Streaming vs. Downloading reloaded….

in 2010 I organized a panel for the A2N conference in Berlin which was called: ——>    “Stop digitizing your record collection? Access vs. Ownership” (here)

The topic was “streaming vs downloading” and its time to re:think this. What happened within the last 2,5 years:

Cloud- and streaming services arrived finally also in Germany. So everyone should be happy now and nobody needs a huge hard drive now. –>  oh. wait…

• There will be never ever a worldwide broadband connection to get access to all our data from wherever we are cause there simply will always be areas without any access at all. (caching is not an option) And I’m not talking about netneutralit.This is another, way bigger story to think about.
• Services come and go and with them all your playlists (in case of music), links, posts, ideas.
  When a service gets down, a new service starts and they will always offer to export / import data. But hei, do you I want this? What if the new platform I want to use now does NOT offer this service?
• What happens if FB is for whatever reasons – banning your account? Or google+?
• In case of music, there will never be all the music I like be available for streaming on e.g. Spotify. Latest Example: 10 out of 19 tracks in this mix are only available on Spotify. And  it’s not a mix with super rare, exclusive stuff. Just 1 hour of mostly hiphop tunes. Tracks I found via my way through the net:
  

Mos Def – Umi Says
Gramatik – Good Evening Mr. Hitchcock
—>interestingly this is a free album but they delivered it to spotify (well done!)
Gramatik – Dream Big
Sepalot – Mein Herz
–>Soundcloud only
-Major Lazer – Get free feat. Amber of Dirty Projectors
–>free download of the label
Black Star – Definition
Essex Dilla Ahu – Rock On
—>Soundcloud
Goldie Lookin’ Chain – Soap Bar
Big Boi / Outkast – War
FleCK vs Amabilees – Speak softly love
—>Soundcloud only
Edan / Primitive Plus – Sing it Shitface
—>this track has a “hidden track” attached. which means: some minutes silence and than a new track starts. Not really convenient in a mix
Talib Kweli feat. Jean Grea – New York Shit
—>exclusive track for OKplayer
Gang Starr – Full Clip
Pete Rock CL Smooth – They reminisce over you
—>no clue why its not there
D-Jugend – Strictly for love
—>mashup, very old. totally not legal (from the year 2000)
Gramatik – So much for love
Py and Damu – Blind
—>Soundcloud
Disrupt – Events occur in realtime
10 cc vs. Destiny’s Child – Dreadlock Child (Soulwax Mahup)
—>absolute illegal mashup, also from back back in the days of bootz (also shit quality but people love it!

And now? –>

Labels, add your free stuff to streaming services aswell please.

For me, I will still buy music to “have” it. Everywhere. No matter if I’m in the alps hiking or on a sweet little island or just at my sisters place close to the border of Austria where they still have only ISDN and the mobile network sucks, cause of its interference (germany – Austria). But this is a very personal decision. Some people are not very interested in this, they might be happy with a music abo or just with radio. Some are never listening to new releases some are just happy to listen to playlists other people are doing for them.  Innit great to have all the possibilities now, compared to the old model: you have to live or die with what we (the industry)  are giving to you?

All my stuff belongs to me:

• writing this blog
• save my tweets on my server (there is good script somewhere on github – link will follow)
• save my links also here in this blog

Even if I haven’t found the perfect workflow yet and blogging still feels a bit like (good) pressure it’s the best to do right now.

Check out the very inspiring keynote of Eben Moglan at the re:publica 12:
“Why freedom of thoughts requires free media and why free media require free technology”.

It’s a bit dark but he insists deeply,  that it’s so important to not fall into this “everything is so easy” thing with the “one fits all” solutions. Jacob Appelbaum also talked about this topic when he said, that once the internet started as free and open network and now, we made it to a closed system cause we give all our ideas to Facebook & Co. –>Resisting the surveillance state and its network effects

Will add the videos of the talks when the re:publica has published all of them. Hint: Dear re:publica, please try to catch up this things more in time. The people will support you even more.  🙂