Bookmarks: Napster, iTunes and beyond

In the Wisconsin Law Review, Mike Masnick explains why the war on Napster didn't only fail to stop piracy, but also put the brakes on innovative new companies working in online music. In short: Had the RIAA been less keen to kill Napster, perhaps Apple wouldn't have ended up stealing their business:

This should have been obvious from the fact that people would flock to these new services, yet failed to show up to the record labels’ own attempts to innovate or provide something new. However, as soon as any service showed any kind of promise, even if “licensed,” the labels would seek to kill the golden goose by claiming that the rates were unfair, and the innovators were making money unfairly off the backs of the copyright holders (by which they meant the labels, not the musicians, of course).

Take, for example, the brief heyday of music video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. For a year or two, the recording industry fell head over heels in love with these games, because people were playing them quite a bit, and they were (briefly) willing to pay a slight premium to get access to music from well-known bands and musicians. Rather than build on that, the industry did two things: it focused all of its attention on those kinds of games, absolutely flooding the market and making people get sick of the game genre, and demanded much higher royalties.

The viewpoint seemed to be that there could be almost no benefits for the innovators. Nearly all of the benefits had to accrue to the labels, or it would be seen as a problem. In fact, the one exception that got through was iTunes, and that was quickly seen as a “problem” by the labels, even as it was dragging them, kicking and screaming, into the marketplace for digital music. The view is one of an extreme zero-sum world, where if someone else is benefiting, it must mean that the labels were losing out. They didn’t even hide this view of the world. Doug Morris, then head of Universal Music (now head of Sony Music) explained to a Wired reporter that investing in new innovations that weren’t paying money upfront meant that “someone, somewhere is taking advantage of you.” As laid out in the article, Morris was uninterested in technology, and didn’t even know how to hire a competent technology person, so his focus was on making sure everyone paid up immediately. Anyone making money in the music world without first paying a massive cut were dubbed “thieves.”

You, too, can have your song in Rock Band

We can't all wait for our widow to sign papers to make a mis-shapen version of our heads appear in a computer game, but there's good news if you're desperate to be part of the Rock Band world. MTV is planning to allow people to upload their own music to the game.

The idea is simple enough: Rock Band gets boring quite quickly when you've only got a limited number of tunes. But developing new songs is costly, and doesn't actually make any new money for the franchise.

Solution: Invite people to upload their own songs. The catch?

It's that bit about it being costly to make the Rock Band version of a tune:

Rather than deal with Harmonix directly, artists and labels will submit songs to a community of Harmonix-trained freelance game developers and other interested programmers who will prepare the tracks for "Rock Band." Additionally, labels can either hire trained developers or school their existing employees to do the work in-house.

Spong calculate the cost of doing this conversion is about $500 a minute. Now, the resulting songs will be sold, but between 50cents and $3 dollars, from which the person making the tracks will make just 30%.

Larger bands, then, might manage to turn a profit, but smaller acts? Not much. It might look to an outsider that MTV is trying to expand the playability of its game but at other people's expense. Certainly, only they are guaranteed to be making money on the deal.

No Doubt not happy

The much-ballyhooed legal intervention Courtney Love was promising over the Karaoke Kurt in Band Hero never showed up - presumably the paperwork got stolen by Ryan Adams or something - but Activision are now facing a more coherent threat: No Doubt are suing over the way they've been portrayed in the game:

Rock band No Doubt sued video game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc over the use of their likeness on its new "Band Hero" product, accusing the company of turning the rockers into a virtual karaoke act.

No Doubt and Activision had a contract allowing the company to use the band members in the game, but Activision, which is based in Santa Monica, California, went beyond the agreement by allowing gamers to use avatars of the band performing songs from other rock groups, the lawsuit states.

Yes, No Doubt are not a virtual karaoke act. They're virtually a karaoke act, but that's not the same thing at all.

Even Bon Jovi doesn't like Cobain-Jovi

Although Courtney Love's predicted climbdown by Activision has yet to appear, more grumbling about the clumsy use of Kurt Cobain turns up. This time, Bon Jovi Jon out of the Jon Bon Jovi Band is saying he thinks it stinks, too:

"I don't know that I would have wanted it either," Jon Bon Jovi told the BBC.

