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Replace Your Music....Again
sethadam1 writes "I was not at all surprised to find that experts are predicting the death of the compact disc in as little as 5 years. This article over at Ananova suggests the next format of music will be little fingernail-sized cards. As cool as these sound, is anyone else worried that sneaky industry folks might try to distribute all new music in DRM'ed WMA files?" Yeah, this description sounds basically like bigger Magic Gate, that wonderful situation where you can pay more than normal to get DRM. Update: 11/13 16:45 GMT by H : As RobertB-DC pointed, this is sort of a dupe - see our previous article.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
This article isn't about the death of compact discs, it's about that new storage medium they've discovered that was already reported about. Death of compact disc is just Ananova's bullshit spin on the topic.
Jeez, maybe Hemos should RTFA before posting.
Compact discs could be history within five years, superseded by a new generation of fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts.
Scientists say each paper-thin device could store more than a gigabyte of information - equivalent to 1,000 high quality images - in one cubic centimetre of space.
So they are fingertip sized, paper thin, and a cubic centimeter? I'm having trouble forming a mental image of this...
You can buy music in a fingernail card in Toysrus with rhe little reader for 10$ (Can) and you can buy card with two or three song for +/- 5$ (Can)
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
One thing I can't help but wonder is how these changes in the medium we distribute music on will effect the low-budget independant musician. As a musician that's tried to produce albums without the help of a record label I have to wonder if a medium like this could do wonders for bands with no money and big dreams. I know a few years back it was rather expensive just to produce cds in bulk and cds are very inexpensive. But now, if they have these little polymer chips, it should be of almost no cost to the musician. Anyone else follow my thinking?
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
Does anyone else think that fingernail-sized cards for music is a BAD idea? I have enough problems keeping track of CDs sometimes, these things would be incredible easy to lose.
Of course, the RIAA would love that - "Sorry, you'll have to buy another copy!"
Giant EMP'S!
Tell me Mr. Anderson, what good is an mp3 if you have nothing to play it on?
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
It really was only a matter of time before a new format with one or two new features (and a few glaring flaws to be fixed in the next format) would be introduced as the replacement to the compact disc.
The Ananova article focuses solely on the implications for music storage. That will, no doubt, be a major application, but the important part of the story is: permanent, reliable storage with a data density of 1 GB/cm^3, for God's sake! This seems to me like a major breakthrough that will have implications far beyond whether we can or can't rip an MP3 of the latest disposable pop star of the week's manufactured hit single.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The researchers claim: "turning the invention into a commercially viable product might take as little as five years". Would that turn out to be true and this device takes off, it'll still take a few years to push CDs out of the marketplace. Though I'm certain the RIAA would love to sell you your music colllection all over again, that task would likely take years more to complete.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Yes, we all know this article is a dupe, but Ananova slanted the data to look at CDs in particular.
The problem with replacing CDs with this technology is the form factor:
Scientists say each paper-thin device could store more than a gigabyte of information - equivalent to 1,000 high quality images - in one cubic centimetre of space.
I have enough trouble finding my CDs in the car without having to worry about them blowing away in a stiff breeze. If size were the issue, CD Singles would be released on half-size discs... in fact, many pop albums don't seem to have more than 30 minutes of music anyway.
The best way to incorporate this technology in a consumer-oriented music distribution would be to enclose it in a larger plastic enclosure with an interface to the player. Something like this, perhaps?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
This news comes as fresh amusement because I am on the verge of converting my CD collection to cassette tape. Cassettes are cheaper media, devoid of DRM, and my car came with a cassette player by default.
I don't dislike CDs, but every CD player I've owned has eventually broken, while my portable cassette players from the '80s are still rollin'.
I'm pretty darn sure that whatever The Corporation decides will be The Next Best Thing, I will still be able to dub it to tape.
Considering things of that nature are already available with current technology, shitcanning CDs in favor of these little cards isn't really necessary.
However, if they're willing to sell these things at a reasonable price as the primary medium for music, and end the gouging that exists with CDs, I'd consider it a step forward. If it's just a new medium the industry can overcharge for, then screw it.
I don't think that the future of music lies in its media format. Those days are gone.
But, I agree with the parent, the big future is distribution. Of course, that is what everyone is talking about now- creating a new method to download music.
What the music is stored on will be secondary. Some people will put it on a hard-drive, some on Compact Flash, some will burn CD's.
The CD/DVD media is not too bad, but carrying around an entire CD for just one album sucks. More CD players will be able to play MP3/WMA/(insert your favorite codec here).
Who cares what the music will be stored on in retail stores- nobody will be getting their music there in 5 years anyway.
No reason to lie.
Why waste money on more expensive solid state distribution methods when we already have a cheaper solution working today?
There's absolutely no need to sell new fingernail sized cards that replace CDs, when they can just distribute over the internet. If anyone needs to carry around their music, then they can just buy memory cards and move their music around on those.
And on another point, if they start selling fingernail sized cards, are they still going to package them in CD size boxes and waste more space than they have to?
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Maybe they could put DVD-like things on there - special features, commentary, 5.1 surround sound. It might actually make buying these things worthwhile.
I noticed that when, for awhile, they tried to do this exact same thing under the name "Enhanced CD-ROM", it was more or less a commercial flop..
