BitTorrent

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) communications protocol; it is a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources.

Bram Cohen, he designed it in April 2001, it’s now maintained by Cohen’s company BitTorrent, Inc.

BitTorrent is different from Http and ftp that are only speaking to the server and never communicate to each other. Another method of transferring files has become popular, which is most closed to BitTorrent is Peer-to-peer as Mandy’s blog has mentioned this topic, it direct connect one to one, it is good for files can shared without having access to a proper server, but little accountability for the contents of the files. A newest version of some clients allow downloading a single file from multiple sources for higher speeds, but popular download is somewhat mitigated, because the great chance that a popular file will be offered by a number of peer.

BitTorrent is also supports stopping and later resuming a partial download. Torrent is a metadata, it means that the file contains information about the data that you want to download, but it is not the data itself. Peer, which is another computer that you connect to and transfer data, generally a peer does not have the completely file. Seed, it is the most important character in BitTorrent, it has a completely copy of a certain torrent. Generally BitTorrent requires good manners to continue seeding a file after you have finish downloading, and it will help others. Reseed means zero seeds for a given torrent, all the peers will et stuck with an incomplete file, now it require a seed co connect to the swarm so others can transferred missing pieces. Swarm, it is a group of machine that are collectively connected for a particular file, eg 3 seeds, 10 peers so swarm consists you and other 13 people.

Flash pic from Wiki Site.

Bittorrent allow people to download or share music online, once cusomters get familiar with the songs that they like they may purchase the physical one or online digital one in a perfect condition, not the compress one.

A song give explanation how useful it is BitTorrent!

Bibilography

What is BitTorrent

http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/#what

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

BitTorrent Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN1D5jJAHTs  view at 22th October 2007

Online access is tearing off music label

Interesting topic about online music

An interesting article Online access is tearing off music label from Courier press site. It has been reported “in the digital age, it’s becoming easier for musicians to find an audience.” (Williams, Justin Friday, October 19, 2007).

An example as Radiohead’s contract with record label EMI expired, now they have released their latest album, “In Rainbows” on its web site. Not only Radiohead selling music online but also other bands, because music industry charge lots of money from bands.  

Scott Hubiak, guitarist for local band 4-Seamer believe digital music revolution is great, it has also led to an over saturation of bands. Many independent bands are bypassing a traditional recording contract and going the digital-only route.

Digital distribution makes the barrier to entry so much lower, as CDBaby.com, an online music distributor, makes its easy for bands or musician to publish online at various retailers. CDbaby takes a small percentage of the sales, which it is far less than a traditional label. Because it will cutting out the middleman, the most benefit is the consumers.

Meaning

This article shows music sales has revolution since digital age starting, bands they do not sell their music in a traditional way, to face the agency, the label, the middleman, they do not need to so much fear about what music industry told them to do, they can create 100% purely music what they wish to play, it will also have a new revolution on music. Meanwhile music industry will face to a very difficult time, because musicians do not need to only reply on them, they will lose money on it. But it will also help online retailers to increase their business.

Conclusion

Musician will produce more creative music, they can still sell their music without label, without agency, without middleman by using online music retailers, it will benefit for the consumers to buy good music in a lower price.

 

Bibilography

 

Williams, Justin (2007)

 http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/oct/19/online-access-is-tearing-off-music-label/   [viewed 20/10/2007.]

    

Creative Commons

”Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved. We’re a nonprofit organization. Everything we do — including the software we create — is free.”

                                                                                                                                                                   –Creative Commons site

Creative Commons has six different licenses, 1. Attribution 2. Attribution share alike 3. Attribution no derivatives 4. Attribution non-commercial 5. Attribution non-commercial share alike 6. Attribution non-commercial non derivatives

How you can apply with creative commmons?

You can apply a creative commons license by choose the licese that suit your preferences, and by copy and insert the html code into your work then it will automatically generate the ‘Right Reserved’ button, it means your work is license under creative commons.

Who?

Creative Commons found by Cric Eldred in 2001, it also support by a public domain, it also receive support from John D, and Catherine Macarthur Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Omidyar Network, Government, US and Charitable corporation.

 Location

The main offices of  Creative Commons are basically in San Fransico and London, UK.

Creative Commons is perfect for your own work, such as music, video which you want to make sure they are yours only with the copy right, for example, if you have your work but it is under non-commercial, so people who have your work is fine but not deal with business.  

