Noank and the Old Boys at Pop and Policy

Thursday I attended Dan Levitin’s keynote speech and listened to the conversation that followed between himself and a panel of interesting cronies about “the paradise of infinite storage” and how to monetize it. The premise was that all music will be available for free online somewhere someday soon, if not already, and that the way to deal with this muchness is in recommendation engines like the ones Levitin has helped build and sell, and in the Noank business model Paul Hoffert and William Fisher both spearhead. (Shocking to no one that the answers lie in their own projects, but anyway, that’s fine, that’s why they were there.) Levitin talked about his history with recommendation engines, including teaching the guy who went on to start the Music Genome Project and Pandora which I didn’t realize is all build around the mappings of 5 music experts. Levitin talked about why his engines were better and he was only half joking when he told the audience he still had more licenses for sale.

The other panelists largely discussed a project they’re unrolling in China, then the world, called Noank. Content providers (musicians or labels or film studios or what have you) grant Noank a non-exclusive license to provide their content to users for all access listening and downloading in return for 85% of their cut of the ad revenue generated and the fees paid by network service providers like ISP’s and Universities. These providers pay to be able to give the music goodness to their users for free or at whatever cost they determine. If it works it could be a way of finally bringing global content together for legal free access. The cost would, they imagine, be worked into the price of your University fees or what you pay for internet:

We do not deal directly with consumers. Instead, our “customers” are service providers that provide online access through their broadband, wireless, mobile, and campus networks. They pay a monthly content fee for each of their end-users (subscribers, students, staff). Some service providers may pass the cost to their users while others may absorb the cost. Still others may charge their users more than they pay us. It’s up to them.

We provide each user of a participating service provider a software file (like iTunes and Limewire do). The Noank software integrates a web-type browser and search function, recommendations, file-sharing distribution, a media player, a counting system, and social networking, such as playlists and chat. Using these features, users can download unlimited numbers of files in Noank’s catalog in a variety of formats (none of which is subject to technological protection measures).

Users can use a player of their choice, including iTunes or Windows Media Player. A component of the software counts the number of times that a file in the Noank catalog is played and periodically sends that information to us (although not the information about who played the file), so the content fees can be fairly distributed to all creators and producers, whether they are big or small companies, or just individuals. The code for the software will be periodically examined by reliable and trusted third parties, to verify that it is designed to respect users’ privacy.

A lot of the concerns I had about this project were answered by getting more info from their websites (shocking again) and by reading critiques and responses from when they presented this same idea at POP and Policy last year. During the conversation on the panel the whole idea stressed me, worrying about centralized systems for tracking all our content usage. My concerns get triggered anew when I remember that Fisher thinks eventually this should be in the hands of governments. It just seems to me we might build a system like this now because we trust it to behave, but it might change in response to new pressures from governments and companies over years following. Schemes based on centralizing user data, tracking activity and allowing ISP’s and networks to pass on the costs to users however they like make me envision some pretty dystopic future scenarios. Maybe I’m paranoid.

Ed Felten was great describing how record companies have effectively shifted from trying to distribute and circulate music to trying to restrict the distribution and circulation of music. Obvious but important point and a good reason for coming up with schemes like Noank which could pay the big 4 record companies and help artists circumvent them. Today’s news about the bankrupting and punitive fine of 220 000$ slapped on single mother Jammie Thomas for the 24 songs she downloaded and shared via Kazaa makes Felten’s point glaring and scary. This could be resolved by having Noank and the cost of it built into broadband, but I wonder about the ripple effects. ISP’s could decide that rather then distribute the costs for the Noank fees and the increased traffic evenly, they’ll tax heavy usage web portals like Youtube or to a much lesser degree Indyish which could bring down independent media portals online and inadvertently further the consolidation of information. It seems like a segue into more commodification and control on the internet. Then again, maybe it’ll undergird the best intentions in governments and connect them across borders in positive, hospitable, high standard ways. I don’t know too much about it yet, so I’m keeping my mind open.

Here’s one last question- the project is starting in China, a country we know exerts censorship, and as we see in Burma, does not consistently stand for freedom of expression. Will Noank make it increasingly possible to monitor what content is made accessible to people, and to control messages? Would protest songs be available on the Beijing Noank if they called for a Free Tibet, say? Though the software aggregates info on what’s downloaded to protect user privacy and maintains that with third party review, would they be able to say no if served with a warrant for info on who is downloading or uploading protest music? This may not matter, the government is already able to access this information in China, but it seems an international central body like the imagined Noank network with hooks deep into user computers would make the process easier. Presumably, given Noank has signed deals in China and is still guaranteeing user privacy and making no comments about filtering or controlling content this is something they’ve dealt with and it’s all fine and I shouldn’t worry. But I’d feel better if we could see the deal, wouldn’t you?

When you get right down to it, because the Noank scheme relies, it seems, on a critical mass of users downloading the software which will track everything they play I suspect it’ll have a hard time gaining traction. But we’ll see.

Anyway, all told, the panel was fine. Stacked with old friends, and people promoting their books and business models, and others too legal/political to really get riled up it felt like it stayed on a safe edge of conversation. A McGill law student I spoke to after called that panel the “Old Boys Club” and while some people really dug what Dan Levitin had to say others found his insights on music in his new book and on the panel obvious and his approach to the topic self serving. This feeling was irritated by a lack of question period.

Though the conference for me has definitely been interesting this is my major complaint: the panels feel as though they were put together by invite which creates a kind of inherent bias that you might not have if they were built like some academic conference panels, by application and peer review. The invites definitely brought in some very interesting and high profile people in the fields of music and policy, but I think then what’s required to balance out is much much more time for questions and conversation to try and shake things loose. The academic conferences I’ve been too have left as much time for questions as there was for presentations (at least an hour) and I think this would help Pop and Policy.

Ok! More soon! Go pop go.