So it’s time for me to eat crow, or depending on your taste, humble pie. Not so long ago I was confidently predicting a drawn out battle between two high definition disk formats; HD-DVD and Blu-ray. HD-DVD, backed by Toshiba and the DVD standards body offered cheaper players but only a limited range of titles; Sony’s Blu-ray was more expensive but had a larger library of movies. It seemed likely that the two formats would continue to co-exist, confusing purchasers who would continue to vote with their feet and carry on buying DVDs. Suddenly everything changed; HD-DVD is dead. On February 19th, Toshiba announced that it would immediately stop manufacturing HD-DVD players and recorders. In little over a month, HD-DVD had gone from a viable format for the future of movies to a technological cul-de-sac. What had gone wrong?

Two factors conspired to kill HD-DVD. The first was Sony’s technological wonder, the Playstation 3, which comes with a built-in Blu-ray player. After a troubled launch, the PS3 has begun to notch up impressive sales with more than 10 million sold to date (more than a million in the UK alone) – ten times the number of HD-DVD players that were sold during its lifetime. People may not have bought PS3 for movies, but they have certainly been experimenting with Blu-ray disks whose sales have been steadily climbing. The second nail in the coffin of HD-DVD was the decision by Warner Brothers to cease issuing new movies on the format. This left only Universal Studios and Dreamworks as committed to HD-DVD exclusivity for their movies. Within days of the Warner announcement; Woolworths in the UK and the colossal American chain WalMart said they were abandoning HD-DVD; the writing was on the wall for the format.

In the US and Japan, many retailers are compensating purchasers of HD-DVD players, either with cold, hard cash or with credits against the purchase of a Blu-ray player. On the software front, things are grim for HD-DVDs with most studios cancelling future releases; but HD-DVD users are enjoying a fire sale of existing titles as retailers dump their stocks, at the moment disks can be had for as little as £6 apiece – cheaper than DVDs! Existing HD-DVD players will continue to play regular DVDs, and in the event of one failing, Toshiba has stockpiled at least 8 years worth of spare parts. If, like me, you bought into HD-DVD, you will be able to enjoy it for many years to come.

The backers of Blu-ray, most notably Sony and the movie studios, are the victors. Toshiba might have lost this war, but it can easily afford to write off the costs of HD-DVD. The real losers in this war may well be consumers, and that is because we’re going to have fewer ways of enjoying our entertainment.

Region coding is part of a trend in media and computer software known as digital rights management (DRM) that aims to control how media can be used. DRM allows the publisher of a title to say where it can be played, on what machines, if it can be copied to another device, even whether the recording will evaporate after being played. You’ve almost certainly encountered DRM every time you play a DVD. When you first put a DVD into a player you will see a number of warnings about where the disk can be used and the consequences for pirating its contents. You may have noticed you cannot skip past these and get on with the movie – the DRM on the disk temporarily disables the functions that allow you to fast forward and go to the next track. The DRM on the disk also prevents you from copying its contents and from playing disks bought in one part of the world from working inside the UK. You can find a map of these ‘region codes’ on Wikipedia.

The DRM on DVDs was introduced as a reaction to the threat of piracy. Older, analogue technologies – such as audio and videotape can be easily copied, but the process is slow and the number of copies that can be created is very small. Crucially, as tape is repeatedly duplicated, the quality of the copies decreases – effectively limiting the number of pirated copies that could be circulated. However, when information is stored in digital form – such as on a DVD – it can be perfectly replicated an infinite number of times. These perfect copies can then either be written on to a blank disk, or distributed across the World over the Internet.

DVD’s DRM is a fairly elderly technology known as the Content Scrambling System (CSS). It was broken long ago and pirated versions of DVDs, stripped of all their DRM (often without the infuriating anti-piracy adverts found on genuine disks), can be found in most towns and cities and circulating on the Internet. When movie studios began to plan the move to high definition disks, they chose more powerful forms of DRM. Blu-ray’s protection is called BD+ and is generally thought to be superior to the AACS system found on HD-DVD as it allows manufacturers to continually upgrade their DRM against attacks. Unlike HD-DVD, Blu-ray also uses region coding to stop users playing and importing disks from other parts of the world. It is widely believed that the movie studios put their weight behind Blu-ray because of its stronger DRM, both because it offered better protection from piracy, and because it served to block the traffic in cheap disks from places such as the United States and Hong Kong.

