Spotify ca. 1983?

“We propose to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate and store THE BEST of every record company’s difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], store them in a central processing location, and have them accessible by phone or cable TV, directly patchable into the user’s home taping appliances (…)

The consumer has the option of subscribing to one or more Interest Categories, charged at a monthly rate, without regard for the quantity of music he or she decides to tape.

Providing material in such quantity at a reduced cost could actually diminish the desire to duplicate and store it, since it would be available any time day or night.

Monthly listings could be provided by catalog, reducing the on-line storage requirements of the computer. The entire service would be accessed by phone, even if the local reception is via TV cable.

[A] visualization of the original cover art, including song lyrics, technical data, etc., could be displayed [on cable TV] while the transmission is in progress, giving the project an electronic whiff of the original point-of-purchase merchandising built into the album when it was ‘an album’, since there are many consumers who like to fondle & fetish the packaging while the music is being played. (…)

We require a LARGE quantity of money and the services of a team of mega-hackers to write the software for this system. Most of the hardware devices are, even as you read this, available as off-the-shelf items, just waiting to be plugged into each other so they can put an end to “THE RECORD BUSINESS” as we now know it.”

Sitatet over er kreditert til Frank Zappa i 1983. Bytt ut TV med PC-skjerm, tape med mobiltelefon og telefon med internett, så har du egentlig betalutgaven av Spotify.

Nå grunnla vel Zappa aldri Spotify eller iTunes, men det er interessant å se hvor “opplagt” idéen om musikkstreaming har vært – jeg synes det er et godt eksempel på at utfordringen ikke alltid ligger i å finne idéen, men i å implementere den.