"To hear someone else's voice coming out of a cartoon version of me? I don't know. It sounds a little forced."

Okay, "a little forced" rather than "stinks", but it's the same sort of thing.

However, Jon does offer something that leans towards collaborating Courtney's claims that she didn't know how the characters - by which I mean 'real people' - would be used in the game:

"I had the paperwork, they wanted me to be on that game and I just passed," he said.

"But no-one even broached the subject with me that I would be singing other people's stuff. I don't know how I would have reacted to that. I don't know that I would have wanted it either."

The paperwork probably mentioned it; and - had you been going ahead and signing - 'how will this avatar be used' would be an essential question to ask. But it doesn't look like Activision were being upfront with the information.

Tamagotchi Kurt: Nobody's fault at all

The ill-judged resurrection of Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero has sparked a slew of messages from Courtney Love via Twitter, in which she claims she knew nothing about it:

FOR THE RECORD I DID NOT APPROVE KURTS AVATAR FOR GUYITARHERO5. i think Kurt would despise this game alone let alone this avatar

this is NECROPHILIC this is VILE please address all calls to my lawyer Kieth Fink Esquire who is FURIOUS And to my Publicist Rogers and Cowa

and they both also represent the Estate and Frances's Trust and if youd like to point the finger do so, Bruce Karsh at OAKTREE CAPITOL

and LARRY MESTEL at Primary WAVE not content to rape and pillage mydaughters "trust fund" a fucking JOKE in seattle called Laird NortonTyee

who do not know the difference between emi eom and bmi. who are greedy and lazy and forced me to 1 sell publishing rights then stole fromher

You'll notice we've already drifted somewhat from the avatar in a computer game to the naming of names and trotting through of the big conspiracy again. Now, it might be there has been some terrible wrong done - but yelling about it 140 characters a time doesn't really help your case, does it? It just makes you look a little... what's the word?

2Howard Wetzman and John Branca at Kinsella Wetzman and Ziffen branca in particular ONE who has disabused his forged Power Of Attorney

I know worrying about the misuse of 'disabused' here is a little like objecting to a historical inaccuracy in a Jeffrey Archer book, but... well, she means "abused", surely? Although can you actually abuse a forged POA? Isn't the forgery already the abuse?

and raped Kurts estate and are now raping Micheal Jacksons to profit thier "Private Bank of California" of wich former CPA Micheal Thompson

Hang about... where did Michael Jackson come from?

is an owner in fact 5 former cpas are funnily enough owners this "BANK" is funded by karsh and built on the bones of Hendrixes estate, Kurts

Is the Big Bopper going to turn up here too?

and Micheal Jacksons ( last count 50m for rehearsal tapes) My will was just pulled and if i pop my clogs THEY get everything this is forged

I have a sneaking suspicion that a swift objection on grounds of 'of sound mind' will probably render any will - forged or not - invalid.

this goes to the VERY heart of what you motherfuckers refer to as my "ranting" NEVER underestimate a mothers love and NEVER underestimate

Here a pause as she empties the box again - a chance to point out that the motherfuckers call it ranting, Courtney, because you're, um, ranting.

My ETERNAL and PURE love for my deceased husband, the guradian says Kurt has made 800m dollars(450mpounds) since passing,

Grauniad, surely?

its actually alot more if you count the illegal Nirvana llc di you think in a million years weve spent such an absurd amount of money?

Well... no. But when a figure like that is bandied around, it doesn't mean that this would have been the equivalent of Kurt's take-home pay, does it?