Creative Commons is not involved with DRM. 

Here is more information about creative commons in this video: http://search.creativecommons.org/

Creative Commons is very helpful for music online, an example if you have upload your own songs to the internet with copyright in creative commons you can choose different liceses which you prefer. If you choose the licence people who can download your song, remix your song but they can’t sell it in a business way, which means save your time, and the original creative idea, the song itself which will still yours. Creative Commons encourage people to have their own ideas and creat new stuffs.

Music Retailers

Music Retailers Online

I am going to look into music retailers online, which means you can buy music physically and digitally online from lots of different online music stores and different countries, such as Tesco Entertainment (UK), Virgin Digital (UK or US), Emusic, HMV, Amazon, CDbaby, iTunes and etc.

Online music store is popular now, to be honest to say the last time I purchased music in store was about three years ago. It is much easier that you purchase music online because you will have your music immediately after you pay or you only need to wait for three or four days to shipping to your home, it will help you save your money on transport.

You can purchase your music online by different payment methods, such as paypal or different bank cards. Your credit card information is safe because most of them are use SSL encryption technology to secure their commerce transactions. ‘Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), are cryptographic protocols that provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as web browsing, e-mail, internet faxing, instant messaging and other data transfers.’ (SSL definition at wikipedia website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Sockets_Layer 4^th Oct 2007)

The price of purchase music online is normally cheaper then in the stores. The reasons are 1.The organization will save money to pay people who they employed. 2. They will not need to open a physical store during working hours. 3. Online store will increase sales as it work for 24 hours and normally the digital music will not need to produce a physical CD.

Here are two examples; 1.The store price is £17.99 for ‘Lord Don’t Slow Me Down’ from Oasis but the price of online store is £11.98. 2. Emusic they offer three subscription plans for customers and all of their plans cost less than the price of a CD each month, from £8.99 of maximum 30 downloads to £14.99 of maximum 75 downloads per month.

Online music stores also have competitions which is same as the really shops. Such as Virgin Digital Site had a blog which allow audiences to post their review of music or anything they wish to say on this blog. Now they have already reached 2119546 numbers of tracks at 23:35 4^th October 2007.

An example of a post at 21 September 2007 ‘So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye…goodbye’ (Big Mouth Blog at Virgin Digital at http://blog.virgindigital.co.uk/)

HMV site offer student discount 15% for music and international shoppers which allow customers to shop online from more than 30 different countries.

Online music stores also offer pre-order with extras, it means you can order new album as your wishing list when it release the online store will send it to you the first time, sometimes customers will also have free gifts, such as T-shirt, posters and etc.

Online music store will offer some free versions or try versions like 30 seconds to listen the music before you purchase them.

Customer service online is able in every online music store which is same as the customer service in store, it usually use email to ask questiones or customers can find common questiones at FAQ or live chat, eg Emusic.

To purchase music online in the same county it often free delivery, and it will reasonable delivery fee for international customers, the beneficial of this for customers is you can purchase the music online as a gift to your friends, some site had gift wrapping service.

Independent retailers like Cdbaby.com. It is a little online record store that sells albums by independent musicians. Derek Sivers he was selling his own CD in 1997, and he started to asked some fellow musicians if they would like him to sell their CD, too. But then it become popular day by day and now this little online music store has paid over $50 million directly to independent musicians around the world. The cool thing of this site is in a regular record deal or destribution deal, musicians only make $1-$2 per album, but when they sell through CD Baby, musicians make $6-$12 per album, and get paid weekly. Personally after I searched this site, I start to love to buy music from Cdbaby.com, the site is in a easy format, very easy to understand it. And they have variety music and etc.

 

‘Lord Don’t Slow Me Down’ from Oasis Price

http://www.amazon.co.uk/music-rock-classical-pop-jazz/b/ref=topnav__w_h_/202-8014421-0887833?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=229816) [Viewed 4/10/2007]

Live chat at Emusic

https://www.emusic.com/registration/2.html?SNID=EC204EC2D935E982CE87BBDA631B4F52 [Viewed 4/10/2007]

Yuri’s Music Online 536

This blog is for the week directly study I am doing now for mc536 music online at Birmingham City University.

Basically we will update a post in every week after lecture on Friday morning. Welcome all the comments!