Hi
iam wondering if souldcloud do have any protections agains music ripping ? When all those musicians post unreleased previews here and the people start to rip the music with tools like streamripper i think its definitly bad because very quickly you will find "preview" from Artist XY in all those torrent pages !
Any solutions here ?
hey, we're working on making this as hard as possible. it's still possible today to rip our streams with certain tools, but we're preparing now for making it much harder. we're really dedicated to find a solution for preventing this (although it's pretty challenging).
i should also say that of course the original files can not be ripped, unless they are explicitly made downloadable. the only files that are subject to ripping are the 128kbs mp3 streams.
the way i see it, if people are happy with ripping a 128k stream, and then re-encoding that to god knows what, then by all means, let them have it. besides, the private feature pretty much eliminates any possibility of ripping, unless you inadvertently give it to someone untrustworthy. personally, if i have a super-secret track that has to stay under wraps until release, i'm not going to share it with anyone anyway.
all in all, i'm really impressed with the site - this is a great way to establish new musical networks and interact with other producers and music appreciators. full steam ahead!
jeah!!!!
since a lot of strange guys rip music and as you already said paul, the convert the files into whatever ... and finally also sell the music mainly on russia download stores ... i think we need to talk about this and probably somehow and someday anybody will find a solution for this!
Thanks
Music is already completely free. We need to get used to that. When someone buys your music on iTunes or Beatport they are only paying for the convenience (the service of delivery). The music is already free. They can get it other places for $0.00 so that is all music's value today.
What you want to do is make the barrier to your music from illegal sites high enough the normal user won't bother. When I release a new album it's usually only a few hours before a Russian hosted site has the full release available to download. It quickly shows up on the first page of Google results. Most users buy newly released music so what you want to do is not try and stop the Russian site because thats impossible... you want to have Google delist the search result. This make's it almost like the site doesn't exist. Here's how:
http://www.google.com/dmca.html
As for stopping Rippers I guess you could only post preview clips or maybe Soundcloud could have some sort of mechanism that puts annoying white noise or a message over songs randomly.
Hi lads. Great place here.
Uploaded some 3 tracks for some label, then deleted them. Thought they are not still signed so someone could take them of.
Anyhow i am very happy finding you.
Mario Dujic
Everyone sees/experiences this from a unique perspective, and I don't believe any one opinion is wrong or right, so this is just my opinion, but I must say that I feel quite strongly about this subject. All things physical are actually sound waves. This includes the origin of our universe(s) and everything that follows. Eastern mystical schools have known this for thousands of years, and western science has very recently "discovered" this yet again (read some current cosmology papers if you want to learn more).
As a musician I do not create the sound from nothing, or from my own free will, it is already there, I'm just tapping into it, transcribing it from the source (which apparently sounds like "oooommmmmmm") and removing and organizing bits and pieces that I "hear". The skill is in being able to hear it.
To me all the talk I see about "protect" and "my music" etc. is very fear based and hard core self-control-freakish. I do not want to treat my music like a slave in a dungeon, or a prostitute that I pimp, afraid to let it go freely amongst the public, and only letting those who pay interact with it.
Affluent iPhone/iTunes users will buy it on iTunes and you'll get your cut. Those people don't go to the Russian sites because they are scared of them. The folks that don't have as much extra income will get it from Russian and similar sites, and you get "free" fans.
Is it really "ethical" (a loaded word for sure) to become a millionaire because you happened to tap into a good song? I don't think so, I think everyone who interacts with it, ie provides a service around it (which is what the Russian sites do) should make a portion of a living off it. If you want to rake in big bucks you need to sign song writing/royalty deals, or perform it live, ie go on tour which has always been where the money is generated with hard copy and merch sales.
If someone wants to "rip-off" one of my songs, go ahead, because that means it's strong enough to stand on it's own, and I'll find out eventually if it really matters.
Hope I don't piss off too many pros, I'm an idealist :)
When i think about it. Like anyone will try to steal my music....who do I think I am? lol
Just selfish man.
dont fuck things up to prevent this ...
because guess what ...
you cant.
there are and always will be tools monitoring application output and catching that "post-script", as far as my technical knowledge goes, is logically impossible.
who cares? they rip it they rip it...
beat makers have to be more concerned than anyone with beats being sold in the thousands individually and personally, anyone doing that type of thing is not going to do anything big enough with the track for me to care (ya ya, i know a couple stories). not someone worried about missing a $10 CD sale...
definitly i know there is no chance to prevent this. i was just wondering if the soundcloud crew probably is thinking about something like this since some of us post here unreleased tracks & previews.
cheerio
Aside from protecting those 128 kbit mp3s from being downloaded (see other post in this forum: http://soundcloud.com/forums/music/major-security-flaw), maybe some kind of random voice-overs could be implemented. Of course it could be turned on and off by the artist... What do y'all think?
