MQA is Vaporware

[mansr]

I have obtained a copy of an MQA NDA. The first sentence is interesting (emphasis mine):

"The parties to this Agreement wish to discuss and exchange information in the general area of streaming or downloading, encoding, re-coding or decoding of high-resolution music, rights management, encoding and quality authentication."

[Ralf11]

a smirking gun

[Rt66indierock]

18 minutes ago, mansr said:

I have obtained a copy of an MQA NDA. The first sentence is interesting (emphasis mine):

"The parties to this Agreement wish to discuss and exchange information in the general area of streaming or downloading, encoding, re-coding or decoding of high-resolution music, rights management, encoding and quality authentication."

 

Time to go straight to work on some peoples finger nails. How many times did Bob Stuart say their was no digital rights management in MQA. What a perfect birthday present for John Atkinson.

[mcgillroy]

19 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

. J Haagenstad said some interesting things this weekend if you put them on a timeline. 

 

Could you point to that?! Thx!

[Rt66indierock]

Just now, mcgillroy said:

 

Could you point to that?! Thx!

 

His company has had an NDA covering MQA for a long time over several years and done nothing with it. 

[crenca]

51 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

 

I cannot disagree, of course. There are "armchair experts" in all fields. That said, I do believe the consumer/end-user/hobbyist have valid opinions. They can be based on for example the non-technical aspects eg political issues, preference issues etc. They can also be based on an educated and informed analysis of the technical aspects as presented and explained by the various technical/professional experts.

 

Relevantly, it is often observed that the 'real experts' do not always agree. So by definition, there is no one and obvious answer. This happens in Medicine FAR more than the public realize, far more. I suppose this is partly why the so called "appeal to authority" is a fallacy. Which authority?

 

In some regions the issue of medical causation in compensable injuries is left to the 'experts' ie the relevant medical experts, in some regions causation is left to non medical people like judges in a court. The point being, the judge is left to weigh the evidence of the experts. They end up "preferring" the evidence of one expert over the other.

 

I still remain of course, at least for me, very interested in the quals and background of people making analyses. For example, do you care to share your background? I would also be interested in Brinky's and others on these controversial threads. I have been previously asked and provided details. I have also asked Mansr in the past (his background is known).

 

 

 

Good points. I should have been more precise - are they making strong statements about say the math behind digital, or the general EE principals around this or that phenomena.  I did not mean to say they have nothing to offer as far as a generalized "subjective" review, or comment on larger "meta"  issues, etc.

 

As far as my background, my wife (who is a physician) currently own and run a medical practice.  I had a 20 year career in IT before that - thus the reason I can recognize and speak to the digital, software, IP, DRM and like issues around MQA.  

[Jud]

43 minutes ago, mansr said:

I have obtained a copy of an MQA NDA. The first sentence is interesting (emphasis mine):

"The parties to this Agreement wish to discuss and exchange information in the general area of streaming or downloading, encoding, re-coding or decoding of high-resolution music, rights management, encoding and quality authentication."

 

Well, duh.  Do you have rights to non-MQA music you haven’t purchased, for example on LP?  How did that happen?  By rights management.  MQA is creating new versions of recordings, and new recordings are being created in MQA.  Of course the rights to such content must be managed.  It is *not* the same thing as saying MQA provides for DRM.

 

To me this has always been a side issue anyway.  The big issue is whether MQA can attain sufficient market power that it impinges on the availability of “lossless” formats.  So far it’s not looking like it.  Keep voting with your keyboards, and most important, your wallets.

[mansr]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

Well, duh.  Do you have rights to non-MQA music you haven’t purchased, for example on LP?  How did that happen?  By rights management.  MQA is creating new versions of recordings, and new recordings are being created in MQA.  Of course the rights to such content must be managed.  It is *not* the same thing as saying MQA provides for DRM.

In the present context, this can only be about DRM.

[crenca]

2 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Well, duh.  Do you have rights to non-MQA music you haven’t purchased, for example on LP?  How did that happen?  By rights management.  MQA is creating new versions of recordings, and new recordings are being created in MQA.  Of course the rights to such content must be managed.  It is *not* the same thing as saying MQA provides for DRM.

