Streamripping?

I've never even heard this term before. Streamripping. I guess it means digitally recording an mp3 stream (ie internet radio) to build up a music library. I am sure it's technically possible, but I've never heard of anyone doing it. I know lots of people who acquire music via torrents, p2p networks, iPod sharing, pando, pownce, IM etc. But not one single person who has ever engaged in "streamripping".

And yet apparently SoundExchange is willing to make a deal with internet radio broadcasters to alter the proposed new net radio royalties if they will use some sort of protection scheme to stop "streamripping".

This irritates me on many levels. First, this is an example of lawyers run amok. I know that lawyers are supposed to worry about "what if" situations, but there are so many better ways to steal music than streamripping that I just don't see this as a major threat.

But my bigger problem with this is that internet radio is the future of radio. Because we are beginning to see the emergence new connected devices, from smartphones, iPhones, Sonos, Squeezebox, and soon products from Cisco and others that will replace the CD player in our home music system and the iPod in our car. These devices play internet radio and subscription services like Rhapsody, Napster, etc.

They pull the stream over the wired or wireless Internet and play it directly on the device. They key to all of this is that the streams are easily brought onto these devices. When you buy one of these devices, you want to know that it will play whatever stream you want.

This is a huge opportunity for the music industry and this was what I thought the SoundExchange fight was all about, getting as big a piece of this emerging new revenue stream for the rights holders. And at some level, I am OK with the give and take of that negotiation.

But the introduction of DRM into the mix is frightening. This is shooting yourself in the foot after you've already done it to yourself once. The introduction of DRM into the file based digital music business effectively gave Apple a monopoly over that business.

The music industry needs to learn from that lesson. The next big thing is music streamed to your living room, your cell phone, and your car directly from the Internet. There is a huge amount of revenue in that business for the rights holders. But if the streams are "protected" in some way, we will never get the innovation and choice in devices that will make the streaming music market the most vibrant.

This is a faustian bargain that radio broadcasters of all shapes and sizes must resist. Because the music industry still doesn't get the fact that open is good and closed is bad.

Comments

[Mike Orren]

Man, that takes me back. I can't remember the name of it, but back in the late nineties I had a PC program that recorded from streams just so I could record streaming concerts off of Broadcast.com and record them to Minidiscs. I even had a copy of an Old 97's show from Dallas where they did 5-6 Buck Owens covers. Sadly lost to the ages...

[Raj]

I use an application called Total Recorder to rip streams of any audio content that otheriwse is difficult. Real Media streams from KCRW are difficult to find since they don't archive everything. You can schedule the rip, edit the audio, etc.

[Eric]

The software, streamripper, is easily downloadable from a Linux computer. It works perfectly well and can also work with a good gui called stationripper.

Even, if several webradios, are splitting audio files, streamripper doesn't care about it.

[rick]

Yeah, there are a few software programs out there that make it pretty easy to 'rip' audio or video via a stream.

It's kinda like recording radio onto a cassette back in the 80s, except you can now cue up what's going to play instead of having to wait hours for that one Springsteen song.

[jeremy]

>>Because the music industry still doesn't get the fact that open is good and closed is bad.

i have some good friends from home that are very talented musicians. they understand that open is good. its just a matter of doing something about it before the labels get to them. that is where the opportunity is.

[David Blankley]

To play Devil's Advocate:

Start looking at this stuff from the perspective of the content owner or an investor!!

Would you invest in a record label that wanted to pursue new avenues with uncertain/non-existent revenue for licensing the content?

If you manage the content what are your contractual responsibilities to the end producer(ie the band)? Do you have an obligation to pursue legal actions?

From the perspective of the content owners these people are thieves (or the more polite term black hats). Note:I'm not talking about content owners that chose to make their work available; that's a different topic.

On the outside looking in, it is easy to fawn over the morally ambiguous UTube and poo poo the content owners.

You want tomorrow today (don't we all). The old line investors get there when it matters (witness iTunes), till then the early adopters just have to put up with (but don't they always).

[Steven Livingstone]

We're doing something in the mobile music space. One of the tricks is that you get the 1% technical folks who will do this stuff. Then you get the majority, who even if they knew how (like myself) couldn't be bothered with all the hassle (like myself). Streaming direct will work for everyone.

Expanding on your Tim O'Reilly's post on VC as a service, i'd like to see iTunes or Rhapsody open up their music API and allow 30 second streams of music - kind like what you get on Amazon for some select tracks.

Any pointers on this?

[Geoff]

I use the streamripper for winamp plugin. It's useful if you are listening to a stream and want to remember a particular track. I can start a rip and save it to a "new music" directory. Streamripper then creates a new file with song title etc. Much easier than writing it down. Also useful if you want to record a live set.

[David Blankley]

Seth Godin put an interesting follow-up to this on his blog...

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/07/lb-strauss-the-.html

[MrBradshaw]

Well said, Fred.

As a veteran of both the radio industry and record industry I am appalled at some of the insane things that's been happening 'on behalf' of the industry lately.

As soon as I saw the proposal I had exactly the same reaction you did. Not only is DRM bad for the reasons you mentioned, they have to realize that you cannot protect a stream. If it can be heard it can be recorded.

For them to even mention it means they are behind the times. And if that's the case there's a much bigger issue to address with the industry.

[Geoffrey]

There's no way to avoid streamripping. Most programs dont actually rip the digital stream, but rather they record the audio feed of of the computer through the soundcard. If you can listen to it, you can rip it. But you're right, streaming is not going to be cutting into the record label's revenue very much, they have much bigger fish to fry.

[Nathaniel]

Really, what a waste of time. The 1% of consumers who would bother to record streaming audio will not be thwarted by DRM. Why do they insist on spending millions to develop and implement a technology that will be useless in application. It is just another distraction as the music industry fails to adopt.

