LWN: Comments on "The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit"

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

AndreE — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:35:48 +0000

being sued isn't the legal reality. The legal reality is what law dictates.

You may not get picked up or even ticketed for speeding, but the legal reality is that speeding is an offence.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

kragil — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:38:14 +0000

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-client/+question/...

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

kragil — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:34:42 +0000

I don't really know anything about the business side of things, but I do know that they don't save the same file again for every user. I read that in some bug report or answer on Launchpad. Can't find it atm, sorry.
AFAIK most online storage solutions don't store the same file for every user. Even Wuala.com who offer encrypted storage make sure that the same file gets encrypted the same way to safe storage (they use their crypttree stuff to make access secure .. papers on their website if you want to know more, don't ask me)

Besides saving the Canonical/the provider tons of storage hashing files can be very convenient for users, because uploading popular files is often not necessary, only hashing is.

And they can still charge every user for each file. Hashing etc. does not prevent that at all.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

jspaleta — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:27:26 +0000

I'm not sure Canonical is "storing" songs in U1 in the way you are suggesting, with only one copy for many individuals to save space. So far I've seen no discussion that U1 works like that. That would be very interesting to know.

In fact I would assume that the business plan here is to have song purchases consume as much space as possible and count it against each user individually. in order to entice people to pay the U1 subscription fee for additional storage beyond the free 2 Gig. I think Canonical is banking on recouping costs via the U1 subscription fee for moving beyond the free account storage limits.

But Canonical doesn't like talking about how it actually makes/loses money...so its just a valid to speculate about per-song revenue as it is to speculate about subscription fees. 7digital's public per song revenue affiliates program is only for driving traffic back to the 7digital webstore using the public API. This public affiliate program is probably how Songbird developers get their 7digital kickback...but storefronts like U1MS which make use of the 7digital business API can't participate from my reading. I'd welcome some clarity on that point. Knowing that Canonical was getting a cut of song revenue could make a difference on how people choose to buy music. If you knew you had a choice of purchasing music via mechanism that gave money back to open source developers versus one that did not..would you choose the mechanism with the kickback to developers?

Whatever arrangement Canonical has with 7digital to make use of the business API is private. But from the 7digital literature it sure seems more likely that Canonical has paid 7digital to get access to the business API.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

kragil — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:12:07 +0000

Very interesting thoughts, Jef.
I just assumed that Canonical will get a cent form each song, but that
might not be the case (although I think 1 cent would still be resonable ..
they had to develop the shop and support it.)

But the U1 angle is interesting, because having your music online may lure
a lot of people to sign up for U1. Storing 7digital songs in U1 is great
business, because they have to store each song only once (+backups) in
their infrastructure so with a few terabytes of music on EC2 they could
provide U1 songs for millions of Ubuntu users, as long as the songs are
from the same source. So hosting synced songs from one source is a very
high margin business. (Otherwise you have to have song fingerprinting etc
to keep your storage requirements low .. that probably the reason Apple
bought Lala.com)

As for U1 in general and the store in peticular I think most of Canonicals
products are very rough around the edges for the first few releases (U1 in
karmic totally sucks compared to dropbox, but they will get there)

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

jspaleta — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:27:46 +0000

Yes... as implemented..U1 is required. And the syncing feature is great convenience service for those who want it. But its not strictly necessary for purchasing or listening to music. The bundling of U1 into the purchasing processes is a deliberate implementation choice that ties the act of purchasing music to holding a U1 account instead of allowing direct to device downloads. 7digital's own documentation concerning the Business API specifically says that direct downloads are allowed. The pre-existing 7digital Blackberry app is a concrete example of that. Canonical could have chosen to build the rhythmbox plugin similar in design to the Blackberry 7digital app and have it download music directly to the device. Users could then choose to then sync that music back into U1 like any other data file.

Why is the music purchased from 7digital via a rhythmbox plugin more worthy of default syncing than music sitting in the standard XDG Music folder that rhythmbox and other applications looks in?

Is the default location where purchased music from U1MS appears on your system not made part of the XDG Music path so that other XDG aware music players can see the music purchases? Is the U1MS music synced to a hidden directory that will be difficult for novice users to find on their own without asking for help finding it?

Is it really in the best in the best interest of users to have music hidden in a difficult to find folder that only one application knows how to see by default?

-jef

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

juliank — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:55:12 +0000

> In reality the U1 requirement really is not strictly necessary

AFAIK, the music is synced via Ubuntu One to all your machines running the
Ubuntu One Client and available via one.ubuntu.com.

Canonical's defaults in Ubuntu, free software for profit

amit.kucheria — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:27:24 +0000

I have to admit my constant confusion between Chrome (the browser), Chromium and Chrome (the OS). I was implying the open source version.