 

 

Jud, honestly your response does not make sense.

 

Why would a format or software encoding create "new versions or recording" in of itself?  If they were truly "new versions", what would the format or software encoding have to do with the rights unless the format or software encoding itself was part of the rights management, in MQA's case via the "freemium" model of Digital Rights Management, which of course rests on the IP/closed/proprietary nature of the software MQA itself?

[Jud]

Just now, mansr said:

In the present context, this can only be about DRM.

 

So the employer of the person from whom you obtained the NDA would have had nothing whatever to do with content, and you know for a fact the language in this NDA was absolutely unique and not “boilerplate” used in many MQA NDAs, including those used with entities that do deal with content?

[botrytis]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

 

Well, duh.  Do you have rights to non-MQA music you haven’t purchased, for example on LP?  How did that happen?  By rights management.  MQA is creating new versions of recordings, and new recordings are being created in MQA.  Of course the rights to such content must be managed.  It is *not* the same thing as saying MQA provides for DRM.

 

To me this has always been a side issue anyway.  The big issue is whether MQA can attain sufficient market power that it impinges on the availability of “lossless” formats.  So far it’s not looking like it.  Keep voting with your keyboards, and most important, your wallets.

The point is there is no rights management on LPs or CDs. You can play them anywhere. You cannot do that with MQA and they can actually turn the screws on DRM to make playing these files harder. 

[Jud]

2 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

Jud, honestly your response does not make sense.

 

Why would a format or software encoding create "new versions or recording" in of itself?  If they were truly "new versions", what would the format or software encoding have to do with the rights unless the format or software encoding itself was part of the rights management, in MQA's case via the "freemium" model of Digital Rights Management, which of course rests on the IP/closed/proprietary nature of the software MQA itself?

 

There are new made-for-MQA masterings that are in lossless format.

[botrytis]

Just now, Jud said:

 

There are new made-for-MQA masterings that are in lossless format.

MQA is lossy. What you said is nonsense.

[Jud]

1 minute ago, botrytis said:

The point is there is no rights management on LPs or CDs. You can play them anywhere. You cannot do that with MQA and they can actually turn the screws on DRM to make playing these files harder. 

 

Lawyers for the music companies would be utterly confused by your statement that there is no rights management on LPs or CDs.  Of course there is.

[crenca]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

 

There are new made-for-MQA masterings that are in lossless format.

 

Hum, Ok.  So what would a digital encoding/format provider have to offer in a discussion about delivery of said content, as in:

 

 " in the general area of streaming or downloading, encoding, re-coding or decoding of high-resolution music.........encoding and quality authentication."

 

in the area of rights management, unless the subject is itself Digital rights management (of whatever form)?

[Jud]

1 minute ago, botrytis said:

MQA is lossy. What you said is nonsense.

 

In fact what I said is quite true.  Just like there are masters in 24/96, for example, for CDs, there are new 24/96 or 24/192 lossless masters created to be run through the MQA process.  Some files offered in MQA format come from existing lossless masters, some from new lossless masters.

 

This is the only situation in which I’ve liked an MQA version better than the lossless one, when it was created from a new lossless master.

[crenca]

8 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Lawyers for the music companies would be utterly confused by your statement that there is no rights management on LPs or CDs.  Of course there is.

 

Yes, but not through the encoding means - a grove in the case of LP and software through the case of CD's.  So how is rights management "on" an LP or CD?  There  are all sorts of right's management legal issues "around", but the LP's and CD's themselves are agnostic about the issue - they contain no inherent management of rights other than their physicality (a consumer has to possess them legally, etc.).

 

MQA offers something over and above this - an inherent, designed in "Digital" rights management.

[mansr]

Just now, Jud said:

So the employer of the person from whom you obtained the NDA would have had nothing whatever to do with content, and you know for a fact the language in this NDA was absolutely unique and not “boilerplate” used in many MQA NDAs, including those used with entities that do deal with content?