DRM is not only found on DVDs, it is used by games companies to protect their products, in satellite and cable set-top boxes, on most music bought from online stores, even in the expensive HDMI cables needed to connect to high-definition television sets. Although there are a huge number of DRM technologies being used by various companies, most of them share a common technological root known as encryption; a field of mathematics concerned with scrambling information to shield it from prying eyes. Crucially, encryption is always reversible – that is the scrambled material can be restored to its original state by performing a decryption. Media documents controlled by DRM are distributed in an encrypted form and can only be decrypted by a user if they own both a decryption program and a second piece of information known as the key. The decryption is performed by dedicated microprocessors in the player using decryption keys stored in the player’s memory. If you use a software application such as Apple’s iTunes to play media files, your computer’s processor performs the decryption and the keys are stored in hidden files on your computer’s hard disk.

Some DRM schemes such as Apple’s FairPlay and Microsoft’s PlaysForSure tie media files to particular authorised computers. When you authorise a computer, the player software extracts information from that machine which might include information including your name, your registered email address, the unique serial number of machine’s CPU, the serial number of the operating system and so on. This information is used to generate the key needed to decrypt the media file. For both FairPlay and PlaysForSure users are restricted to playing a file on no more than five computers; if you try to play a file on an unauthorised computer or to authorise a sixth computer you will be unable to do so.

In Microsoft’s PlaysForSure scheme, machines need to be reauthorized when users upgrade from one version of Windows to another. Information about the machine is gathered, sent across the Internet to the PlaysForSure servers and a new key issued. And this process is now causing a problem because Microsoft is abandoning PlaysForSure in favour of its own Zune music player.

PlaysForSure was an attempt by Microsoft to eat into Apple’s dominance of the music player market. Rather than build a single device to compete against the iPod, Microsoft produced the PlaysForSure standard. Any manufacturer could then build devices PlaysForSure compliant devices with Microsoft collecting a small fee for each machine sold. Music, wrapped in DRM, could then be bought from a number of online stores that supplied music in Microsoft’s Windows Media Format. The idea was that competition between manufactures would quickly drive the price of their players below that of the iPod and users would gradually switch to the more affordable product, allowing Microsoft to steal Apple’s crown.

For any number of reasons, PlaysForSure was a failure and have Microsoft switched to copying Apple’s business model. They designed their own music player, the Zune (so far only available in America) that plays music bought through the dedicated Zune Marketplace online store. Rather than have Zune compete against iPod and PlaysForSure, Microsoft has chosen to kill PlaysForSure by simply switching off the authorisation servers. As soon as the servers are switched off it will no longer be possible to get new PlaysForSure keys from Microsoft. Anyone buying a new machine or upgrading their version of Windows after that date will find they can’t play music purchased from Microsoft’s old MSN Music store. Microsoft originally intended to switch the servers off on August 31st 2008, but after a furious customer reaction, have since extended the scheme, now excitingly branded 'Certified for Windows Vista', until 2011. Hot on Microsoft’s heels, the troubled Yahoo! corporation announced that it would be shutting down the DRM servers that authenticated its Unlimited Music Store from September 2008. This time, following angry complaints from customers, Yahoo! agreed to refund the purchase cost of any music bought through Unlimited.

DRM is turning into a public-relations disaster for media companies. Customers are increasingly chaffing against the artificial restraints placed on their use of products, and more and more of them are realising that DRM only affects law-abiding customers. Pay for a DVD or Blu-ray and you can’t make a copy for your laptop or your iPod, you’re forced to sit through adverts, you can’t even buy a cheaper version of the disk from another country. Pirate copies of TV programmes, music, movies and video games are available on the Internet; they look identical but have none of the restrictions. Piracy exists because it serves consumers’ desires and until the movie studios make their official disks every bit as attractive as the illegal copies, piracy will continue to thrive.

But it is possible that DRM is nothing more than a passing phase in the media industry. Amazon in the US and iTunes now allow people to purchase MP3 versions of music which can be freely copied between devices. As a testament to its popularity, it took just a few months for Amazon to become the second-largest retailer of music in the United States after the iTunes Music Store and it is growing at a much faster rate than the Apple Store. Despite fears from the industry, there has been no explosion in piracy; just many more satisfied customers and an expanding marketplace. Perhaps it’s time for Hollywood to wake up and begin treating the people who pay its wages like responsible adults.