There's much more about this, before coming back to the question of avatar.

ucking nmegafraud and youve got to show for it Kurt LUNCHBOXES< CONVERESE SNEAKERS AND ACTIVISION SMUGLY BOASTING OF RAPE

That would have been a very ill-judged press release.

we have NOTHING to do with this it was presented to me and oi said "show me a better avataR" TO DRAG MY HEELS., never did i intend on allowi

I don't think the avatar being rubbish is the heart of the problem - have you seen the state of The Beatles in Beatles Game? - more so the way he dances like Worzel Gummidge to Bon Jovi songs. Yoko Ono signed that Beatles game off, you know.

allowing GUITARHERO for me or for Kurt i am NOT yoko fucking Ono no ofense to her, but i am a different person entirely and this is insane

It comes to something when a realisation that you're not the widow of John Lennon is a moment of clarity, doesn't it?

Courtney then returns to the grand mortgage fraud - which, for the time being, she seems to have stopped blaming Ryan Adams for - before attempting to pull it all together:

all day every day i take the shit for men and women of LAW and WEALTH

VIOLATING their positions from the moment of Kurts Death forging his will as "In testate" you have not listened to me so Kurts avatar is on

YOU for dismissing me as a LOON, go fucking play guitar hero commit necrophilai KNOW you are raping me and my family mother in law child

NOW WILL YOU FUCKING LISTEN OR DO YOU NEED MORE? i saw a piece of the avatar on the nightly news i actually had to vomit but ive been alone

In the course of explaining the forensics she's done, Courtney makes this astonishing claim:

that is a "boun ce" address, i have spent 20/30,000 hours doing high level forensics and am presently qualified to work at DeloitTouche

... even if she can't spell the company name. 30,000 hours doing high level forensics? That's nearly three and a half years without a single break. If you assume a generous eight hour stretch of high level forensicing a day, that comes in at over ten year's work.

But Courtney's keen forensic brain spots the world might be getting confused by what this has to do with a Bon Jovi karaoke game, so she pulls the threads back together:

and yes this is a clear and linear line to Guitar Hero 5 outragous violationa nd breach o contract it makes you feel smug to say ESTATE

say it but know that at the end i am a widow and a single mother whose polemic husband has been utterly and totally liquidated, and its YOUR

YOUR FAULT for not hearing me scream, and i will not stop screaming so euthe rbecome responsible and allow me to love my country again,

Hang about... the threads haven't quite come together and Courtney seems to be hating America?

After another slew of posts, another attempt to draw back the threads:

and you wonder about Guitar Hero 5 disgusted? welcome to my NIGHTMARE. yeah well sue activision this is disgusting, but theres alot MORE

a proper press release will address this and a proper legal team will be assembled to deal with the mortgage fraud aspect Kieth isnt doing,

its a specialised industry and very very specialised, i understand mortgage fraud almost better than anythingand corrupted banking officers

Again, it's possible that Courtney does understand complicated mortgage frauds, but you'd have to say that this doesn't really speak of a well-constructed argument from a fertile mind.

But it's not a rant. Oh no:

anyone who dares call the below a rant or rambling or "bizarre rambling rant" is a retard who cant take documentation.

Courtney, a poorly typed, mispelled tweet is not "documentation" in any meaningful sense. And even if you case is solid, shouting it in tiny little bursts of message doesn't make it any less of a rant. Indeed, ranting isn't automatically bad. Ask the Ranters.

At some point, Rolling Stone seems to have come across a post now deleted:

“you can assrape dave he was always a bad seed and is stillriding the shit while i take bullets if theres a hell hes going. im not.”

But there's still plenty of blaming of Dave going on:

nor was going to and my quote on grphl stands, he financed his mothers home and his own with kurts etstae not his "own" money.

Courtney suggests that the pointing of a finger at her is to deflect the bad PR the game is getting:

are they doing this to defelct the bad pr?Blame courtney? they know they are fullof shit and oi need to have the preleaselawstuf

But...

activision is fulllof shit they have a a contcrct called a deal memo that said upon approvale they could use an avatar i approved i .

So... Activision seem to think they have a signed piece of paper allowing them to do what they've done? Doesn't this - when you strip away all the claims of raping, and ass-raping, and necrophiliac ass-raping, and too, too much about fraudulent mortgages - come down to it?

Activision think they have a sign-off; Courtney thinks she has signed-off giving permission to release if she gets a final approval. It's as simple as that.

