Comments on: Are CDs Going The Way Of The 8-Track?

The Closing Of A Major CD Chain Store Shows The Shift Towards Online Music Downloads

[brianbwb-2009]

"...How would you like it if you had a business making a product that you had developed and spent many hours perfecting and someone found a key to your warehouse and every night they slipped in and stole some of your product and you found out about it, do you think you would report it to the police or tell that person to continue to help himself." Posted by d7767w

I am a composer, and I have heard this argument many times, but it is a false one. Theft means you no longer posses that which has been stolen, If someone steals your car, you no longer have the use of the car, there is a material loss, not so in this case, your material possessions are still yours, you have lost nothing. If however, someone builds a car that looks and drives just like yours, you still have lost nothing.

Potential sales? There is no proof that potential sales will be realized, no proof that those who use the "pirated" version would have paid your asking price for your "original".

As for royalties, the RIAA has to date sued people for more than a half billion dollars for illegal downloading, how much do you think has been paid to the artists who own the material? Not one red cent, the RIAA, and other publishing rights organizations are simply shaking down the public, and keeping the money.

I copyright my works with the Library of Congress to establish ownership, but I refuse to deal with any of these performing rights organizations, as they want me to pay them for performing my own material, from which they take an "admin" fee, then, (this phrase is in the standard contract) "as and when they see fit", will pay me the remainder of my own money.

Common sense, and centuries of common commerce, and criminal law are being perverted in the rush to claim "right" to money.

[brianbwb-2009]

"... In a few years, no one will know what high fidelity is. Compressed "music" available as MP3s leaves a lot to be desired if you've had the chance to listen to music on a fine system. ..."
Posted by steeepe

Your point also illustrates the beginning of yet another shift, the acceptance of compressed, "lo-fi" music will mean that there will be no common players for music that is by it's nature audiophile, such as "Jazz" and "Classical" music, and thus, since there will be no mainstream distribution medium for these musics, and also since the economy no longer includes "discretionary income" that can be spent going to live performances, these art forms will soon disappear, along with the job opportunities for artists, technicians, electricians, performance venue workers, and promotions groups.

Already it is quite apparent that the formerly American music form known as "Jazz" has found much more acceptance outside the US than in it. There are, for example no Jazz clubs in Los Angeles at all, according to my musician friends there, and very few in LA county as a whole.

This does not bode well for the concept of intellectual progress.

[rwsmith29456]

You guys talk about paying the full price of an album just to buy two songs. This was also a big problem in the 60's until groups like the Beatles raised the bar for overall album quality. In the 60's and 70's you heard, "I love that album" as much as you heard, "I love that song". Music has degraded again to having only a couple of songs on an album worth listening to .

[Newster1]

"CDs now are catering to fans who like the object, who like high sound quality of a CD, but then they also want the pictures and the booklet, and they want to look at the liner notes and the lyrics and the photos," - Some Music Industry Big Head

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Clearly not, Mister Big Head, if they aren't buying them. Sure, I'd like photos, a cute booklet with lyrics. But instead of paying over fifteen bucks for the CD to play the one song I like, I'd rather pay 99 cents for the one song I like, and skip paying your million-dollar bonus. I can see photos and lyrics for free online. You'll have to pay for your kid's Ivy League education another way.
Posted by micheleisfree

Right on! the same went for LP's, buying one just for the one song that I liked was pretty expensive. Besides, LP's attract dust and static and just sliding the things in and out of the dust jacket can leave scratches. Every time you play an LP you are wearing the surface down, it's 19th century technology that belongs back there.

CD's are better but their internal layers do degrade physically over time and they become unreadable, DVD's hold more but they too are only basically stacked LAYERS of CD's, and due to that they are even more prone to failure from any degregation and can become unreadable.

In fact, it's been fairly common that trying to play a CD or DVD burned on one machine wont be read on a different one, yet works fine on the machine it was originally burned on.

[TX-Sunset]

Um, are you sure you are closing the session on the disk? THere is a feature in all burning software to close the disk. This means no more writing can be done on the disk. Once this is done, the disk should be readable in any machine. I have never had a problem as long as I closed the session.

[Illuminated1]

We're just being spoon fed technology a dollar at a time..

[Slrman]

"You are right. But first, they will have to stop charging $700 to add a 250gb flash drive to notebooks. Even a "cheap" one is 128gb and $300. And one of the most reliable, Intel's SSD, is $700 for 150gb" - sabre111

I can buy 128GB Flash drives, brand name and 5-year warranty for $40 each. The price will continue to fall with more development. Remember, it wasn't that long ago even a 1 GB hard drive was a dream.

When I bought my first Macintosh, it came with 1 MB of memory. Upgrading to 4 MB cost about $300. My iMac came with 2 GB of RAM and upgrading to 4 GB cost about $50. So I have 1,000 times the memory at 1/6th of the cost. Far less, if you take inflation into the equation. That's the way technology goes. In a few years, mechanical hard drives will be as rare as the 8" floppy disk. Hang in there Sabre1111, better days are coming. They always have been.

[micheleisfree]

"CDs now are catering to fans who like the object, who like high sound quality of a CD, but then they also want the pictures and the booklet, and they want to look at the liner notes and the lyrics and the photos," - Some Music Industry Big Head

- - - - - - - - - -
Clearly not, Mister Big Head, if they aren't buying them. Sure, I'd like photos, a cute booklet with lyrics. But instead of paying over fifteen bucks for the CD to play the one song I like, I'd rather pay 99 cents for the one song I like, and skip paying your million-dollar bonus. I can see photos and lyrics for free online. You'll have to pay for your kid's Ivy League education another way.

[steeepe]

In a few years, no one will know what high fidelity is. Compressed "music" available as MP3s leaves a lot to be desired if you've had the chance to listen to music on a fine system. The portability of an iPod is great, but it's no substitute for excellent sound reproduction from remastered CDs and many analog recordings. I think there will always be a niche for people who love music and want to listen to LPs and CDs

[jeannettelj]

You can still go to your local library and browse CDs. Our local library has hundreds of CDs and continue to get new ones almost on a daily basis. Check it out.

[Sky017]

Some say the music industry did this to itself:

1. When CDs were introduced and people complained about the price, the music industry said, well "there aren't that many players (devices) out there." However, even as more people bought players for their home, car and walkmen (discman)... the price of CDs didn't drop proportionally. To compound matters, the CD media dropped to costing cents and CDs didn't really drop all that much in price.

2. So I must buy a CD of 14 mediocre songs to get the 2 good ones that I like? Yeah, right. Please don't blame the kids for averting this... this... almost-scam.

3. Slow to change their business model, and ATTACKING consumers. It took Apple with a LOT of effort to show the music execs how to do the new model (I only want to pay for the song I want) and still make money. Previously, the music industry was just attacking the youth, with lawsuits, letters, and piracy guilt trips. How do youths rebel? (download for free.)

Finally, the nail in the coffin has been Apple lossless, and other high quality versions of songs. Initially, yes, the MP3s were moderate quality in order to save disk space. But now that capacities have gone up, the high fidelity versions of the songs are available.

At any rate, it has long been said that from eons ago, artistes made their money from live performances. That still applies, with the added avenue of merchandising (which is now much easier than before.) Downloads and videos being available on Youtube is not the menace the music execs think, they are now the absolute BEST and most effective form of marketing available, and STILL people buy songs to support the artistes. But because of point 2 above, people are buying less.

The only thing, is that in this new world order... it's survival of the fittest. The music Execs don't make the next stars... the 'community' does. This is what they are getting their knickers in a twist about... the music execs have lost control.