New Livejournal

My new LJ, and it's soooooooooo cute! I write in it often now. Makes me happy. I really enjoy adding icons and stuff.

Church and Atonement

Repost from my new Livejournal, which is where I will be writing more often now (since I can change pretty much a layout a day for a year if I wanted to without having the same one). However, I will still post some stuff on here occasionally.
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This past weekend was the first weekend that I managed to get my entire family (not including dad BUT including Brian) to church since my 7th grade year. I believe the last time was my baptism, which was really nice to have them there. The exciting part was that my family really enjoyed it. Granted my mom didn't understand the message very well because she has no reference of the Christian story or anything related to Jesus, but the worship and singing was so full of life this weekend that it sparked a bit of curiosity in her. Brian was also adorable throughout the service. He made some noises during moments that he really wasn't suppose to, but he also made some funny interjections. There was a part where Pastor Greg was trying to get the congregation to say "Come with me," and so everyone said it, but Brian usually has a 3 second lag whenever he's trying to copy someone, so after everyone was done with saying it, he said it aloud, and it was just really funny. Brian also really enjoyed the music, and during the song "May the Word of my Mouth," Brian copied Pastor Greg and raised his hands for the entire song. It was just a beautiful moment to witness because it reminded me of the Matthews 19:14 where Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Seeing Brian so easily accept God's love was really an amazing thing.

Aside from that, today was Brian's first day of school, and he did soooo well. I remember bringing Brian to daycare about a year ago, and he would cry and cry until we finally had to bring him home. Now that he's a bit older (2 3/4 olds), he actually enjoys playing with kids his own age now. He only cried once today when they were trying to get him to take a nap. Eventually, after seeing everyone lying down, he also went to sleep for an hour. I'm so proud of him. :D He will go to school again tomorrow too. Perhaps I will take some pictures this time around because all the little kids are adorable.

Anyways, on to the movie review.

Atonement the movie is based off the novel written by Ian McEwan. I've read about 1/3 of the movie, but I decided that seeing the movie first will probably make the movie more enjoyable. I could already tell from reading the book that no matter how good the movie is, it's going to be hard to reach the depth of the novel. However, after seeing the film, I have to say that Joe Wright's adaptation comes pretty darn close. One of the things that makes the book is that it goes back and forth explaining things from different perspectives, so there would be multiple views on the same scene. I wasn't sure how that was going to be portrayed in the movie, and I was actually quite worried that the film would be too one-sided. However, the flashback scenes were so tastefully done that even now, I'm trying to rewind the movie in the head. Still, it's hard to figure what exactly Wright did to make all of the flashback scenes were so smoothly because he does different things for each time. I highly highly recommend seeing the movie. Everything about it was well done, and the actors and actresses portrayed the characters from the book precisely. In my opinion, it's the best movie that I've seen in two years in theaters. I think I will go see it again this Thursday. Definitely a 5/5.

This is my relationship

Merry Christmas to All

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone, and God bless all of you. Hope you eat lots, watch lots of movies, and have fun with your fams.

Yay! I'm done!

I'm done with Finals. Woohoo!!!

Revolving Doors

I never understood the use of revolving doors. Up until now, I always thought they were kind of useless actually. If you're carrying luggages, it's not convenient. If someone is pushing really heavily that's behind you, your feet get bumped. Overall, I just never figured the advantage of the revolving doors vs. "real" doors (with the exception that it looks sort of cool).

Anyways, I finally figured it out. It blocks out wind! In NY, it makes sense to have revolving doors because real doors let in a drift of very cold air, and revolving doors don't. Yes, it was a total revelation moment. I feel like I've just gained more appreciation for life and human intelligence in general.

