Psonar Blog

Ask anyone about the first single they bought and they’ll be able to tell you all about it (even if they won’t be prepared to admit to the lapse in musical taste the purchase demonstrates). For most people, owning a piece of music for the first time feels good: pride at supporting the band you love, a sense of belonging to a group of fans and the ability to enjoy the music whenever you want.

The way we interact with music is changing as more and more music is delivered over the internet, and some people believe that the concept of ownership is going to disappear completely. After all, what is the difference between owning music and renting the right to listen to it wherever and whenever you want?

How might a future without music ownership work? Artists will still need to be compensated for their work, but they can’t get paid when you make a purchase. Instead, the artist will have to be paid each time you listen to a song.

But having to count the number of listens makes things difficult: Lots of listens happen on a simple portable device that doesn’t have an internet connection and can’t report back to the copyright owner. Even on an internet-connected PC there’s nothing to stop people from using a music player that report their listening, to avoid paying money.

One solution that’s getting a lot of attention at the moment is streaming: instead of keeping a copy of the track on your player, the file is downloaded from the internet while you listen to it, then thrown away afterwards. This makes sure that the server knows you’ve listened to it, and the artist can be paid for this, but this doesn’t really solve the problem. Science fiction author and blogger Cory Doctorow describes it well:

[The technologically naive] assume that because a downloading client can be designed in such a way that it doesn’t save the file, no “copy” is being made. They assume that this is the technical equivalent of “showing” someone a movie instead of “giving them a copy” of it.

But the reason some download clients discards the bits is because the programmer chose not to save them. Designing a competing client that doesn’t throw away the bits – one that “makes a copy” – is trivial.

The problems with streaming aren’t just theoretical. If you play the same track several times, and your computer downloads and discards it each time, this is wasteful. On a portable device, where the internet connection is slow and unreliable and downloading cuts into your battery life, this can leave you unable to play your music at the most inconvenient times.

Most providers of streaming music accept this, and allow music to be stored on the device temporarily to avoid downloading it multiple times. Of course, this is only possible if they are very careful to prevent you listening to the music without their permission, otherwise you could listen without paying for it. This means they have to be very restrictive: you only play the music in their application, and on one of their approved players. If you decide to get a new player, you have to choose one from a restricted list or you won’t be able to use it with your music.

We at Psonar believe that getting rid of ownership is solving the wrong problem. The Psonar cloud eliminates the inconvenience of moving your music around, but you still own it all. And we hope people will enjoy the experience of buying their first single for many generations to come.