Sony, how I love you, how I love you

IT WAS A GOOD DAY, I had saved up three INQ paychecks, and along with the quarter I found on the way, could afford to supersize my McDonalds value meal. Oh bliss. While I was licking the salt off the fries, wondering whether it would be a fatal mistake to eat the gray meatlike 'burger', I noticed something truly frightening, an ad for Sony's music service.

For those of you that don't know what is going on, Sony launched its net music sales service a while back, and it is called Connect. McDonalds is giving away a lot of songs, buy a Big Mac extra value meal, and you get a song for free. I would say valuable song, but the fact that you get two of them for free upon signing up puts that in perspective.

Then it hit me, this is the single worst thing that can happen to buying music on the net, or the single best thing to happen to freedom in a long time. What do I mean? Sony is about to piss off hundreds of thousands of consumers, whitebread, Joe six-pack, average consumers who make up the majority of their customers. You know, the ones that don't know better.

Lets look at a few choice quotes from the Connect FAQ here, before we go much further. Let's start out with the innocuous sounding ones.

Q What is the Connect music store?
A Connect is Sony's online music store found within the SonicStage jukebox application. You can easily download your favorite songs from the Sony Connect library. Once you have downloaded them onto your PC, transfer your just-purchased tracks to your favorite Sony media device, such as a Network™ Walkman®, CD Walkman®, Hi-MD™, Clie™ handheld or Vaio® computer.

And then move on to the slightly more sinister.

Q Can I use an old version of the Sony Net MD™ player?
A You can transfer tracks from Connect to any Sony Net MD™ device as long as it is ATRAC compatible.

Lastly, we have compatibility. Compatible mostly in the Henry Ford 'any colour you want as long as it is black' sort of way.

Q Is the Connect music store compatible with Mac®?
A Currently, only PCs are supported by the Connect music store.

Q Does the Connect music store support browsers other then Internet Explorer?
A Currently the Connect music store only supports Internet Explorer versions 5.5 and newer.

Ok, let's put the pieces together. You can use your freely gifted music, and any others you purchase on a modern PC, but not a Mac or Linux. You have to get the music with the latest version or the one immediately before it of IE. It seems Sony doesn't believe the Department of Homeland Security, I think I will call this thought crime.

If you want to play the music back, you can do it anywhere you want, as long as it is on your PC. You can also transfer it to any device you want, as long as it is a Sony device. Nope, iPod users can suck wind here. Last time I was in Best Buy, there were tons of iPods, lots of iRiver players, a bunch or Rio ones, and a few others from Nike to RCA. I didn't see a Sony one there, and for the life of me, I can't recall what one looks like, they are that popular. Sony is effectively ignoring about 99% of the mobile MP3 player market here.

Assuming you are one of the lucky seven people in the US who has a Sony MP3 player, a PC with all the right specs, and dares to eat at McDonalds. You still can only listen to your music through the Sony music software. Like Winamp, Realplayer, or even MS media player? Tough luck, next!

I won't get into the whole DRM infecting your machine bit, that has been done to death. Even without that sordid process, you can see that a lot of people are going to hop on Connect, get their free song, and the 2 free ones you get for signing up, and it wouldn't be much of a stretch to think they might spend $5 on a few more. New, shiny, and only $5 or so, throw away cash.

They they plug in their iPod. Nope doesn't work.

Frustrated, they call Sony, or write an angry e-mail. The probably polite Sony phone center rep tells the person that they should buy a Sony MP3 player, and the restrictions are right there on page 32 of the fine print. In polite kiss up speech, the nice McDonalds customer is told to get bent.

What are the odds that that person will ever buy music online again? Something around the odds of getting hit by lightning while being trampled by a herd of rabid zebra above the arctic circle on Christmas. How many of these are going to be generated by this campaign? Hundreds of thousands if not millions, McDs sells a lot of ground cow unmentionables.

If only half of these people use the 'free' music they get, that is a lot of ill will generated. Overnet couldn't get a better ad campaign. There is an old maxim in sales that says roughly a dissatisfied customer will tell 10 people about the problem. A satisfied one will tell three. Even if the number are off, this campaign could be music on the net's apocalypse.

The problem is not Sony's stupid arrogance in rejecting a real format in favor of an in house one. The problem is not even specific to Sony, most other music sources would have similar problems, although almost all other use industry standard DRM infected formats. No, the problem is walled gardens.

The music industry is circling the wagons. They have their own corner of the market, and are protecting it fiercely. Each time they do something stupid, and at this point it seems to be a gamesmanship contest to see who can do worst, they piss off more people. The more people they piss off, the more people go back to exercising their fair use rights. This is bad for the industry, but good for everyone else.

The simple fact is that walled gardens do not work. The internet is about free communication. Everyone who has tried to do anything else has failed, badly and spectacularly. Look at AOL, a shining example of an internet walled garden. Their subscriber numbers are taking a nosedive faster than you can say 'You've got something close to e-mail'. The premium content there is so tempting that I can't tell you anything about it. MSN also is in this boat, simply put no one cares what is inside the gardens. 99% of the content can be gotten outside the walls anyway.

Music companies are busy building higher and higher walls, and the company execs are sitting inside rubbing their hands together waiting for the money to flow in. The evil elves at the RIAA are getting VERY rich from it, as is Apple. Actually Apple is getting rich from making the best hardware out there, from all accounts, the music sales are at best a break-even arrangement.

So, what do we have? An industry in which the shining example is a break even venture, everyone else is nowhere near that profitable. They are all trying to pull in and lock down clients left and right, using tactics that would make the most hardened of MS's competition team sit up and take notice. In the process they are turning people who are willing to spend money off with stunning speed.

Ask anyone out there which they find better, Connect, iTunes, Overnet or Kazaa. How many do you think will come down for either of the first two? The industry reaction to this potentially genre-sinking state of affairs? Turn the screws harder and charge more. Good choices. Unlike MS of a few years ago, there IS a credible alternative, and it is better in every respect.

The problems go much further than Connect, or even the music industry. When you get burned by the purchase of a song or 10, how willing will you be to purchase a movie from the net? How about a new digital HDTV with 'content protection', or maybe a DVR? Fool me once.....

I see an impending consumer revolt. The content industry is not going to budge, they have a lamprey like lock on the ass of the people doing the work, and they won't let go. Ride the horse until it drops, and sit there holding press conferences, suing 12 year olds, and passing laws eroding our rights until the horse is long decomposed. Then whine to the government again to get money by some other means, after all, they used to get money, and they are entitled to do so again.

I think people will rise up with startling speed once they get burned. When someone asks me about what to to when they get burned by DRM, I educate them about the topic. When the light bulb goes on, I point them to any of the P2P networks. I have not seen one unhappy customer there. I have also not seen one happy customer from the pay music D/L services.

Of these, which do you think will become more prevalent? How many of the 'turned off' crowd can be won back? Which segment will grow faster, Kazaa users or Connect users? The walled gardens, manned by soldiers dreaming of dollars, armed with DRM will lose. They always do, but this time, they are accelerating the pace on their own. McDonalds, I'm Loving It (TM). µ