Pros and Cons of the Subscription Model for Music

This is a monstrous post, but it's my final essay for my Music Industry class. Let me know what you think of the subject after you read it (if you read it. hehe).
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With Radiohead’s digital release of In Rainbow, which allows listeners to determine the price for the album, the question posed is: “How much is music really worth?” If we think about it, an average CD is about the price of a meal at a typical dine-in restaurant. Even if it were not fine or exquisite food, most middle-class families wouldn’t think twice about paying that money for the one-time experience. Once the food is gone, it’s gone. However, with music, you can listen to it over and over again, but a huge majority of people still find it hard to fork out the money to buy an album. The same thing is true for moviegoers; for a one-time experience, people are willing to pay ten dollars. If they like it, they might buy the DVD, which can be another twenty dollars. In a given year, young teenagers are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on video games, but would not pay a cent for music. Why is that? Is music that worthless? No, it’s not. Music is all around us. We listen to it everyday and it’s a part of our lives. The reason why people are less willing to pay for music is because they can no longer see it. Through the digitalization of music, consumers no longer think of an album as something they hold in their hands. It becomes something that’s spatial, and not physical. Most people would feel an immense guilt over stealing a physical CD from a rack in a music store, but they do not feel that way when a file-sharing program is right in front of them. In the past few years, file-sharing programs and iTunes have driven down prices so much that the physical copy just cannot keep up. As consumers, we expect current physical CD prices to reflect that of digital prices. Because of this notion that “music should be cheap and free,” the value of recorded music is being continually undermined, even though music is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment already.

There is no way, however, for music labels to ignore the fact that people will continue to pay less, and not more for music. Technologists and label executives have been racking their brains for years to figure out a way to balance out losses, and at the present time, one of the most popular alternatives is the subscription service model, where users pay a certain amount of money per month, and they can download as much music as they want. Already websites like Napster, Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and Rhapsody are providing those services, and people love it. For avid music lovers that love to discover new music, it’s a cheap way to obtain hundreds of songs a month without spending hundreds of dollars. For the record labels, it provides a steady stream of income that they know they can count on. The comparison to this model is Cable television. Consumers pay around twenty to thirty dollars a month, and they have the option of watching whatever they want, whenever they want. The television stations monitor the amount of viewers per show, and the money gets allocated to different shows through a percentage system. It all makes sense theoretically, but there’s a reason why this model has not become widespread in the music industry.

The greatest setback right now for the subscription model is due to the fact that Steve Jobs has not approved it. At the present moment, none of the subscription services work in sync with Apple technology, including the iPod. Unfortunately, for the record labels, there’s very little they can do because Apple’s iPod has the greatest market share in HD portable player technology. If music consumers can’t put their downloads onto their music players or CD, the incentive to subscribe is lessened considerably because the only place they can listen to the songs is on their computer. Though the big four, Sony-BMG, Warner Music, Universal, and EMI have tried time and again to convince Steve Jobs to turn iTunes into a subscription service, or at least partially; Jobs’ reply was simply, “Never say never, but customers don't seem to be interested in it" (Martell). In an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Jobs noted:

“People don't want to buy their music as a subscription. They bought 45's; then they bought LP's; then they bought cassettes; then they bought 8-tracks; then they bought CD's. They're going to want to buy downloads. People want to own their music. You don't want to rent your music -- and then, one day, if you stop paying, all your music goes away. And, you know, at 10 bucks a month, that's $120 a year. That's $1,200 a decade. That's a lot of money for me to listen to the songs I love. It's cheaper to buy, and that's what they're gonna want to do” (Goodell).

Jobs does make a good point in that respect. For $120 a year, we can obtain 12 albums for keep. On average, most Americans don’t buy twelve albums a year, and thus, they would lose money, especially if they cancel the subscription, and all that music goes away. Ending up with nothing is not a good feeling, but that is the nature of rentals. Like the movie industry, after renting the latest hit from Blockbuster, people either buy the movie or they don’t. However, Steve Jobs could be wrong about the majority of the people not wanting a subscription service. The reason why many consumers have not found the incentives to try the subscription is directly tied to Apple. If iTunes did make a subscription service available that works with iPods and with their current model of the iTunes store it’s very possible that many people would want to try the service. If for ten dollars a month or even fifteen, which is the cost of one album, users can download as much music as they want and have it on their choice of music player; that’s nothing at all. That’s fifty cents or less per day. For avid music lovers, it’s a fantastic opportunity to discover new music and new talent. Further more, once consumers can obtain so much music at the tip of their fingers at such a low price, there’s really no reason to unsubscribe unless the price of the subscription skyrockets. On Apple’s end, iPods will probably sell better than ever due to the music surge, which is ultimately Steve Jobs’ goal. It is interesting that Steve Jobs have not jumped on the chance to produce a subscription model. But perhaps, Jobs is right. Perhaps we need to think carefully before we open a can of worms. Though it seems like a good model for consumers, and likewise for record labels, how will the record industry be impacted? Would the subscription service be the most beneficial alternative for the music industry in the long run?