The only system I think actually works is the one on Last.fm. The only way to hear a full song is if it's played randomly via one of the zillions of user made radio "stations". This is great to find new music and also stops ripping unless you constantly recording your computer's audio stream. If you hear a song you like by the random player you can click to go to the artist and hear the song again but only 30 seconds of it.
Of course this kinda defeats the purpose of SoundCloud. I suggest that you only post previews or full songs knowing that they will be ripped.
The best thing you can do is go buy some music you like and educate others on the worth of digital art.
Last.fm and virb.com have another great protection feature, which SC lacks. It's the protection of the MP3 file used for playback inside the flash player. Lack of this feature makes all public songs on SC downloadable.
Protecting against recording computer's audio stream is a lot tougher, that's why I proposed those voice-overs, so that the audio output would always have some sort of additional sound every now and than. Now I see that you wrote about something similar and I missed it.
It would only make sense if downloading mp3s was impossible of course.
Perhaps the best way to keep everyone happy here is to have a "Top Secret Demo" check-box when uploading a song. If a user chooses this option their song would be given the full suite of "protection" ie voice-over etc. as mentioned above. For the vast majority of us, for the vast majority of the time, we will not want to have to deal with all that, so unchecked would of course be the default, but for those on the verge of stardom with precious intellectual property to protect, they could still have a comfort zone to operate in. My two cents :)
seems to me the easiest way (for dance music producers anyway) is too fade your song out at the end and trim the beginning meaning that even if someone goes to the effort of ripping it they can only listen at home and not use it to dj with....
oh...and yes I believe music has no value aside from the live performances it helps you get and the pleasure it hopefully brings others
Just to throw a little gas on the fire, I would just like to put this out there: anyone who uses samples in their work has no right to whine about copyright infringement imho. Sure, if you keep it under X seconds you're technically not breaking the law, but your not fooling me ;-) I'm not saying it's not valid art, and I've dug on more than my fair share of tracks that use samples, I just think honesty and openness goes a long way...
which is why i could give a damn ...
among a million other reasons that have more to do with me just not giving a damn than the fact that ive sampled some tracks here and there.
@richardbanks we will soon have stream protection that is on par with or better than both virb.com and last.fm
well im glad i was WRONG then!
sounds great.
Sounds good Forss!
if people are concerned about there music being stolen i think they should put bursts of white noise in the tracks they upload here.(its not that hard)
or upload clips
My thoughts...
If someone is so concerned about their music (or a couple of copies of one of their tracks) being stolen, they shouldn't even put it up anywhere on the net. As soon as it is in the digital format (easily duplicated) you have no hope of preventing someone getting a free copy if they really want a free copy.
Obviously making it harder for someone to copy a track will always help the situation but it won't prevent it completely. I think there needs to be a shift in thought processes about the whole situation. Music is gonna get stolen, it's a simple fact. But.. If you want to maximise sales, th amount of money in your pocket, then improve your marketing. Make it easier for people to legitimately get your music. Develop relationships with people who might like your music so they come back to you (or an online distribution site) to get it. Convince the people who would normally pinch your music to come and buy it from you.
I think the next generation of producers is going to have a different music market to step into. Less big record labels. A higher volume of music available, and more readily/easily available. The comsumer will get exactly what they want when they want it.
I can't say that I am a fan of the white noise/talkover preventative measures. I think it will really turn people off experiencing music in the fashion that SoundCloud has brought to us. I came to SoundCloud with the idea that it was "for the producer, by the producer" - Good quality interfaces and decent sound quality (better than the dreaded myspace anyway) that was aimed at personal improvement. I would hope that, in the future, the streaming would have a 320K option to really hear the music in all its glory. A chance to actively and effectively critique another person's track give quality feedback.
Can't wait!
Here is an excellent article on the economics of 'Free': http://techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml
It all comes down to the economics of scarce goods vs. infinite goods. The price of infinite goods moves towards $0 (infinite good, therefore infinite supply), while scarce goods have value because of their scarcity (i.e. there is a finite supply).
Anything that goes on the net becomes an infinite good. The net is basically a big copy machine. To keep the Internet from being a big copy machine would change the very value that it provides.
The trick is to use the easy to distribute infinite goods (i.e. your mp3/wav/any other file format) to promote the scarce goods (t-shirts, concert tickets, works for hire, etc.)
Once you understand how the economics work, you won't care who or how many people copy/share your tracks.