Kannafoot came up with the hook: make AIFF format present an ad.
The reason for doing this is the MP3 format is unacceptable for quality high-fidelity listening. It was created to reduce the size of audio files but that was twenty years ago when the Internet was powered by mules working a turnstile.
One consequence of switching to the AIFF rather than MP3 is that your music collection will expand physically by ten times. An MP3 is only 10% of the original AIFF recording, incredible as that may seem.
The AIFF format is arguably the most pure audio format for the Internet and it's the same one used for CD. WAV was Microsoft's counter but you have to ask what kind of WAV, what quality level, etc. There is only one type of AIFF and it's lossless. This is the best quality recording I can make and what I routinely use for master copies of recordings. (That doesn't apply only to me. AIFF is the standard for anyone working on high-quality recording.)
Kannafoot specified participation by Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc and it would require that level of support as my proposal is a header (i.e. data extension) for the AIFF that would contain advertising information such as a link to a Web site to display a Web page. Any device capable of playing the AIFF should also be capable of displaying the Web page except for a car but don't kill the idea on that basis alone as many cars could also display a Web page. Note the accident potential in any video disturbance in a car, particularly at night.
Note also the security exposure in bringing some potentially contaminated Web site into your system through this new pathway from the AIFF. Destroyers will love that free ride so the OS needs to provide a defense. Figure it out, project manager. Just don't forget about it.
The way I envision this is the musician mixes his or her heart of gold song. As part of the final mixdown, the header information is provided to the mix software and here is an opportunity to select which advertiser(s) you want behind your song. Note that no action is required by the advertiser. The musician is providing the path. If anyone selects it, the advertiser gets an ad displayed; Apple, Google, or Microsoft gets a click charge for providing it; the musician gets the juice from whichever of A, M, G processed the header as that's who got paid by the advertiser.
As I think of this, it doesn't seem that damn hard. For junior project managers out there, take all your battle armor when it comes to defining the standard for the AIFF header as it's absolutely crucial that the standard be made and held. Failure to do so screws music even worse than the mess that was made of Napster. Defend this standard as the value of it is astronomical.
The beauty part of this is that music will truly be free at that point and under the total control of the musician. The record companies will want to draw and quarter anyone who tries to implement such a thing but I will just tell them it was Kannafoot's idea and run away, albeit not that fast.
Make no mistake of how much money comes from this as the musician has a huge incentive to ensure his or her music doesn't suck because he or she will get paid depending on how many times people really listen to it. Any musician can become a recording company with only a podcast.
As always, the biggest problem is distribution. It's all very well to make a podcast but why should anyone listen to that one rather than a million others. There's an ancillary market in places you can go to get music for free. Soundcloud will hate it as they want to get a piece of sales by artists but this concept means artists wouldn't be selling anything. Here. Take it. Give it to all your friends ... please. That absolutely does not work with the current Soundcloud mechanism. It can but they have no incentive to do it. They have a strong incentive to find a way as maybe you have to buy a membership or some such. This aspect doesn't strike me as a huge challenge.
This is not hard software. The agreements, etc will be a gigantic pain in the ass but the potential money in it ... you figure it out. I suck at that part. It's one hell of a lot.
Update:
The idea is highly exciting to me. Kannafoot came up with a good one ... but ... you have to ask what could go wrong.
The advertisers will definitely pay as their contracts are with Apple, Microsoft, Google and failure to pay them would be an exceptionally bad idea. It's easy to screw individual musicians but not the big guns.
Musicians will definitely get paid or you won't get any more product. The better they treat the musicians, the better the product they get and the more computers and handheld gadgets they sell to play it.
Record companies will want to kill it but here's a mechanism on that. When the recording company has a contract artist, any AIFF header will indicate the payee is the company rather than the artist and any split is at that level. Note the potential flaw to this is that the deal is for life. Once that AIFF is out on the open Internet it can never be recalled and it will be paying that company permanently.
There is possible ugliness in that payout situation but there is value to the artist and the recording company. For example, Beyonce sings but she doesn't create the songs. In that situation, the payout goes to the recording company as they put it all together and she gets paid by them. If she gets screwed then that presumably means there is a profit rather than there isn't so she sues the hell out of them.