Canonical's defaults in Ubuntu, free software for profit

rahulsundaram — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:54:16 +0000

You do release that Chrome is a proprietary browser? Chromium which is the
open source version has its own set of issues as well

http://spot.livejournal.com/312320.html

Canonical's defaults in Ubuntu, free software for profit

amit.kucheria — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:46:01 +0000

> What next, switching browser from firefox to chrome(ium) if Google offers > to pay more?

If you put aside the money argument for the moment, Chrome is proving to be a faster browser in everyday use and is being used by a lot of developers as it is. So it might make "out of box" user experience better.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

sorpigal — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:27:58 +0000

The difference between SuSE shipping a Magnatune plugin and SuSE shipping an Ubuntu One Music Store plugin is that Magnatune isn't a competitor.

The use of mp3 over ogg vorbis is disappointing, but nothing difficult to deal with. Stick the plugin in the non-free section (or whatever it's called in SuSE land).

Canonical's defaults in Ubuntu, free software for profit

jpnp — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:43:18 +0000

> All of these complaints seem to have a common undercurrent: "The default
> install doesn't operate exactly how I want it to."

I think it's a bit more than that. This is a series of changes that don't meet the values of members of the Ubuntu community, not a question of choosing a colour scheme which some people don't like (another, somewhat more facetious, criticism often leveled at Ubuntu).

> They want to offer the best user experience "out of the box" for the
> user.

It seems to me that some of these decisions are motivated by what generated most revenue for canonical, not what is the best experience for Ubuntu's users. How can switching from the most popular online search provider to a competitor who pays more be construed as improving end-user experience? What next, switching browser from firefox to chrome(ium) if Google offers to pay more? That it is a changeable default doesn't alter the fact that it was done for commercial not user experience reasons.

If these decisions are not made solely on technical merits how can they be justified? It worries me that an Ubuntu install is steadily becoming like a PC brought from many OEMs: full of extras and settings which bring revenue to the vendor and which need removing or reconfiguring. What galls me is canonical invoking the concept of ubuntu and pushing forward the idea of an Ubuntu community while making decisions for the good of canonical.

Just the view of one rather disillusioned Ubuntu user.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

rahulsundaram — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:50:01 +0000

The patent rights granted are very limited and it is still a issue for
anyone who is in a region that enforces software patents and cares about
software freedom

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

davide.del.vento — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:49:22 +0000

> Patents are a non-issue in this case. Fluendo provides a fully-licensed MP3 decoder as a GStreamer plugin for free. As they state on the web page, they have paid the license fees to the rights-holder be able to distribute this.

The fact that they've paid the license means that's legal, not that's right. IMHO patents are wrong and we should refrain to use any software that's patented (because patents limit our freedom on what we can do with that software).

*Especially* when we have good alternatives, as in the case of the MP3.

I can go even further and say that paying the patent-holder is "blessing" them and giving them more power, and thus it is double-wrong.

Now if you don't care, that's ok, but that's your personal choice, you cannot say that everybody should agree with you. You can choose to buy and use Microsoft Windows. Perfectly legal, but to me (and many other free software advocates) that's a wrong choice. Like several of the ones that Canonical is making.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

davide.del.vento — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:39:21 +0000

>> the straw that broke the camel's back.
> Exactly what back is being broken?
Mine (see below).

> They want to offer the best user experience "out of the box"

I have 10 Ubuntu installations (Hardy) at this time. I took the time to remove Mono from all of them, and that's was not fun, but was ok. If I'll have to do all the changes you mentioned, then my "out of the box" user experience will be bad. In fact, unless a major change will happen, I will not use Ubuntu anymore. Which is unfortunate, because I liked Ubuntu very much and because with me they are losing not only my 10 installation, but also the hundreds of "use Ubuntu!" recommendations which I gave to family, friends and mailing lists (and I know that a large percentage of them led to actual Ubuntu installations).

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

MattPerry — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:30:21 +0000

> It's not only being closed sourced,

It's not closed source. Here's the source code: https://code.launchpad.net/rhythmbox-ubuntuone-music-store

> there's also the patents issue.

Patents are a non-issue in this case. Fluendo provides a fully-licensed MP3 decoder as a GStreamer plugin for free. As they state on the web page, they have paid the license fees to the rights-holder be able to distribute this. So download and install it and you are fully legal. http://www.fluendo.com/shop/product/fluendo-mp3-decoder/

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

MattPerry — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:16:21 +0000

> But Canonical is making too many of these "choices" and each one of them
> can be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Exactly what back is being broken? All of these complaints seem to have a common undercurrent: "The default install doesn't operate exactly how I want it to." The complaints listed in blog post you link to are all default settings that are easily changed.