About the author

Mike Richards joined the Open University in 1996 to help trial teaching over the Internet. Since then he has taught courses ranging from an introduction to robots to the engineering works of Leonardo da Vinci; but has spent most of his time writing about security - everything from the Enigma machines to e-shopping. He is currently working on a new course exploring the world of ubiquitous computers; imagine a world where computers so small and cheap they can be put in everyday objects - smartphones today, smartclothes tomorrow.

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So why do people go to festivals? That was one of the questions I had in mind when I was planning my research on festival audiences. Rather than just the muddy field variety, however, I decided to look at a range of festivals and my choices included a plush opera festival, a town-based folk festival and an indie-pop festival on the edge of a city.

Interviews with a selection of the punters from each festival revealed some interesting insights. First, I wanted to find out how people had acquired a taste for a particular type of music – a musical ‘habitus’ in French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s terminology – so I asked people about their life landscapes, to build up background about them. Bourdieu’s ‘cultural capital’ theories suggest, for example, that early family life and school experiences could have helped to sow the seeds of musical taste.

Festival goers at Glastonbury.
[image © copyright BBC]

I did find that, for some, a certain style of music had always been part of their lives: one folk festival interviewee told me, "I’ve been going to folk festivals since before I was born." She still loved to go to several a year, 25 years on, sometimes still sharing the experience with her Mum.

In contrast to this comment, though, one opera festival visitor claimed: "My parents weren’t interested in the kind of music I’m interested in." For him, it was really at school that his interest in classical music germinated. He particularly remembered one teacher lending him a recording of the opera, Peter Grimes, to listen to, which was his early introduction to opera. Another opera festival visitor had clear memories of a teacher playing the piano as they went into assembly: "I now know that all those tunes she played were Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert."

School was not always a positive force for the development of musical taste, however, with one folk festival interviewee lamenting that "singing was not a terribly happy event for me at school," after a teacher had made fun of his performance. He is now an accomplished folk singer despite this discouragement, though! So perhaps early musical experiences had sown the seeds of musical taste for some of the festival visitors as Bourdieu suggests.

"many impulses, some conscious, some perhaps unconscious, inspire punters to go and stand in that muddy field and listen to music at a festival"

I then moved on to ask the festival interviewees about their later musical encounters. What did stand out was the importance of the late teenage years in musical taste development. Landmark events at the age of 19 were described by two people, for example. One opera festival interviewee spoke of his National Service posting in Vienna, which provided the opportunity to make use of regular free tickets to opera performances. This person had just enjoyed his 525^th individual opera – which doesn’t include the many alternative versions of the same opera he had seen – over 50 years later, at the festival I was studying.  Also at the age of 19, a move to university had opened the eyes of one indie-pop festival interviewee’s eyes to punk rock. Nearly 30 years later he was still reading the NME every week and had just been to Glastonbury again, as well as to the festival at which I met him.

Even in their 50s, the tastes of some of the interviewees continued to develop. An Open University music course had provided the inspiration for one opera festival interviewee to attend her first opera 10 years before, at the age of 55, and she had been going to opera ever since. This was the same lady whose teacher’s piano playing had encouraged an early and continuing love of classical music, so perhaps it was those early seeds that were being further nurtured and diversified.

It wasn’t just people’s life landscapes that seemed to be providing motivations for attending festivals though, and the chance to bond with friends – or to build ‘social capital’, as Bourdieu’s terms it – was another big pull, as was the chance for some to boast about the festival to others afterwards. It wasn’t just tales about seeing the ‘big names’ that these punters were keen to impress others with, though. What was perhaps more important to many of them was to see something fresh and new. The opera festival goers wanted to be able to add another different opera to their compendium, the indie-pop fans wanted to be the first to see the next big star, and the folkies were keen to discover that previously unknown acoustic singer-songwriter playing in a corner of a field to an ever-expanding impromptu audience.

So it seems that many impulses, some conscious, some perhaps unconscious, inspire punters to go and stand in that muddy field and listen to music at a festival.

Further reading

Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste, Bourdieu, Pierre (1984 [1979]), Cambridge, Mas, Harvard University Press

'The forms of capital' in Biggart, N. W. (Ed.) Readings in economic sociology, Bourdieu, Pierre (2002 [1986]), Malen, Mass, Blackwell, (pp. 280-291)

Weblinks

• Join the discussion
• A survival guide to music festivals
• FolkArts England
• Arts Council: Arts debate
• British Arts Festivals Assocation
• eFestivals.co.uk

Courses

• An introduction to business studies
• Marketing and society
• Investigating entrepreneurial opportunities
• Managing customers and quality
• Music courses at the Open University

About the author

Linda Wilks is a PhD student at the Open University. Her research is investigating how social and cultural capitals shape attendance at music festivals.

