Musicrypt: Where Music Goes to Die

July 4th, 2006

Filed under:
Music, Technology

Musicrypt: Where Music Goes to Die

I’m just kidding. Musicrypt is a Toronto-based company that securely distributes music to radio stations et al:

Musicrypt’s patented Digital Media Distribution System (DMDS) is the leading secure B2B digital delivery solution for the music industry. DMDS is a web-based delivery system that pioneers secure digital file distribution by incorporating biometrics, high-value encryption and watermarking.

That, by the way, is a fantastic example of lousy web writing. It fails the can-your-mother-understand-what-your-company-does test. Why not just say something like ‘we securely distribute music to radio stations’?

I read an article about them in the Vancouver Sun today, and was amused by their name. There’s the misspelling (only one ‘c’), which always irks me. They should at least go out and buy musiccrypt.com, which is likely for sale.

I was particularly struck by the use of the term ‘crypt’. I suppose crypts are secure (though, they’re always getting raided, or the undead are rising from them), but they also hold dead things. Is that the sort of image you want for your company?

It’s like ‘Musicsafe‘, ‘Musicvault‘ and ‘Musicchest‘ were all taken, so they went with the next best synonym.

Mind you, the name is kind of memorable, so that’s an upside.

Comments: 7 Responses so far

Richard
July 4th, 2006
11:12 am

“That, by the way, is a fantastic example of lousy web writing. It fails the can-your-mother-understand-what-your-company-does test. Why not just say something like ‘we securely distribute music to radio stations’?”

That, by the way, is a fantastic example of a lousy example layperson. It fails the let’s-not-assume-the-word-mother-means-idiot test. Why not just say something like ‘most people don’t understand this’?

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darren
July 4th, 2006
11:42 am

Sorry, I disagree with you on this one. There’s a line between sarcasm and insensitivity, between being (very slightly) humourous and being hurtful. I don’t think I crossed it here.

Not to protest too much, but it’s a stylistic decision. Saying ‘most people don’t understand this’ is considerably less interesting and readable than what I wrote.

If my only goal on this site were clinical descriptions of things, then I might have gone your route. Clearly, that’s not all I’m after, or I wouldn’t have used 7 hyphens in a row.

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Richard
July 4th, 2006
1:25 pm

Fair enough, my suggestion does indeed suck, which is why I don’t write for a living (please try to ignore the fact that I do actually write for part of my living), and as an individual case, this probably doesn’t cross the line. In aggregate, though, with the hundreds of other times that highly technical people have used women with children as their sole example of a type of person who may not understand technology as well as we do, surely we’ve come to a point where it’s possible to write interesting and readable articles in weblogs without having to.

I’m sure somebody can’t point to a time when I’ve done it too, so mea culpa.

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Meg
July 4th, 2006
1:44 pm

Isn’t the “crypt” just referencing “encryption”?

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darren
July 4th, 2006
1:48 pm

Meg: You’re absolutely right–I totally missed that. Assuming you don’t know what the company does, do you think most people will make that mistake, or are they smarter than silly old me?

I don’t really know. I guess MusicEncrypt.com is a bit of a mouthful. What about TuneEncrypt.com? SongEncrypt.com? SongSafe.com? TuneVault.com? I’ll stop now.

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Meg
July 4th, 2006
1:51 pm

I didn’t even think of anything else when I first saw the name. But maybe I just don’t watch a lot of horror movies.

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Meg
July 4th, 2006
1:57 pm

Someone in my office just pointed out that it also sounds like “music ripped”… which is ironic…

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