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Is the Physical CD Still A Viable Market?
An anonymous reader writes "With iTunes and P2P networking dominating the online music scene, does the physical CD have any place in our future? Slyck is running an article on the study conducted by the NPD Group." From the article: "Since its peak sales year in 1999, there has been a steady deterioration in the number of physical CDs sold and shipped. The most immediate blame is typically placed on piracy, however over the course of the last six years this has proven superficial to reasons of more substance."
There is no way that i will fork out money to have a lossy compressed DRM encumbered file, If i'm to continue to buy music it will have to be in CD format.
It doesn't matter what he XORs against, as long has he XORs against the same thing twice. I think you should go and beat yourself over the head with a clue stick. Repeatedly.
Generally it's a good idea to do some basic fact checking before you start mocking someone.
Pirate Party UK
Not sure from your post whether you're aware of this or not, but FLAC is a lossless format. Most FLACs are exactly the same quality as CD, bit for bit, and the exceptions are usually higher (not lower) quality.
Copying a few tracks off a library CD is more like copying a few chapters out of a book. And, yes, this usually crosses the line from fair use to copyright infringement.
I take it you haven't upgraded iTunes for a while. JHymn still doesn't work if you have installed iTunes versions after 5.0.1. The current version is 6.0.4.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
At th thought of not owning physical media with an album. Plus I think the CD has a bonus of liner notes, art etc. I realize most people don't care about this, but I do.
Current technology permits printing to your own CDs. You have the Canon and Epson inkjets, as well laser etching as with Lightscribe via HP and LabelFlash by Fuji & Yamaha, or wax transfer as with the Signature printers. While inkjet is spiffy enough, it's not as spiffy as a true blue silkscreened disk in terms of durability. Wax transfer is OK, at least water proof, but the wax will scratch off. Lightscribe/LabelFlash are monochrome only.
The cover and booklets are, in the most simple terms, paper and ink. Making your own covers is a time consuming task and people using OEM ink on their printer can make one but at the cost of bucks a piece, where as commercial printing can produce a better product in bulk on mass for less. I've said this before but the best way to cash in on the pirate market is to offer for sale licensed covers and booklets for the consumer as a form of license to listen to the media no matter where they got it from.
Even those who don't care about booklets and cover art might care about a disc with a spiffy spine that they can spot on a shelf, rather than a slew of unmarked cases. This is something worth paying a few bucks each for.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Year CD sales0 06-01-04-music-sales-main_x.htm)
2005 598.9
2004 651.1
2003 635.8
2002 649.5
2001 712.0
2000 730.0
(Source:http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2
Music CD's (by artists) are certainly on a dependable decline, and this is quite understandable for obvious reasons; but these same reasons are leading to increased sales of blank cd's (as mentioned above). But the cost of a 700 mb CD vs. the cost of a 4.7 gig conventional DVD already favors the DVD as a media storage device. On top of that, dvd-rw drives are becoming increasingly standard on new PC's. The CD's days are numbered.
'Rampant piracy' doesn't significantly impact sales. Over 1,000,000 sales on iTunes agrees with this (the same tunes are _all_ readily available from p2p at the same or better quality)
However, DRM also does NOT make the slightest difference to piracy, rampant or otherwise.
The average time for an ordinary CD to appear on p2p networks is about 6 minutes after it appears on store shelves.
For a DRM-protected CD the average time is about 6 minutes.
For an iTunes-only track, the average time is _still_ only 6 minutes.
The only people even the slightest bit bothered by CD copy-protection and DRM on digital music files are the legitimate music purchasers. Seeders know how to bypass it. P2P downloaders never even see it.
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At our bands site http://www.myspace.com/timflanaryband we market an idea, not just music. We feel that people want to buy something that they can hold in their hands. I believe our marketing techniques are working. Sure there are plenty out for instant gratification. Whenever I'm really into a band I want their CD.
If your friends can reliably pick the difference between high bit rate MP3 and CD then you are obviously informing them somehow of which is which.
Chanc_Gorkon wrote as part of a post:
I think the writer is referring to an audio CD made to the Red Book standard. By definition a CD with compressed audio files is not a Red Book Standard CD.
It is the same issue with copy protection on "CDs." If a CD contains copy protection, it is not a Red Book Standard CD.
Universal play is one of the features that has made CDs successful. When the CD standard was being proposed there were several different formats being proposed, including one involving 12 inch laserdiscs, as a successor to the LP and 45. A main reason that CD has been successful is that only one format came out and it is playable on all players.