[JB]

Streamripping is one of the ways to get around DRM.

Basically, the streamripper program would record all tracks as MP3 and when the ID3 tag changed (title, artist, etc) it would create a new file (naming the file with the correct artist and song title).

Like Geoff, I used the Streamripper plugin for WinAmp and ripped songs from Shoutcast stations.

Just start up Streamripper, start streaming a station and at the end of the day you may have over 100 songs. Some songs may contain DJ chatter or song overlap but a good bunch will be just fine.

One problem though, some internet radio stations play the same catalog of songs in a loop. So after about 50-60 songs, you get the same ones again (at least with Shoutcast stations).

But rather than going into Limewire or some other program, just pull up a streaming station of your favorite music genre and you can gather a catalog of good songs pretty quickly with minimal effort.

I've used Total Recorder also, but I don't think it catalogs the songs by Artist and Song Title like Streamripper would do.

[Jonathan Peterson]

Many web audio vendors already do a lot to prevent stream ripping. RadioFG in france stopped sending song info and changing the ID3 info on each song. Pandora has jumped through a TON of hoops to stop stream ripping using something called pandora's box.

Except for events broadcasts and DJ sets, I don't really find it useful, but it simply isn't a technically solvable problem. It's the analog hole of streaming audio. The worse case is that you'll have to put in a second sound card and re-encode on the fly.

The only question is since stream ripping IS NOT solvable, why is Sound Exchange trying to solve it? Because they are idiots? Or because they want to add more financial burden to internet radio?

[Ethan Bauley]

You're definitely onto something with your comment to Lefsetz (re: "ownership doesn't matter), etc...

Q: Does the 700mhz spectrum have anything to do with these new devices?

TargetSpot still wins, no matter how stupid this innovation-stunting DRM plays out ;-)

[Jay Parkhill]

It is a tricky issue. Consumers hate DRM and the industry hates unrestricted content.

Here's a company that makes a pretty simple anti-streamrip solution: http://www.mediarightstech.com/

[Chris]

My hunch is that SoundExchange's "streamripping royalty inhibitor" is in response to RealPlayer 11's release that includes this feature, launched this month.

A much better approach would have been a "dual license" granted by SoundExchange, whereby those with a reduced-rate license to stream would also enjoy a reduced-rate license to deliver full-track via streamripping, if that's the choice-of-acquisition for the consumer.

It's not unlike the so-called "dual download" license that mobile carriers secure from labels, where tracks are purchased once and available on-handset and on-PC. That makes more sense, were it not for the fact that dual download tracks cost about $2.50 each -- classic.

[daryn]

I "streamrip" on occasion, but not with the intent of building a music library. That'd be akin to using a 1x cd burner.

Usually, i find myself recording live streams (whether a concert or an investor call) simply so i can listen later, pause, fast forward, etc..

By the way, a great streamripping program for OS X is "Wiretap Pro" by Ambrosia Software.

[TradePub.com]

This is quite popular I suspect. So long as PC's have a sound card with the ability to capture the data going through the card, the audio can be captured and recorded quite easily.

[Howard Rauscher]

I think most people are too lazy to do that anyway. I agree with daryn that it would be like burning a cd a 1x. For most people it would be easier to just fire up limewire or even legally purchase the song on iTunes.

It's kind of like people that say you can remove DRM from purchased music on iTunes by burning it to a cd and then ripping it back to a computer. To much effort.

[Robert Seidman]

"streamripping" is perhaps ultimately a bigger deal for video than audio, but this would require success of shutting down all the torrent sites where it's fairly easy to download video content via P2P.

I think it's still going to be a while before the content providers realize "we have to make everything available digitally because that's the way people want it." I think that's because it's still going to be a while before that's true. But it's when, not if.

It seems like ultimately all content providers will be forced into easy to download content (for a fee), but I wouldn't bet "ultimately" happens any time soon.

I wouldn't bet on "streamripping" technology for anything either unless the content providers have some success at shutting down all the download/streaming sites currently available and streaming becomes the only way to receive the content. In the unlikely event that happens, streamripping will be hot.

[swl]

A fair number of people do streamrip. Why? Let's say you like Fred's taste in music, you can run his last.fm station for 2 straight weeks and grab every single track that it plays...which makes it a great way to access targeted music or content. I even had a friend who did streamripped NPR which didn't use to offer podcasts only streaming of This American Life.

[jackson]

Once again I'm appaled at your entitled attitude toward rights protection - where do you get off assuming this posture? Open is good closed is bad - says who? You do, because you feel you are entitled to whatever has become technologically possible no matter who get's hurt.

Please don't stream music into my living room, or anywhere else I am, thank you. I like to listen to music in situations where it sounds good.

[Brian Zisk]

It's actually much worse than this.

Streamripping is the technology symptom which the copyright aggregators are trying to cure.

SoundExchange believes that in order to prevent streamripping, that Internet radio must be streamed in a protectable format. This is pure sophistry, as you can copy any music which you can hear. But if this restriction is passed into law (possibly as the codification of a private agreement between SoundExchange and DiMA), SoundExchange would then have the right to declare invalid the licenses of any of the Internet radio Stations which stream in unprotected formats, such as MP3 or Vorbis, largely leaving only folks streaming in Real Audio, Windows Media, or that format from MRT.

This is a totally innapropriate demand.

[captain flummox]

I'm with David. With a portable audio recorder like the ones from Edirol, M-audio, and others I'm sure, recording audio from your computer is pretty simple. Streamripper might be even simpler for all I know, but putting DRM on streams seems like a waste of time to me. If a file stays unconverted in the digital domain, maybe it's theoretically possible. But there must always be ways to record actual audio or video or the format can't survive.