Music site set to turn up volume

Digirama founders Shaun Davis, front, and brother Garth. They say their company offers quality and security. Picture / Fotopress

Digirama, New Zealand's newest music download website, is aiming for a five-fold increase in the size of its music catalogue, while confronting new legislation that may steal its customers.

Record labels such as Warner Music have enabled the company, launched in November, to provide 50,000 online tracks.

This week's signing of American indie label The Orchard, which includes acts such as Coldplay, will raise the total to 60,000 songs.

Co-founder Shaun Davis said that within three months he aimed to have 250,000 tracks available to download.

"We really want to be the digital media superstore for New Zealand. You don't have to go to a shop, just download it."

Davis said support from record labels wanting to stop illegal copying and sharing of material was strong. CD sales in New Zealand fell more than 7 per cent last year.

"Of course they want to support a legal site so they can point to it and say, 'That is where you should get your music if you want to download it'."

Davis said early online sales were "not explosive but pretty good".

Getting potential customers to download for a cost rather than "rip" a CD illegally was a challenge Digirama had to win.

"It's education; it's continuous promotion; it's getting the price right; it's having the catalogue available."

The cost of a track from Digirama is $1.99, while an album costs $17.99.

Davis said quality and security were the main reasons to buy from a legal source.

"A lot of the time it's a bit of a hassle [illegal copying]. Okay, you might get it for free but you might download a file and it's actually corrupted or it's got a virus in it ... or you get it and it's hopeless quality."

Copyright laws are up for review this year. The Government is proposing to legalise once-only copying of purchased music to other formats - so-called format shifting.

That could put a spanner in the works for Digirama.

Unless the new law required copying to a licence-protected system, Davis said, there was nothing to stop multiple copies being created.

And even if such a provision was part of the law, he feared it would be impossible to police.

"The speed limit is at 50 and just because everyone might speed a little bit, we don't just increase the limit to make it 70," he said.

Digital technology had re-ignited arguments over copyright.

Copying for personal use with cassette and videotape had been prevalent for decades but degradation during copying meant copies were of a lesser quality than the original.

Digital technology had blown a hole in that argument, allowing unlimited copies of perfect quality, said Davis.

CDs could readily be copied to a PC, converted to mp3 (a compressed-file format) and transferred via the internet.

Anyone downloading mp3s could play them on a portable device.

The widespread flouting of copyright rules had made raising the profile of legal downloading a priority.

"A lot of people are still getting up with the play on what protected music means and, 'What can I do with it and how do I listen to it in my car'."

Legitimate download services — another local one is www.amplifier.co.nz, which sells music by New Zealand artists — had licensing agreements with record companies, limiting the number of copies that could be made of a particular track. Some labels might allow up to 10 copies to be made.

Digirama uses Microsoft Digital Rights Manager coding to enforce the licence.

The company standardises music, received from music labels in a variety of formats, into Windows Media Audio format for storage in its home-built content management system.

The system accounted for about $200,000 of a $250,000 launch cost.

A licence for an off-the-shelf system would have cost about $100,000, but Davis, an IT professional, took a long-term view. Building his own gave him the chance to become a hardware wholesaler to other music providers.

Digirama is branching out into ringtones and digital magazines.

Digirama, New Zealand's newest music download website, is aiming for a five-fold increase in the size of its music catalogue, while confronting new legislation that may steal its customers.

Record labels such as Warner Music have enabled the company, launched in November, to provide 50,000 online tracks.

This week's signing of American indie label The Orchard, which includes acts such as Coldplay, will raise the total to 60,000 songs.

Co-founder Shaun Davis said that within three months he aimed to have 250,000 tracks available to download.

"We really want to be the digital media superstore for New Zealand. You don't have to go to a shop, just download it."

Davis said support from record labels wanting to stop illegal copying and sharing of material was strong. CD sales in New Zealand fell more than 7 per cent last year.

"Of course they want to support a legal site so they can point to it and say, 'That is where you should get your music if you want to download it'."

Davis said early online sales were "not explosive but pretty good".

Getting potential customers to download for a cost rather than "rip" a CD illegally was a challenge Digirama had to win.

"It's education; it's continuous promotion; it's getting the price right; it's having the catalogue available."

The cost of a track from Digirama is $1.99, while an album costs $17.99.

Davis said quality and security were the main reasons to buy from a legal source.

"A lot of the time it's a bit of a hassle [illegal copying]. Okay, you might get it for free but you might download a file and it's actually corrupted or it's got a virus in it ... or you get it and it's hopeless quality."

Copyright laws are up for review this year. The Government is proposing to legalise once-only copying of purchased music to other formats - so-called format shifting.

That could put a spanner in the works for Digirama.

Unless the new law required copying to a licence-protected system, Davis said, there was nothing to stop multiple copies being created.

And even if such a provision was part of the law, he feared it would be impossible to police.

"The speed limit is at 50 and just because everyone might speed a little bit, we don't just increase the limit to make it 70," he said.

Digital technology had re-ignited arguments over copyright.

Copying for personal use with cassette and videotape had been prevalent for decades but degradation during copying meant copies were of a lesser quality than the original.

Digital technology had blown a hole in that argument, allowing unlimited copies of perfect quality, said Davis.

CDs could readily be copied to a PC, converted to mp3 (a compressed-file format) and transferred via the internet.

Anyone downloading mp3s could play them on a portable device.

The widespread flouting of copyright rules had made raising the profile of legal downloading a priority.

"A lot of people are still getting up with the play on what protected music means and, 'What can I do with it and how do I listen to it in my car'."

Legitimate download services — another local one is www.amplifier.co.nz, which sells music by New Zealand artists — had licensing agreements with record companies, limiting the number of copies that could be made of a particular track. Some labels might allow up to 10 copies to be made.

Digirama uses Microsoft Digital Rights Manager coding to enforce the licence.

The company standardises music, received from music labels in a variety of formats, into Windows Media Audio format for storage in its home-built content management system.

The system accounted for about $200,000 of a $250,000 launch cost.

A licence for an off-the-shelf system would have cost about $100,000, but Davis, an IT professional, took a long-term view. Building his own gave him the chance to become a hardware wholesaler to other music providers.

Digirama is branching out into ringtones and digital magazines.

Digital dream

* Digirama has 60,000 songs for sale.

* It hopes to have a catalogue of 250,000 tracks within three months.

* It uses a Windows file format but songs can be used on iPods after being downloaded, burned to CD and copied.

* Legalisation of format shifting could dent its business.

* Digirama has 60,000 songs for sale.

* It hopes to have a catalogue of 250,000 tracks within three months.

* It uses a Windows file format but songs can be used on iPods after being downloaded, burned to CD and copied.

* Legalisation of format shifting could dent its business.