Music: Ownership vs. Access

I've recently signed up for two different music services, Google Music Beta and Rdio, but it was the Rdio account that really got me thinking about whether or not I needed to own my music.  Up 'til recently, ownership was really the only way to go.  With traditional ownership you can select the music you want to listen to, organize it into playlists and carry it with you on the go (on your smartphone or iPod).

Rdio, however, allows you to gain all of these benefits from traditional ownership.  With Rdio, you can select the music you want to listen to as long as it is in Rdio's library, and Rdio has quite a hefty library.  You can organize the music into play lists and if you're willing to pay for the premium account you can carry it with you on your smartphone or iPod (by either streaming or syncing).  There's one big difference, though.  If you stop paying for Rdio, you lose access to all of this music.

It's that exact thought, the fact that Rdio provides access, not ownership, that got me thinking:  Is ownership really as important today as it was in the past?

Parity
There has been movement on the traditional ownership front as well that has brought the two (ownership and access) back to feature parity:  cloud storage (aka: bit lockers).  Both Amazon and Google have recently launched services that allow you to store your owned copies of music in the cloud and stream them to your devices or computer via http.  The size limits are such that you can feasibly store quite a bit of music (in the 100 GB range) in the lockers.  You can then access web pages or apps which will stream this music back to you.  It's worth noting that this scheme has yet to be tested in court, and almost certainly will be, though both Amazon and Google maintain that since they are only streaming music the user owns, there's nothing that requires additional licensing.

Cost
While Google Music is in beta and is free for the time being, Amazon charges for the storage space, $1/GB per year.  For 100GB of music, you're looking at $100/year for the service, which equates to $8.33/month.  It's interesting to note, though, that Rdio charges about the same for premium access at $9.99/month.  If all you want is streaming on your computer and not mobile access, then you can get the service for $4.99/month.  Google Music allows you to store by the song, not the GB, and will allow you to store 20,000 songs.  In practice that will equate to about 100 GB of music.

It would appear that the services are similarly priced, until you take into account the fact that you will also need to buy (as none of my dear readers would dare torrent an album, I'm sure) your own music on Amazon or Google.  Depending on how much music you buy, this can incur a significant cost.  As long as that music is in Rdio's library, you can just add it to your collection and listen as much as you want without incurring any additional fees.

Music Library
But, the library is the rub.  As I discovered when talking about this with a friend, Rdio's library doesn't contain much of anything that you can't get from the major labels.  We went through a list of bands that had only released on CD, were brand spankin' new, or were only together for a special project.  None of them were in Rdio's library, though several were at least taken note of and had pages in Rdio.  With Google and Amazon, all you need to do is rip those CDs and upload them and you're good to go.

Uploading
Uploading, though, can be a pain.  As I write this, Google Music Manager has been eating my bandwidth for at least 24 hours to upload 2000 of 3600 songs.  Amazon Cloud Drive is in much the same boat.  That initial upload is a real killer.  I anticipate at least another 20 hours of uploads.  If I lived in Canada, that would most certainly rail my bandwidth for the month.

Conclusion
So where does that leave us?  There are, of course, reasons to go with something like Cloud Drive or Google Music.  You ostensibly own the music and if you decide you don't want to pay the storage fee you can keep listening past that monthly/yearly payment off of whatever it is you store that music on.  As well, you can upload whatever you would like:  None of the edge cases are denied you as long as you have the music in hand, so the only library limits are based on what you actually own.

But, the question of ownership vs. access comes down to one of cost of exploration in my book.  With services like Rdio, I can explore and find new music to my hearts content.  I pay one monthly fee for the privilege.  I can pay the premium price and take that music with me on my devices, as well, without having to constantly stream.  To explore said music with a service like Google Music or Amazon Cloud Drive, I would have to pay the cost of the storage plus the cost of the exploration in buying new music.  In my case, that cost of exploration could get quite high.  Rdio helps me keep that cost down.

In my eyes, access wins.  I'll pay a marginal monthly fee to keep access to such a vast library happily, one that I can explore to my hearts content.

Edit: Changed some font colors

Googler for a Day

Work has brought a co-worker and I out to San Francisco to visit the Google offices here.  We're attending the Google Wave Summit, getting to meet with and get to know people we have been communicating with over the Google Wave forums for months now.  In support of this effort, Google is really pulling out all the stops.

One thing Google does well is support their people.  The perks of working for Google are near legendary!  Google is a company which truly believes that seeing to the welfare of its people will lead to a better product.  So, today, I got to be a Googler for a day, and man, it was great.

As we arrived at the Google offices, I noticed people climbing the stairs from the cafeteria carrying heaping plates of fruit and other tasty but healthy morsels.  Such were provided for us in out "Tech Talk" room.  The Tech Talk room is meeting/class-room with telepresence capabilities.  Google is live-streaming the talks over Ustream to anyone that wishes to participate remotely.  The talks will be posted to YouTube later next week and they are chock-full of Wavey goodness.

As lunch arrived, we were all invited down to the cafeteria.  We climbed the steps down to the second floor, walked around a corner and were ushered into a feast.  Tasty treats of all varieties, from sushi to chicken breasts in sauces to sandwiches were offered up, with health labels on each denoting how good it was for you.  The view out of the cafeteria overlooks the Bay Bridge (pictured to the right) out onto Treasure Island and is truly magnificent.  Nice backdrop to enjoy a nice sandwich and some sushi by.

While in the cafeteria, I was struck by the feeling that I was a middle schooler getting to visit where the big kids go to school.  The cafeteria was packed with Googlers, all dressed in what I'm coming to realize must be San Francisco business casual (dark jeans with a t-shirt).  All of them looked determined, cool and young, and I was left feeling like a gawking kid, carrying my lunch tray, wondering where to sit.  I almost bust out laughing at the absurdity of the situation.  Here I am, older than most of them, established with a family, feeling like I was 12.  Truly a priceless experience, one to be savored for its uniqueness.

After lunch, a few of us did a little exploring and came across this priceless gem.  At the head of the slide was a sign reminding anyone that took the slide down to the first floor that this was indeed a work area, please be quiet while you descend.  Who on earth would think to put a slide in over the set of steps is either mad or a genius, I'm not sure which.  I'm sad to say that I didn't slide down, but maybe I'll leave that for tomorrow.

So, all in all, a great first day at Google's San Francisco office.  We learned a lot about Wave but even more about what it must be like to work at Google.