EMI Exec Says 'The Music CD is Dead'

Anonycat writes "Alain Levy, the chairman of EMI Music, made a speech at the London Business School declaring 'the end of the music CD as it is.' He went on to say that most CDs are simply used for ripping onto digital audio players. Levy adds that by the beginning of 2007, all EMI CDs will come with additional material to make them more attractive to the consumer. Revenue from CDs still outranks revenue from downloads by better than 6 to 1. Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs? What material would you like to see?"

Comments

What Is He Smoking?

[eldavojohn]

Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs?

I think that EMI executive found his way into one of his recording artist's 'secret stash' because his perception is not only different from statistics (6 to 1 is still a large advantage) but also different from what I desire as a consumer.

There are three letters that keep me buying CDs: DRM. As long as the only legal route to purchase music online is DRM encrypted music, I won't take part in it.

Granted, there are a ton of people out there that don't realize that they rely on iTunes to decrypt their music for them, I don't know how people can spend so much money without physically receiving anything. They aren't even getting a guarantee that they can play that file for the rest of their lives! They would have to burn it to a CD to ensure that.

I'll appreciate the added content to a CD but you don't need to do that to convince me that I should keep buying physical media. Hell, if you want to win back people, maybe you should get the word out that the iTunes TOS is downright shady?

I will admit that the first thing I do with a CD when I buy a new one is CDex it to high quality MP3 format. Then I put it on the shelf never to be played again. Why? Because that's my master copy that won't ever be scratched or stolen or lost. I may use MP3s to play my music, but I don't distribute or download them illegally. I'm well aware that I am copying them without consent but the only person that ever uses those copies is myself so I'm not afraid of a court case. Not one bit.

If the CD format is dead, you're going to have to figure out some way to get a physical master copy to me or I'm going to be upset mighty fast. I think if you remove this from people, some will start to miss it. And the second people realize that Apple's 99 cent deals were set by Steve Jobs & guarantee you nothing, I think there will be quite the demand for the 'ancient' physical media.

Is this just a case of 'I have it so hard! We need to change our business model, please feel sorry for us!' or am I the only one that thinks this dude is crying that the sky is falling?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[sugapablo]

The CD will not be dead, so long as people still wish to hear a higher quality than they can get from compressed audio.

Or until record companies stop producing them.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[xENoLocO]

Which they don't and which they won't.

My grandma doesn't care about DRM. Only we do.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[no_pets]

My sentiments exactly. Wish I had mod points.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[From A Far Away Land]

Since Weird Al put videos on his music CDs, and I discovered mix mode discs in my CD burning software, I've thought that most audio CDs should come with data tracks. That's before DRM was common on music CDs though, and I've nearly changed my mind, thanks to malicious companies like Sony Music who release rootkits to damage your computer.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[elcid73]

"don't know how people can spend so much money without physically receiving anything" Really? Maybe some people don't really *want* to have a vault of pristine music. I like music as much as the next guy, but what good is the lastest Jack Johnson CD going to do for me in 5 years? I don't want to *rent* my music sure... but I don't need to fort knox it up either. As a side note, I cleaned out a storage room in my house and found tons of crappy CDs sitting around my house. I threw them all away. I understand your argument though, not being at the whims of the man and all that....but 99 cents for track is more than enough for me to get my use out of a song for a "foreseable future." Most tracks I just listen to for a year or so before it's never listened to again. I don't care about the song, so why should I care about the medium? If there's something like a Pink Floyd album or something, i'll go out and buy it the way I want it. ...anyway, at the very least, iTunes keeps me from cleaning out closet.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[meregistered]

I agree in general but with one part in particular: no DRM.

Here's what would get me buying more music:
1. Cheaper Prices
2. No DRM or other idiotic shcemes
3. No racketeering and intimidation tactics from the RIAA and MPAA (and similar organizations in other countries/regions).