Courtney predicts we're going to see some movement:

and i never inteneded to aPPROVE this shit, they are doing a recall you can be sure o fthat. waita ew hours maybe tomorrow press and etc

We shall see.

Meanwhile, Dave Grohl has issued a somewhat tidier statement:

“Activision is responding to queries regarding the usage of Kurt Cobain’s likeness in Guitar Hero 5 with the following statement ‘Guitar Hero secured the necessary licensing rights from the Cobain estate in a written agreement signed by Courtney Love to use Kurt Cobain’s likeness as a fully playable character in Guitar Hero 5.’ Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, the two surviving members of Nirvana, have no say whatsoever in the usage of Kurt Cobain’s likeness.”

Activision, for their part, seem to think that Courtney was helping them in their work:

Courtney supplied us with photos and videos and knew exactly what she wanted Kurt to look like,” Riley told RS. “She picked the wardrobe and hair style, which turned out to be the ‘Teen Spirit’ look, then we went back and forth over changes — some subtle, some not so subtle… She was actually great to work with. She got back with comments pretty quickly.”

It might, of course, turn out to have been a twisted lawyer wearing a Courtney mask while stealing the gumballs from Frances Bean's candy money box.

The Beatles: Now a bit like Sonic The Hedgehog

The appearance of The Beatles on Rock Band - uniting the world's most over-rated band with one of the most perplexing toys - is about to unleash its hypewave over us, starting with a massive chunk of Wired reporting on the process of turning The Beatles songs into games:

At the end of the video presentation, the two surviving flesh-and-blood band members, Ringo Starr, 69, and Paul McCartney, 67, take the stage for a surprise appearance. Standing side by side, the pair look slightly befuddled by the moment. For these been-there, done-that rockers, flogging a videogame is a first. "We love the game, it's fantastic," McCartney says. "Who would've ever thought we'd end up as androids?" No one, perhaps, except a few ambitious executives at MTV.

The constant suggestion is that The Beatles doing anything related to commerce is unusual - ooh, you persuaded The Beatles to make even more money; how cunning. It does, though, fly in the face of the evidence of Beatles tea towels and shoelaces that shows that the question is never about the idea of a deal, just a debate over how much cash we're talking about.

Still, at least the MTV team who made the game really understand The Beatles, don't they?

[A]lthough Martin and Rigopulos had figured out how to marry the Beatles' music to the Rock Band format, the developers still had a long way to go. The original Rock Band let players assume the role of a generic rocker and gradually gain experience and a bigger repertoire, thus accessing more fans, cooler clothes, bigger venues, a larger entourage, and all the other accoutrements of rock-and-roll stardom. "Right away, we realized this wouldn't work for the Beatles," Rigopulos says. "They had all that stuff—fans, money, stardom—almost from the beginning.

Eh? Right from the beginning? Well, I suppose if you ignore the bit between 1957 and the back end of 1962, they did.

Still, at least there is something realistic in the game's make-up: it's been buggered about by Yoko Ono:

By spring, the Harmonix crew had completed a rough build of the entire game. Yoko Ono, whose involvement up to then had been minimal, decided to fly to Boston to provide her own distinct brand of input. "She gave the designers hell," DeGooyer says.

"She's an artist," Rigopulos adds, "so she was very concerned with the look of the game. She really held our feet to the fire." Ono made specific suggestions, like proposing that the game's final scene—the Beatles' infamous rooftop concert on the Apple Corps building in Knightsbridge — look windier.

Her criticism sent Harmonix scurrying to improve the graphics. At that point, the E3 conference and the game's debut was just three months away. "We were like, oh, gee. Thanks," Rigopulos says. "It would have been nice to know that six months ago, but yes, thank you very much."

They did hold fast in the face of her proposals that the digital version of John Lennon should actually quit the digital version of the band and instead make songs about how it's terrible having money from the top of a massive pile of money.

Still, the fans will surely be falling over each other in order to get what they believe is the finest body of recorded work from the finest band which ever lived, in order to see how much better it would have been if they'd played bass and Larry's girl from over the road was on drums instead.