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Bob Dylan’s The times they are a-changin'  may feel like an appropriate refrain for anyone observing or working in the music industry over the last decade. First it was the launch of online retailers selling CDs at reduced prices.

Then came the rapid growth in file sharing sites such as Napster, that allowed the copying and downloading of music onto PCs, often without royalties being paid. And just as the music industry has come to terms with new bands launching themselves on the internet without a record deal, the next big challenge seems to be bubbling under: mobile music.

What is mobile music? 

Although mobile music has been with us since the Walkman, the current use of the term is to describe the downloading and listening to music on mobile devices such as iPods and mobile phones. Whilst Apple’s iPod is currently the dominant device in the mobile music market – with their iTunes site selling 600 million downloads in 2005 – the iPod is expected by many to lose its dominance to mobile phones.

The power of the mobile phone in the music industry was demonstrated recently by Madonna. Some have put the success of her recent single Hung Up down to the fact that a ringtone was available one month before the record was released.

Mobile phone ownership is higher than that for most types of music players, so if the music industry can get mobile right, the returns could be significant. Indeed they may even be enough to reverse the downturn in music industry revenues witnessed in recent years.

Understanding adoption

However, to ensure they are not left behind by the growth in mobile music, the music industry must be sure that they have a clear understanding about what consumers want on their phones and how they want it served up. To help them with this understanding they should consider how new products and services are adopted by consumers.

The definitive work in this area undertaken by Everett Rogers more than forty years ago is still relevant today. Rogers identified five factors that influence both the level and rate of adoption of innovations. Understanding these factors, how they interact, and how to influence them, will help the music industry find its place in the mobile music future.

The five generic factors identified by Rogers are:

1. Relative advantage – how much the new idea or service is perceived to be better than existing alternatives.
2. Compatibility – how the new idea fits with the way users currently do things. This not only includes compatibility with existing hardware or networks, but also how users live or work.
3. Complexity – how difficult the new product or service is to use or understand.
4. Trialability – the ability to test the idea out on a limited basis.
5. Observability – how visible adoption or use of the new idea is to others.

Increasing or improving any of these aspects of a new product or idea – except for complexity which obviously needs to be reduced – will increase both the level and rate of adoption.

Mobile music adoption

So, what does this mean for the adoption of mobile music? Relative advantage rests on the ability to be able to access and to listen to music whilst on the go. In contrast to music downloads or CDs, there is no need to pre-download music or take a selection of CDs out with you.

"A great opportunity for the music industry"

You can access and buy music whilst out and about, allowing you to match listening to your changing moods and keep up to date with new releases. Such instant gratification is seen as a big attraction for many users and a great opportunity for the music industry.

With the ability to access one track at a time, and on a mobile handset that you are already used to carrying around, the trialability of mobile music is excellent. Provided interfaces can be kept simple and appropriate for small screens, then the complexity can also be addressed.

The power of observability to drive adoption was demonstrated powerfully by the iPod. Being seen with characteristic white ear pieces became a very visible sign of using an iPod. After a number of celebrities were seen with them, they became the thing to be seen with – a fact that was leveraged in the iPod ad campaigns.

"Compatibility may prove to be the Achilles heel"

But it is compatibility that may prove to be the Achilles heel. Users are increasingly using the mobile phones for various activities – which will help the transition to them being thought of as a music player. However, with regard to systems and formats, there are a number of proprietary approaches that prevent sharing music between devices and networks.

For example, iTunes will only download to iPods and not to the majority of mobile phones. Observers of the industry are keen to remind those trying to protect their own systems that, as the growth of the internet has shown, open standards can grow usage and demand to a greater extent than competing standards.

If the music industry do not take the opportunity to understand and shape this next wave of change, then Dylan may have got it right..."You better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changin'".

Further reading

• 'The Impact of Electronic Commerce on Market Structure: An Evaluation of the Electronic Market Hypothesis' by E M Daniel and G M Klimis in European Management Journal (Vol 17, No 3, p.318-325)
• Radical innovation – sometimes a new idea changes the landscape, and even well-established companies struggle to cope
• Managing innovation – creativity can make or break an organization – how do companies get the creative juices flowing?

About the author

Elizabeth Daniel is Professor of Information Management at the Open University Business School where she undertakes research and teaching in the fields of e-business and information systems. Elizabeth also undertakes consultancy work for a number of blue chip and leading public sector organisations.

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