MQA is a tech company, not a rights holder.

[Jud]

Just now, mansr said:

MQA is a tech company, not a rights holder.

 

And of course the new lossless masters created to be processed through MQA, and MQA’s rights as respecting those, or as respecting existing masters provided to them for purposes of being run through the MQA, would be nothing a company dealing with MQA would be interested in, right?  Please.

 

What if an individual dealing with MQA got access to one of these masters?  Do you think companies considering MQA would like to know anyone who did get access to one of these masters was contractually bound by MQA to deal with it as the property of those companies?

[mansr]

6 minutes ago, Jud said:

And of course the new lossless masters created to be processed through MQA, and MQA’s rights as respecting those, or as respecting existing masters provided to them for purposes of being run through the MQA, would be nothing a company dealing with MQA would be interested in, right?  Please.

 

What if an individual dealing with MQA got access to one of these masters?  Do you think companies considering MQA would like to know anyone who did get access to one of these masters was contractually bound by MQA to deal with it as the property of those companies?

That's not what this is about. Not in the slightest.

[Jud]

16 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

Yes, but not through the encoding means - a grove in the case of LP and software through the case of CD's.  So how is rights management "on" an LP or CD?  There  are all sorts of right's management legal issues "around", but the LP's and CD's themselves are agnostic about the issue - they contain no inherent management of rights other than their physicality (a consumer has to possess them legally, etc.).

 

MQA offers something over and above this - an inherent, designed in "Digital" rights management.

 

By virtue of its encoding being proprietary, we are certainly prevented from reconverting it to "lossless" (actually lossy but non-proprietary) format.  It's possible someone might figure out a way to decompress and filter an MQA-encoded recording and play it back,  but who really would want to?

[Jud]

6 minutes ago, mansr said:

That's not what this is about. Not in the slightest.

 

So let's assume you are correct (though I guarantee that the music companies would make quite sure anyone who might possibly have access to masters is contractually bound), and the reference in the NDA is meant to at least be inclusive of MQA's rights as against consumers.  We've been here before.  Are you aware of any "copy protection measures" in MQA beyond the compression and filtering that are part of its value proposition?  

 

And of course there's the fact that none of this matters unless MQA gets sufficient market share to impinge on the availability of open formats.  As I've just said in this thread, keep voting with your keyboard and wallet so that doesn't happen.  MQA certainly doesn't look to be a rousing success thus far.

[mansr]

Just now, Jud said:

So let's assume you are correct (though I guarantee that the music companies would make quite sure anyone who might possibly have access to masters is contractually bound), and the reference in the NDA is meant to at least be inclusive of MQA's rights as against consumers.

That has nothing to do with it. The NDA covers secrets shared by MQA regarding their technology.

 

Just now, Jud said:

We've been here before.  Are you aware of any "copy protection measures" in MQA beyond the compression and filtering that are part of its value proposition?  

Yes.

[Jud]

27 minutes ago, mansr said:

That has nothing to do with it. The NDA covers secrets shared by MQA regarding their technology.

 

Yes.  Secrets as against other companies and the public (consumers).

 

27 minutes ago, mansr said:

Yes.

 

Anything you can discuss?  (Again I don't think it matters without market power, but of course I'm curious.)  The encryption they use with their compression to obfuscate the source,  or something else?

[crenca]

49 minutes ago, Jud said:

 Are you aware of any "copy protection measures" in MQA beyond the compression and filtering that are part of its value proposition?  

 

And of course there's the fact that none of this matters unless MQA gets sufficient market share to impinge on the availability of open formats.  

 

11 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

 

It must be said (again and again and again) that DRM is not limited to "copy protection measures".  In practice there are other ways (that are just as important) to "manage", by digital means, the rights of consumers.  The "freemium" model that MQA is by design is a good example.

 

As to the truth of this being something that "does not matter" unless breaks through an unidentified market share, well that is one way to look at it.  When the nature of MQA as DRM is denied by the creators and their promotion machine, I think it does matter even before this point...