Currently I buy very little music. I used to buy a lot more music. #1 put a stop to that (for CDs) #2 prevented on-line sources from replacing CDs, #3 creates a desire for the death of the recording industry as it has existed for the last 30+ years through today (and decreases my desire to even care about music)

I suspect we won't get much of either until the RIAA is defeated in court a number of times more.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel so incredibly sorry for you. Disposable music is a plague on our society. Here's an idea, don't buy the shit that you hear over and over on the radio--instead buy the stuff that actual has meaning for you. Chill out to Iron & Wine or enjoy Bloc Party, there are bands out there that write good lyrics and catchy tunes that don't sound like New Kids On the Block after their 15 minutes.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[iocat]

You know what burns me up... The whole reason we switched to CDs from records and cassettes was supposedly the higher fidelity of CD audio. Now we all listen to crappy mp3s that sound like cassette tapes. wtf?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[lanemcf]

I really hope people return to this comment in five to ten years, if for no other reason than to ask "who was Bloc Party?"

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Crazy Man on Fire]

They aren't even getting a guarantee that they can play that file for the rest of their lives! They would have to burn it to a CD to ensure that.

Just a nitpick, but you aren't guaranteed that you'll be able to play music for the rest of your life no matter what the format is. The CD format, just like any other format, is not going to be around forever. The industry is going to march on, and eventually consumers will follow. How many people do you know who have a large cassette tape collection that is practically useless now?

Not to mention the fact that CDs degrade over time. Unless you make duplicate copies every so often, your CDs will eventually become unplayable due to decay.

Even with sheet music, you'll likely need your hands to play and your vocal cords to sing, both of which you may lose.

There's no such thing as forever.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

People will start to miss their CD's real fast, seeing as Windows needs to be reinstalled on a yearly (sometimes bi-yearly) basis! I don't personally use iTunes, but I'm assuming there's no way to retrieve your purchased music after formatting your hard drive.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[troll -1]

But you can still have the same quality in an audio file without compression. The problem with CDs is that with the advent of the Internet they're a very inefficient and expensive way of moving data.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Hoi Polloi]

If it lasts longer than my lifetime it is as good as forever unless it turns out that reincarnation is real.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Hatta]

what good is the lastest Jack Johnson CD going to do for me in 5 years

Exactly as much good as it does now. Good music is good music whenever it's made. If your music purchases don't withstand the test of time, you have crappy taste in music.

I cleaned out a storage room in my house and found tons of crappy CDs sitting around my house.

Why did you buy all that crappy music?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your Grandma is dead *you insensitive clod*!

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[whitelabrat]

I think eldavojohn nailed why I'm still buying CD's. DRM sucks. I've bought a couple songs, but my DRM got messed up. No more songs for me. The CD goes into the computer and gets ripped. And I don't share. As an ex-musician I understand ya gotta get paid or you'll end up working in a used book store the rest of your life.

The CD does come out occasionally when I want to get better than mp3 quality from my custom Audio Nirvana (commonsenseaudio.com) speakers and 41Hz amp4 (41hz.com) amplifier. But for everyday portability (Palm T5) mp3/wma is it.

Quite frankly I think that thanks to services like Rhapsody, or Yahoo Music I'm buying even more CD's. I will spend an extra buck or two to get my hands on a hybrid SACD or DualDisc version, because I do appreciate 24bit-ness.

Traditional CD's are overpriced though. Manufacturing should be a whole lot cheaper for the media these days.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Gr8Apes]

1) I generally pay between $7 and $10 for a new CD. How much cheaper do you want it? Granted, this means I pay attention to sales for those I actually want, but it can be done.
2) ditto - DRM is stupido
3) while these are disgusting, they're not near as disgusting as the formulaic crap that the industry puts out these days under the onus of maximizing their profits.

What still amazes me is who draws the large crowds, and who doesn't. What band of the last 5 years is going to draw the attendance of say, the Rolling Stones, U2, or even Bad Company or Cheap Trick in another 5 years? (I can't think of any that recieve top 40 radio play on ClearChannel or Inifity...)

