Mike McGuireIt appears that Universal Music and Virgin Media – a UK ISP – are going to deploy an online music service, the description of which makes it sound as if it came from one of the white papers I worked on with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, back in the gray mists of the early part of this decade. (Here’s a link to one of the papers.)
The as-yet-unnamed service will allow subscribers – available only to UK residents — to either stream or download as much content as they want and the downloads are going to be open MP3s. Or at least that’s what I’m guessing based on the very chipper and very vague press release issued by Universal and Virgin Media (a so-called “quad play” service provider of mobile and fixed-line communications, broadband and pay-TV service). The service will be launched sometime before the end of the year. (According to the AP story link, Universal is working to get the other three major labels and the independents to join in.) Notable info: Universal is the largest label, by revenue, and Virgin claims to be the largest residential broadband provider in the UK.
Yes, I agree, it sounds just too good to be true, doesn’t it?
Here’s the catch: Virgin Media is going to keep an eye on things by monitoring users to make sure they’re not taking those open files and putting them up on P2P networks. According to the release, Virgin is considering temporary disconnects of subscribers who persistently engage in file trading. Nothing draconian, according to press reports, just a temporary disconnection. According to the release, it’s all about “educating” users about the perils of using file-trading technology.
Perhaps Virgin Media ISP customers won’t mind their online usage being monitored. Perhaps UK citizens have grown accustomed to being monitored, what with all the CCTVs deployed around England etc.
But more than anything, a whole class of tech-savvy users is going to wonder why they’re bothering with the monitoring at all. After all, if the files aren’t DRM’d and the user is paying a monthly access fee—and I presume the download-to-own version will be more expensive than the streaming-only option, what’s the point? Being able to have a “teaching moment” online when somebody is allegedly using P2P software? And if the disconnections are merely temporary, wouldn’t a clever user merely build that into their operating mode? And according to this news story, there might be some EU legislators who will argue that any disconnect by an ISP has to be accompanied by a court order.
Yet, here I am dwelling on the negative, so let me say this: it looks like a grand plan on paper. It would appear to map to how consumers want to acquire content and by providing a monthly subscription service without the DRM entanglements that have bogged down previous efforts, the service might actually be able give iTunes and other legitimate services a run for their money in the UK.
Then again, for it to really shine and to really provide competition to iTunes, the monthly fee’s going to have to be very reasonable, the catalog of content will have to be equal to or better than iTunes and the experience is going to have to be pretty compelling.
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