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
'Oh great, now I have to get the White Album all over again.'
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
In the UK, the large supermarkets started undercutting record shops by importing from other EU countries. The record company response was to start releasing "special editions" for the UK with video clips/a few extra crap tracks/remixes.
Most people won't pay the extra money for a few gimmicks. It was music quality and size that sold CDs. People have a replacement on the size front - MP3 players. They won't do much more about quality.
A DVD has a volume of 13.56 cm^3, and stores up to 17 GB (2 sides, each dual layered). That yields a density of 1.25 GB/cm^3, and I was being generous by including the hole in the volume measurement. Surely they can do better.
Also, seeing as this hasn't come out yet, it will compete with other future products, like blueray, which weighs in at 23.3 GB/side and 3.4 GB/cm^3.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Let's look at the history of digital storage media and copy protection:
* Floppy Disk - lots of stuff got tried, it all got hacked.
* Hard Disks - lots of stuff got tried, it all got hacked.
* Removable Media - lots of stuff got tried, it all got hacked.
* CDs/DVDs - Still trying lots of stuff, it all got hacked.
* Removable RAM/ROM storage - been around forever, and for the most part has mostly been hacked.
* paper thin thumbnail size media - stuff will get tried, it will get hacked.
You would think in 30-40 years of computer technology that someone would figure out it's next to impossible to secure digital information FROM BEING DUPLICATED.
The paper thin, thumbnail media is cool. DRM is a waste of time and money.
-- $G
When cassettes came along, they offered an advantage that appealed to customers: they were small enough to take with you.
CD's offered improved sound quality and much better ease of use (no more fast forwarding, rewinding, or turning the media over to hear the rest). They also avoid the glitches or pops that other media develop under normal wear and tear - CD's only scratch from mishandling, not from the laser wearing them out. These advantages allowed them to overcome their (artificially) higher price and initial read-only limitation
Other media have been proposed but not caught on. 8 tracks briefly flourished, but offered no advantages over a cassette tape, yet were bulkier and more annoying to use. Mini-discs offer only small size, which isn't enough. Audio DVD's have improved sound compared to CD, but this hasn't proven sufficient reason for anyone but an audiophile niche to take much interest.
On the other hand, MP3 has slightly lower sound quality than a CD, but has gained widespread acceptance, much to the RIAA's chagrin. Ease of use surpasses even the CD, and the portability problem has been solved - a person's entire music collection can fit into their pocket, or listened to across a (high bandwidth) network with no physical media at all. A bonus for the user is the upgrade path. Rather than it being easier for the user to buy all the music they already legally own/license/whatever over again, a CD ripper is all that is needed to move your previous investment into the modern times.
In this landscape, where does this new format fit in? What does it bring to the table that would compel joe user to embrace it at all, much less buy all his existing music over again? Sure, it's small, but not as small as an MP3. Manufacturers might bump the audio quality up to THX level, but that would only give a benefit to those who have both a discerning ear and high end audio equipment. Price could be dropped to entice people to switch, but the RIAA isn't that intelligent. Extras and bonus materials could be offered, a la the DVD, but that would take a lot of work from the publisher and probably be passed on as a higher price, further stacking the odds against acceptance.
In short, I don't see what advantage this would offer would be that is compelling enough to get anyone to adopt it.
Farnsworth: "This is a chance for Fry to test out my experimental MP3 pill."
Fry: "I can't swallow that!"
Farnsworth: "Well then, good news! It's a suppository."
Of course they will! Now, naturally they will have to start out a little more than CD's, but just to recoup the equipment investment. But soon the prices will drop dramatically!
Really!
No, no. This time they will!
Promise!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Maybe if the plan were to distribute the files electronically and have them stored in bulk on one of these things the way you'd use a flash drive, but a fingernail sized format as the primary physical medium of music distribution? How on earth would these things be packaged and stored? We could have miniature jewel cases for them, or little binders, but what about the labels? How would you fit "The Mighty Mighty Bostones: More Noise and Other Disturbances" or "Beethoven Symphony No. 7, Movement 2, performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach"? And what about track listings?
Can you imagine having an Altoids tin of tiny little chips labelled with teensy-tiny ittie-bitty text, and trying to find the album you want to pop into your portable music player, while standing in a subway car or say, while driving? Can you imagine how easy it would be to lose one of these things or swear profusely as a strong gust of wind just blows them out of your car window into a fluttering confetti of $10 albums?
I'd much rather see larger-sized storage mediums with greater capacity and do away with physical distribution of music altogether.
One reason is that portions of WMA are covered by PATENTS. Until those MS patents expire, MS can absolutely control who can legally implement players for the content, and the terms under which they are allowed to do the implementation. For example, the license may include large monetary penalties for failure to honor the DRM flags. Unlike the situation under DMCA, which attempts to block reverse engineering on copyright grounds, and may be subject to overturn on the basis of fair use precedents, reverse engineering of patented techniques has always been illegal and the case law all supports that.
I can't find the links, but IIRC, at least one open source program for converting between different media formats, has withdrawn support for WMA because MS threatened them with a patent infringement lawsuit. The only real defense against an existing patent is to invalidate it in court, which can be a VERY expensive undertaking.