and it was to be digital.
In 1979, a prototype digital audio player had been designed by the English scientist K. Kramer who got hired by Apple. But they were not the first on the market.
MP3 players were produced by Diamond (the Rio) in1998, by Creative Labs (they were famous for their "Blaster" sound cards for PCs), Cowon and Archos in 2000. It's only in October 2001 that Apple launched the first iPod with a 5Gb hard drive. All the others followed in the success of the new format.
Not to be left behind, mobile phone manufacturers got on the act too and by 2005, all major mobile makes could play MP3. And of course, there are other formats too.
iPod: a success story
Marketing is: a high quality player to use with paid legal music downloaded from Apple iStore.What happened? Funny old world: all marketing aimed at teenagers who cannot afford to buy one anyway.
But pester power and they can always steal one. It had become the most desirable fashion accessory.
It is also the most stolen gadget. If you have one and you get mugged for it, this will bring you instant street credibility and make you the envy of the whole town.
The paradox is: although it is also a very good quality player, this does not matter, as most teenagers download pirated/illegal tracks of the most horrible standard anyway, worst than scratchy old 78 records.
Universal
MP3 files now live on all devices: PCs, laptops, notebooks, netbooks, tablets, sliders, media players of any kind, shape and form, mobile phones of any generation and more. Any slab with a screen (SWAS) can play and usually record or sync. MP3 files. They all come with a player included and there are many more players available on the Web. You can make your own playlist, tarnsfer/sync them to other devices.In the days of the CD, it was quite easy to rip existing albums to MP3 files on the computer in any orderand then burn a CD-R that would hold up to 10 hours of music. The big problem was to print a list of the contents and to access a particular track, which was not bad on a computer, but a chore on a domestic player.
But now, we can subscribe to Web music provider and buy and download (Amazon does it too); we can listen to music in the Cloud from sites like the famous Spotify and many more.
We can lift the MP3 track from YouTube videos, but the quality is often quite low.
In the Cloud
The next stage for the providers is total streaming, by which we will pay to access to the music on the cloud (i.e. on their servers) and stream it live: nothing to download or store ourselves.These providers will have total control to limit our access to our account, so that they can install geographic restrictions, and track what we use, how often, for how long, on what device, etc. We will own nothing, except a license to play and they will be able take over our devices.
Now, the big problems with internet providers:
- they make it quick and easy to get us signed in, but usually provide next to no service afterwards;
- they make all sorts of restrictions to the service: like geographical limitations where the service works only within the country where our device and our credit card are registered. Buying across borders does not work. So much for the trumpeted universality of the internet; it's a joke!
- providers on the web will abandon you; either their will change go out of business without a word, or they will sell part of their service and your account to some other company. You are on your own.
I had the case with Scrapblog,(slideshos) sold to a different company; but I had left before; and Odeo (MP3 audio) which ceased the hosting without notification and I lost all the files.
Remember, when we bought an LP or a CD, it was ours to own for good and use as we please, within the copyright laws and regulations of course.
Legal
The Cloud Streaming method might put an end to the vexed issue of illegal downloads. That what kids do; shoplifting, stealing, nicking things. They are not going to buy tracks from an on-line store, they are going to get them for free.They persuade gullible parents that by installing the free iTunes player, they actually get free access to on-line music, through one of the peer-to-peer programmes that replace the old Napster, which has gone legit.And parents, who have no time nor inclination to check this, condone and encourage this activity, recommended it to their friends and scorn those who do not believe them. The whole British nation seems to be on the take. And the Phonographic Industry comes crying in the media that there was robbed of all these juicy royalties.
Music Download
There are plenty of paying legal sites where you can buy music to download, the most famous being Apple's iTunes Music Store.Music download can be the stuff of nightmare. Not only do you need a computer, a fast internet connection, an internet provider, but you must open an account with an on-line music store. They all have different administration, types of payment, their own Digital Right Management and their restrictions. Nothing is standardized and that is if you can access them in the first place.
Some on line music store will only accept credit cards from a bank account in their country. Which defeat the whole object of the universality of the internet. At least the European Union should make it compulsory for all to give access to all European citizens, wherever they are: it is not the case!
Confused parents
In the meantime and quite logically, people download so-called illegal tracks, mainly youngsters of course. Some parents admit they do not have the time, the knowledge or inclination to mess around with computers, check downloads and all that jazz, and leave it to their kids.There are parent who are convinced, by their kids no doubt, that since the free iTunes is installed, all downloads will be free as well. They have no idea that the legal music store is a different service that they must pay for. Maybe they see iTunes, which is only a player, as a free shop for endless downloads. Their children probably use one of the peer-to-peer application to find their tracks.
The confusion is very easy to make for anybody who has not the time or the inclination to search for the precise information.
But of course, digital music offers more choice for listening to and playing music on more gadgets at home, in the car, on the move, everywhere. But the offer should be much clearer and the access to the technology and services much simpler and more standardized.