* Installing GIMP is just a few clicks away.
* The existence of the Ubuntu Music Store in no way prevents someone from using another music store.
* The default search engine can be changed with just a few clicks. If you are upgrading then you are still using whatever your existing settings dictate.
* If there are proprietary applications in the Ubuntu repositories, no one is forcing you to install them.
* If you don't like Mono, then uninstall it or use a derivative distro like Gobuntu or Kubuntu.
* If you don't like the new default theme, then it can be changed with a few clicks.

Canonical has been very clear and consistent about Ubuntu's goals. They want to offer the best user experience "out of the box" for the user. Providing a means for users to easily and legally purchase popular music furthers those goals and ultimately helps all Linux users. The objections to migrating to Linux are being toppled one by one.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

ballombe — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:24:33 +0000

The concept of "end user" is incompatible with free software. An "end user" is someone who will not be involved with distributing, selling, modifying, etc. the software further, but the whole point of free software is to allow and encourage users to do that.

So if only "end users" are safe, then the software cannot be free.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

nix — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:12:51 +0000

Users can get sued *anyway*, over any sort of invented rubbish a big
corporation wishes. Since the end result whether there's a law in place or
not is the same (the user runs out of money almost at once), I'm not sure
that end users are really affected (they go from screwed to screwed).

In the UK things might be different because we have legal aid, so there
isn't *quite* such a feeling that the law doesn't matter, all that matters
is which party can keep going the longest.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

gerv — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:16:59 +0000

the Firefox browser has been an reliable money-making tool for the Mozilla project, and Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit entity (though the Mozilla Foundation is not).

We prefer the phrase "tax-paying" :-) Seriously, MoCo exists because MoFo had to pay tax on some of its income, and non-profit organizations don't pay tax. MoCo is 100% owned by MoFo, and therefore shares MoFo's charitable purposes. Saying it's a "for-profit" entity suggests that there are individual shareholders or private owners receiving profits or dividends. And that's not the case. The company's profits (revenue minus expenditure) are used to further Mozilla's public benefit purpose.

Gerv

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

hppnq — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:51:56 +0000

I am pointing out the legal reality

Do you have any specific pointers to cases where end users were sued?

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

dlang — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:36:51 +0000

see the RIAA lawsuits as examples.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

rahulsundaram — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:59:03 +0000

I am pointing out the legal reality and if accepting that reality offends
you so much I can't do anything about that and the simple fact is that the
users CAN get sued even if it is improbable and it is all depends on the
cost of the lawsuit vs the expectation of revenue

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

Los__D — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:55:22 +0000

I agree to a point, but that is no excuse for FUDing about users getting sued.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

rahulsundaram — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:16:32 +0000

The real danger is the assumption that we don't need to care about patents
as end users because we wont get sued and that is very short sighted view
of how patents affect end users as well

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

Los__D — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:34:33 +0000

It is of course up to the single user to assert the risks, and make up their mind about what they would like to use.

The problem I had with this, was the pretending that this will is a real danger for end users.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

jspaleta — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:05:20 +0000

Does Canonical get a cut of the per song price? I haven't seen anything authoritative that talks about the financial relationship between 7digital and Canonical. Can anyone dig up a quote from a Canonical rep concerning per-song purchase profit sharing?

7digital's catalog is already priced pretty competitively with Amazon and Itunes, so I'm not sure how 7digital could easily give up revenue to Canonical and still stay competitive in the marketplace with other retailers.

Sure the rhythmbox store integration is going to change the dynamic to some extent..but the reality is you can use a web store for Amazon and 7digital right now and buy mp3s as long as you are in the countries they have rights agreements with.

I'd be really surprised if Canonical got any per-song revenue from this. I'd expect much more that Canonical is planning on using the store implementation to entice users to pay monthly subscriptions for enhanced U1 storage. This store does require a U1 account after all.

And that's the odd part...In reality the U1 requirement really is not strictly necessary. 7digital could have easily produced their own rhythmbox storefront sans any mandatory connection to U1 styled after the existing either the magnatune or jamendo plugins. And, a separate U1 sync plugin could have been written to work with all the music stores that rhythmbox knows how to interface with.. jamendo and magnatune included...and have more value overall to users. The bundling of 7digital's catalog with a mandatory U1 account only really makes sense if Canonical's financial motivation lies with those U1 accounts and not with the catalog.

But it would be nice if a Canonical rep went on record about the financial arrangement. Hell, I might even buy a song or two through the interface, instead of purchasing through 7digital's web store, if I was sure Canonical was getting a cut of the purchase by seeing a Canonical employee state flatly how much revenue per song they were generating.