Unlike Cable television, there are more musicians than there are TV shows, and because of this, a widespread subscription model would probably hurt musicians and independent labels with little back catalog the most. Though record labels might gain a steady stream of income, it’s very hard to allocate that money to the correct owner because there is no fair way of doing it. Though the pie might be big, there are just too many slices to cut. Even if there is a very accurate way of scanning whose music is being downloaded, there is only so much money to be allocated because the money that is available to be allocated is relatively fixed. For example, let’s assume that in two years time, 2 million people are using the subscription service. The price of the subscription is set at 10 dollars per person; so overall, it would be a 20 million dollar business. Let’s also assume that the service providers, such as iTunes or Rhapsody takes a 10% cut off the top, so what’s left is 18 million to be allocated to different labels. Now the major record labels, due to their vast amount of back catalog, are bound to get a huge chunk of that money. However, for the independents, it’s a completely different story. For most indies, it takes about 5,000 sales of an album (or approximately 50,000 single downloads) to counterbalance the amount of money they spent on recording and marketing. Many indies do sell that much. Assuming that one track is a dollar, they would get $50,000. Now let’s look at what they would get under the subscription model if they got the same number of downloads.

Under the assumption that the average user downloads 20 songs a month, with two million people, the pie would be fourty million downloads per month. Out of that number, let’s say that John Doe’s band gets 50,000 downloads for that month. That’s .00125% (50,000/[20*2,000,000]=0.00125%) of all downloads, using that percentage to allocate the money from the 18 million, that is $22,500, which is less than half the $50,000 dollars that band could potentially get by selling it track by track, like the current model. Of course, $22,500 is better than nothing, and most bands don’t sell 50,000 songs a month. However, it could very well happen, and it’s definitely not unheard of. If the somewhat popular indie bands make only half the amount, what will happen to the even more lesser-known bands?

As of now, the subscription model is far from flawless. If it’s not done right, it could potentially be disastrous for bands and labels alike. However, the system could still work. Like Jobs said, “People want to own their music.” Perhaps after “renting” the tracks, they would buy them. After all, one of the largest incentives for music lovers to join a subscription service is so that they can discover new music through the recommendation system. If they discover something new that they like, it’s very possible that they could buy it. It is also very likely that after customers cancel their subscription, they will probably buy back the songs that they really enjoyed.

Some possible solutions that might enable the subscription service to work is a two-tier system, where all the major labels are sharing one pie, and the all indies share another pie. So perhaps users can pay $10 per subscription for all the tracks that the Majors own, and then for an additional $5, they also get access to thousands of independent bands. Or if someone wants mostly indie music, they could pay $10 for the indie music service, and $5 for additional music from major record labels. By splitting the pie into two separate tiers, it allows the system to be fairer, and it gives independent musicians a chance to actually live off of their music. Another way to enhance the system to make tracks cheaper to buy for those who already have the subscription service. Rhapsody music service is already doing that. However, their prices are still unreasonable. They claim that instead of .99 cents, their .89 cents is a steal. Yes, it is pretty cheap, but that’s already how much Amazon music is selling their tracks, and people don’t need to subscribe to their services. Does it still make it a bargain for those who have subscription services? Not really, if one compares market prices. A steal would be .79 cents, relatively.

Still, all this is theoretical. When put into practice, it could be a whole new ball game. Regardless, the consumers still win either way. At the end of the day, it’s the consumers that will choose what service they like better. Right now, all eyes are on Apple. Once they figure out how to make this work, the subscription model could be exactly what consumers call for. One should still be wary though; with this new model, the CD might as well be obsolete. Record stores are closing down so fast already; this really could be the beginning of a new era.