Slashdot Mirror
BMG Stops Producing CDs
An Anonymous Cow writes "The register has a new story about claims by Bertelsmann that they'll stop manufacturing uncrippled audio CDs. More can be found on Bertelsmann's own site (info by region, Europe only). Trouble playing it in your car stereo? According to BMG the error is your player's, and not their CD's. Quote: 'As far as we were advised, our copy protection is according to the Red Book Standard as well as all labelling on the cd.' In English: they don't even find it necessary to indicate on the CD cover that it's copy protected, nor do they think it advisable to listen to Philips' objections against using the CD logo on crippled discs, instead there's a label claiming that the CD is fully Red Book-compliant. It looks like this is a test case, because only all European CDs will be crippled."
How can you claim a device not able to play Red Book compliant disks is a CD player?
"BMG attaches great importance to assuring that the copy protection used does not lead to restrictions for consumers with respect to listening pleasure. Those who play back their purchased product on a standard home CD Audio player will not notice any difference at all."
... New trends and
talents can only emerge if music is bought..."
Does this mean that I cannot listen to CDs on my computer without being concidered a consumer without respect to listening pleasure?
"In the long term, massive copying deprives music-makers of their very livelihood.
I prefer listening to musicians who play music because they enjoy it, not for the money. As for the veri livelihood, I'd say that the ability to sample non-mainstream artists without having to stand in line at my local music store has made me by more CDs than ever before. I suggest that this assumption is down right wrong.
"...this decline is attributed to a large extent to unauthorised CD-R copying."
Or perhaps due to a downwards tendency of the entire economy. Sales will fluctuate, so don't blame the customers, make new and better products.
I suspect they're engaged on some wacko conspiracy: "Do as much as we can to lose money and then blame it on customers. And then, once we've reached bottom, we'll ... um ... well, we haven't figured that part out yet. Our goal is to simply piss off consumers, hit bottom, and then blame folks."
What's interesting is that three years ago I was an active CD buyer. I was constantly buying stuff at Best Buy, was a member of all the CD clubs (even though that wasn't making anyone much money), and buying CDs on-line weekly.
Now, I've stopped. I won't buy another CD because I have no idea whether or not it will play in what I want to play it in, and I have absolutely no desire to try to bring it back to a place like Best Buy or send it back to a place like CDNOW or Amazon.com.
Instead, I'm enjoying my "old" CDs, installed my old Technics phonograph, and actively search out obscure stuff -- mostly CDs, some vinyl -- in local record stores. My music listening experience has gone way, way up, and I'm spending less than ever -- but finding stuff I like.
And I'll occasionally drop into Kazaa to listen to new stuff and try and determine, say, why Justine Timberlake is putting out new albums that sound like vintage Michael Jackson or why U2 and Aerosmith insist on putting out a new greatest hits album every other week or why Bob Dylan's *old* stuff is far and away better than anything he's put out since Infidels (which was, IMHO, the last good Dylan album). But that's about it.
So, yes, to the RIAA I say this: if your goal is to piss-off customers and lose them permanently -- congratulations!
Watch as a new generation of young people (ages 6 through 16) hit Kazaa. Then Gnutella when Kazaa shuts down. When Peekabooty when P2P is getting hammered by **IA.
It's great news! I'm not being sarcastic. When they have to go to such lengts to protect a dead business model, all we have to do is sit back and laugh. And teach our familes how to use WinAmp or iTunes.
They FUNNY SHIT is this... I'd gladly pay PER SONG for an OGG download. But $20 for crap on an obsolete medium (CD's)? HA! Never...
Again, in short, they are dying and this is the first sign. enjoy the ride, you'll tell your grandkids about this.
A quote from BMG's website:
Two years ago, on a worldwide basis, one digital copy was made for every three music CDs sold. Last year, that ratio had shrunk dramatically to one-to-two. In 2001, for every CD album sold, one copy was burned.
Actually the statistic I read is that in 2001 for every CD album sold, one CD-R disc was sold. Obviously we can't assume that every single CD-R disc sold in the world was used to copy a copyrighted CD. Based on my experience in statistics and research methods regarding sampling and surveys(Psych major),I'm fairly confident that no one will ever be able to claim how many CD-R's were actually used to copy copyrighted material, so any numbers they throw at us should not be believed.
My personal theory is that the surge of independent music(which is easily accesible on the internet)is really why the major labels sales are down. Not only is independent music usually better, but it's available for free on P2P's all the time(which is why killing Kazaa/Gnucleus/etc. would seriously hurt the independent musician, and give more power back to major labels). I guess I'm preaching to choir here at slashdot though.
"...One scratch could literally kill your CD."
Sounds like they want stem piracy and to increase cash flow by resales because of "SCRATCHED" CDs. That's what they liked about vinyl. When you just can't stand the POPS & SKIPS on "Dark Side Of The Moon" any more, you buy another copy. How did you think it stayed on the Billboard Top 100 for over 10 YEARS! Damn those seeds!!!
It also reduces the second-hand CD sales like Half.com. Some indipendent music stores were being pressured by the record companies not handle "Used CDs" (...or is it Perviously Owned?).
Any way you look at it, increased cash flow is the main motive. Buy once, buy often.
>> Practice Safe Hex
I'd like to point everyone to cdbaby.com.
It's the best record store I've found anywhere. It's full of independent artists in every genre you could want. They have a sweet feature where you search for a band you like, say Limp Bizkit or POD, and it gives you independent artists like Stink!#Bug or Burning Edge. All the albums for sale have at least half of their tracks available to listen to before you buy.
If you aren't happy you can send your CD back for a full refund.
They even have a wide selection of jazz and classical performances.
I guess the artists get a pretty fat percentage of the profits from the CD. Much more than they would get if they were signed with a major label.
I'm not affiliated with CD Baby in anyway except as a very happy customer. Super happy. Happy happy happy. I've never been so happy about my relationship with a business.
If you are like me, you love music but don't support the rape of artists by major labels. CD Baby is the best place I've found to satisfy my cravings for great tunes. All of the CDs I've purchased from them played on my computer just fine, and ripped to ogg with no problems.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
But this is all so silly. Look, most people know the following..(you didn't? ok, now you do.)
The audio degradation experienced by ripping a CD via analog means (by either plugging in a cable into the line-out of the CD player and recording with any PC recording application, or using the 'Rip to Analog" feature of Musicmatch) is far less than the degradation produced by MP3 compression.
Since six years of MP3 has shown us that for the vast majority of people, even 160kbps MP3 encoding is "good enough," how will this stop their music from being pirated?
Very few people actually rip and upload...Gartner and Forrester both agree that 95% of mp3 content on P2P and other filesharing systems comes from less than 10% of the community. All you need is one guy to rip the content to analog, then upload. BMG will see no net reduction of pirating of their content.
Irnonically, the only ones to suffer from this inane decision are those who legitimately purchased the "CD." They will be plagued with a hobbled, limited-use product, which may actually convince them that P2P is actually a more convenient choice. No one else will even notice, as they will continue to download the content.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
1000 users with 500 different versions of the music.
1000 users with 100 different versions of the music.
The later scenario provides five times as many sources for the same version album, so you will find it will become easier and faster to get the album, due to many more sources of HASH compatible files! Go BMG!