In the above model, the recording companies don't die and their advertising environments likely remain pretty much the same in terms of whom they promote.
The one other combatant I see is Soundcloud ... well ... ReverbNation, etc. They want you to sell your music through them as they get a percentage. That model won't work when you give your AIFFs away.
Here's a proposal for keeping those hosts greased. They provide value to the artist because a lot of people know about them. Therefore, if the artist wants them to host one or more works then the payee needs to be Soundcloud or whichever. Add in one more twist in that the assignment is temporary.
Add a time stamp when the AIFF header is written. The pieces of information in the header should be as follows:
- Time / date the AIFF header was written
- Link to Web site for the advertiser
- Payout information (e.g. PayPal, bank routing number, or whatever)
- Contract expiration (if any)
- Contract expiration reversion payout information
- Checksum to validate correct AIFF header is in use
and so on
Using a control block with that information means the recording company would not own the song for life. After the contract expires, the payout reverts to the artist.
(Ed: what stops Clever Dick from stripping the header from the AIFF and substituting a different one?)
The checksum in the header is the protection as the header will not generate the correct checksum if it is not exactly the same as the one used to create the checksum. That's impossible if you change anything in it, most particularly the payee.
(Ed: why not generate a new checksum to go with your new AIFF header?)
That's a possibility but getting it correct is unlikely because you don't know the algorithm used to create it.
(Ed: could you reverse-engineer the algorithm based on observations of the checksums for multiple AIFF headers?)
Yes. This may not be the path of best security. It may be that it's best to detect fraud AIFF information at the payout point. Any discrepancy and the funds go to escrow until resolved or some such.
I love the idea. I really do think it could work and in such a way that everyone ends up golden from it. Indies will still have a problem with distribution but so it's always been. However, you will know immediately if your work has any success and with immediate financial benefit even if you're some bozo working alone in the Fort Worth Rockhouse. Promoting remains about the same difficulty as ever and so the advantage of a recording company and assigning the AIFF after a contract. There really could be value for everyone and no-one gets screwed ... even the recording companies which could probably use it.
The reason for doing this is the MP3 format is unacceptable for quality high-fidelity listening. It was created to reduce the size of audio files but that was twenty years ago when the Internet was powered by mules working a turnstile.
One consequence of switching to the AIFF rather than MP3 is that your music collection will expand physically by ten times. An MP3 is only 10% of the original AIFF recording, incredible as that may seem.
The AIFF format is arguably the most pure audio format for the Internet and it's the same one used for CD. WAV was Microsoft's counter but you have to ask what kind of WAV, what quality level, etc. There is only one type of AIFF and it's lossless. This is the best quality recording I can make and what I routinely use for master copies of recordings. (That doesn't apply only to me. AIFF is the standard for anyone working on high-quality recording.)
Kannafoot specified participation by Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc and it would require that level of support as my proposal is a header (i.e. data extension) for the AIFF that would contain advertising information such as a link to a Web site to display a Web page. Any device capable of playing the AIFF should also be capable of displaying the Web page except for a car but don't kill the idea on that basis alone as many cars could also display a Web page. Note the accident potential in any video disturbance in a car, particularly at night.
Note also the security exposure in bringing some potentially contaminated Web site into your system through this new pathway from the AIFF. Destroyers will love that free ride so the OS needs to provide a defense. Figure it out, project manager. Just don't forget about it.
The way I envision this is the musician mixes his or her heart of gold song. As part of the final mixdown, the header information is provided to the mix software and here is an opportunity to select which advertiser(s) you want behind your song. Note that no action is required by the advertiser. The musician is providing the path. If anyone selects it, the advertiser gets an ad displayed; Apple, Google, or Microsoft gets a click charge for providing it; the musician gets the juice from whichever of A, M, G processed the header as that's who got paid by the advertiser.
As I think of this, it doesn't seem that damn hard. For junior project managers out there, take all your battle armor when it comes to defining the standard for the AIFF header as it's absolutely crucial that the standard be made and held. Failure to do so screws music even worse than the mess that was made of Napster. Defend this standard as the value of it is astronomical.