-jef

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

rahulsundaram — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:56:08 +0000

Sure you might wave off the liability as meager and I would agree but you
have no right to assert that no end user will be sued and more importantly
end users do need to consider the impact of patents and promotion of patent
encumbered codecs regardless of whether they will be sued or not

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

Los__D — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:50:43 +0000

And there is a chance that an airplane might crash on my house while I'm in bed.

That doesn't make me sleep in the bomb shelter.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

rahulsundaram — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:20:54 +0000

If I get sued by a patent holder I cannot go to court and possibly say
"My Lord Los_D in LWN claimed I won't be sued if I infringe on this
patent and that's why I did it"

End users remain liable regardless of whatever you claim unless you get it
in writing from the patent holder

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

Los__D — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:16:32 +0000

I don't claim that only distributers are liable, I claim that no end user will be sued.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

rahulsundaram — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:59:52 +0000

End users might very well want to encode their content as MP3 as well so
let's not assume that only decoding is the end user problem and you might
want to refer to the actual dates for decoding related patents as well

Yes I am very well aware that MP3 itself is not patented but since you
need a decoder to do anything useful with it you are exposed to the
additional liability

You might call it BS but if you are using a patent encumbered technology
without any license you might very well be liable as a user of the
technology and your claim that only distributors are liable is wrong

One example

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2010/01/h264_...

"In other words, if you're an end user in a country where software
patents (or method patents) are enforceable, and you're using software
that encodes or decodes H.264 and the vendor is not on the list of
licensees, the MPEG-LA reserves the right to sue you, the end user, as
well as the software vendor or distributor."

The same applies but to all patents and while it is unlikely that a
patent holder will come after end users it is definitely possible and
very much legal for them to do so

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

Los__D — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:48:49 +0000

Encoding will not expire until later. That is not the end users problem.

The mp3 are not covered by patents, while the decoder might be.

- Anyway, end users will not get sued for playing mp3s (not for patents anyway, the contents are at your own risk). Claiming otherwise is just BS.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

rahulsundaram — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:34:04 +0000

Patent holders don't usually go after implementations of decoders but those
distributing them especially if they can sue for damages and they certainly
have done that repeatedly in the case of MP3 and the all the patents don't
expire in an year either and yes encouraging the use of mp3 encourages the
use of a mp3 decoder to be installed by default which is indeed a cause
for concern

Btw it is not merely a concern for Canonical but for every end user since
patent holders can sue for usage of patented technology

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

Los__D — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:28:08 +0000

There is absolutely no doubt that more than a few patents stick to the kernel, and probably also Ogg Vorbis. Hell, patents will probably stick to any piece of software more advanced than an eggtimer.

The MP3 patents are expiring in a year, and no one has come after the most successful encoder of all time: Lame.

- And if anyone gets their ass sued off it will be Canonical, how is that a problem for you?

- Oh... Why aren't you complaining about the mp3 player being installed by default while you're at it? In regards to patents, it is more a problem than actually giving you access to mp3 files.

In regards to Mono: Though IANAL, a promise is more or less legally binding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel#American_law

While there is issues with the coverage of the Community Promise for parts of .Net, core Mono is covered (no, I have no idea if Ubuntu ships the uncovered database or Forms parts by default).

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

davide.del.vento — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:52:22 +0000

The kernel is covered by patents only according to that "friend", who never elaborated more. There is not any evidence that the statement is true.

Mono and MP3 use well-known patents: it's a fact, not an alleged claim. Mono is covered by Microsoft "Community Promise" (just a promise, without any legal binding) of not suing for patent infringement. MP3 is even worst, because is not covered by anything, and the patent holders might sue at any time, especially if there will be money involved (like it is for the music store we are talking about).

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

rahulsundaram — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:49:55 +0000

There is a difference between encouraging the use of patent encumbered
formats with a detailed list of patents and using the Linux kernel and
trying to equate all patent situations is deceptive

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

Los__D — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:31:58 +0000

I guess we should throw out the Linux kernel then. After all it is covered in hundreds of patents, according to an old "friend" of ours.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

davide.del.vento — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:13:57 +0000

It's not only being closed sourced, there's also the patents issue. I don't know where do you live, but in the US software patents are a big problem.

IMHO, Canonical is doing bad choices for patents. First, they install Mono by default. Now, it's the "blessing" of MP3s.

As I wrote in my other comment (and on the blog I linked), any single issue by itself may be small, but their sum is not. And worse, it's growing and growing.

The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit

Los__D — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:56:44 +0000

What does this have to do with anything?

Ubuntu adding a GPLed plugin to Rhythmbox by default is not even remotely related to Ubuntu adding a huge closed source office application by default.