The beauty part of this is that music will truly be free at that point and under the total control of the musician. The record companies will want to draw and quarter anyone who tries to implement such a thing but I will just tell them it was Kannafoot's idea and run away, albeit not that fast.
Make no mistake of how much money comes from this as the musician has a huge incentive to ensure his or her music doesn't suck because he or she will get paid depending on how many times people really listen to it. Any musician can become a recording company with only a podcast.
As always, the biggest problem is distribution. It's all very well to make a podcast but why should anyone listen to that one rather than a million others. There's an ancillary market in places you can go to get music for free. Soundcloud will hate it as they want to get a piece of sales by artists but this concept means artists wouldn't be selling anything. Here. Take it. Give it to all your friends ... please. That absolutely does not work with the current Soundcloud mechanism. It can but they have no incentive to do it. They have a strong incentive to find a way as maybe you have to buy a membership or some such. This aspect doesn't strike me as a huge challenge.
This is not hard software. The agreements, etc will be a gigantic pain in the ass but the potential money in it ... you figure it out. I suck at that part. It's one hell of a lot.
Update:
The idea is highly exciting to me. Kannafoot came up with a good one ... but ... you have to ask what could go wrong.
The advertisers will definitely pay as their contracts are with Apple, Microsoft, Google and failure to pay them would be an exceptionally bad idea. It's easy to screw individual musicians but not the big guns.
Musicians will definitely get paid or you won't get any more product. The better they treat the musicians, the better the product they get and the more computers and handheld gadgets they sell to play it.
Record companies will want to kill it but here's a mechanism on that. When the recording company has a contract artist, any AIFF header will indicate the payee is the company rather than the artist and any split is at that level. Note the potential flaw to this is that the deal is for life. Once that AIFF is out on the open Internet it can never be recalled and it will be paying that company permanently.
There is possible ugliness in that payout situation but there is value to the artist and the recording company. For example, Beyonce sings but she doesn't create the songs. In that situation, the payout goes to the recording company as they put it all together and she gets paid by them. If she gets screwed then that presumably means there is a profit rather than there isn't so she sues the hell out of them.
In the above model, the recording companies don't die and their advertising environments likely remain pretty much the same in terms of whom they promote.
The one other combatant I see is Soundcloud ... well ... ReverbNation, etc. They want you to sell your music through them as they get a percentage. That model won't work when you give your AIFFs away.
Here's a proposal for keeping those hosts greased. They provide value to the artist because a lot of people know about them. Therefore, if the artist wants them to host one or more works then the payee needs to be Soundcloud or whichever. Add in one more twist in that the assignment is temporary.
Add a time stamp when the AIFF header is written. The pieces of information in the header should be as follows:
- Time / date the AIFF header was written
- Link to Web site for the advertiser
- Payout information (e.g. PayPal, bank routing number, or whatever)
- Contract expiration (if any)
- Contract expiration reversion payout information
- Checksum to validate correct AIFF header is in use
and so on
Using a control block with that information means the recording company would not own the song for life. After the contract expires, the payout reverts to the artist.
(Ed: what stops Clever Dick from stripping the header from the AIFF and substituting a different one?)
The checksum in the header is the protection as the header will not generate the correct checksum if it is not exactly the same as the one used to create the checksum. That's impossible if you change anything in it, most particularly the payee.
(Ed: why not generate a new checksum to go with your new AIFF header?)
That's a possibility but getting it correct is unlikely because you don't know the algorithm used to create it.
(Ed: could you reverse-engineer the algorithm based on observations of the checksums for multiple AIFF headers?)
Yes. This may not be the path of best security. It may be that it's best to detect fraud AIFF information at the payout point. Any discrepancy and the funds go to escrow until resolved or some such.
I love the idea. I really do think it could work and in such a way that everyone ends up golden from it. Indies will still have a problem with distribution but so it's always been. However, you will know immediately if your work has any success and with immediate financial benefit even if you're some bozo working alone in the Fort Worth Rockhouse. Promoting remains about the same difficulty as ever and so the advantage of a recording company and assigning the AIFF after a contract. There really could be value for everyone and no-one gets screwed ... even the recording companies which could probably use it.
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