And therein lies the true crime of the recording industry as it has devolved. It no longer looks for talent, it "creates talent", or at least it thinks it does. Which is why, when a group like the Killers or Franz Ferdinand or The Bravery pops up, I get hopeful that perhaps, just perhaps, we may get another group to add to the "good" list. (the opinion's still out on two, one's already failed)

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[danpsmith]

If the CD format is dead, you're going to have to figure out some way to get a physical master copy to me or I'm going to be upset mighty fast. I think if you remove this from people, some will start to miss it. And the second people realize that Apple's 99 cent deals were set by Steve Jobs & guarantee you nothing, I think there will be quite the demand for the 'ancient' physical media. Is this just a case of 'I have it so hard! We need to change our business model, please feel sorry for us!' or am I the only one that thinks this dude is crying that the sky is falling?

This may be true, maybe some people want a physical master copy of everything, but once people get a taste of what true digitization of media means (no more flipping discs, no more even rising from your couch to change between a selection of 100s of movies as storage increases), the want for physical media will eventually pass us by. And this isn't a bad thing. As you stated, right now physical media is the only way you can guarantee yourself of having an actual copy of what you bought, but this won't always be the case. Pirated media lasts forever. My MP3s will forever play on my player, will forever play off of my computer and as TV/computer convergence becomes more mainstream this will be the case for more and more people. The benefits of digitization are just too huge to worry about a little loss in quality in one album.

I don't think it's a bad thing, personally, but I do believe that if DRM takes off, people will be very frustrated and be looking to go back to physical media, or will never leave it to begin with. The technology already exists, it's the artificial limitations that are keeping the dream of a media-free entertainment industry from taking off. They are afraid of what it means. Even as an avid downloader, as my posting history will show, I would not be afraid to purchase digital, restriction free media at a fair price. Fair means taking out the chunk they've forever pretended was due to production costs, it means paying for the content itself, and the cost should be reduced greatly. If you only own two CDs, it makes more sense to have actual physical copies, but if you have a large base of people who want to listen to a lot of music experimentally, and want to be able to access large amounts of media at any time from any device you have to lower the price. There's a reason why people are getting more eclectic music collections nowadays: and the reason is digital downloads. I wouldn't have bought most of the CDs I listen to nowadays, I wouldn't listen to the same type of music. If you make it cheap for someone to check out an artist and expand horizons, they will come in throngs. If you continue to make the illegal road easier than being legal and continue to try to fight human nature: enjoy the battle. Because you aren't going to win.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[elcid73]

Based on your assumption of the importance of music as the fabric of our society, I'm surprised you didn't list "Wyld Stallions" in your list.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[handsome b]

Yeah. Or until somebody creates a Free Lossless Audio Codec... That would be sweet. I wonder why nobody has done that yet?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[legoburner]

I think we can probably start counting the days until HD MP3 is marketed (complete with over-the-top DRM), if it is not already out there. There are already hardware players out there that support FLAC and other lossless formats, the only problem is that you are right and there is no real consumer demand as it sounds good enough. I personally think the major shift to CD (and DVD) probably had more to do with track skipping, weight and reliability than audio quality (though audio quality was obviously better and something that many people appreciated once it was there, they would have still made the switch if the quality was the same or perhaps even slightly worse).

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[blugu64]

Heck I can do that right now! Who is bloc party?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[eric76]

Decay is certainly a problem with CDR and CDRW because of the dyes.

It is much less of a problem with factory pressed CDs. When I saw the first CD player under $200, I bought one. That was something like 1985 or so. At the time, the big music stores were pretty much all LPs and tapes. CD selection was very limited. The store nearest my home at the time was in a large mall. Their total area dedicated to CDs was a table about 2 1/2 feet square.

20 years later, even those CDs are still very good.

I have heard of a rare form of decay that does affect factory pressed CDs - some form of fungus that can grow into the CD between the layers.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[fourchannel]

Ever heard of FLAC?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Apocalypse111]

Actually, if you fill a car with CD's and drive them from one end of the country to the other, you've got some incredible bandwidth there. The problem with that model is, most people don't want that much data at once, they want smaller amounts on a whim, and quicker. The internet is very good at providing that.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[SQLGuru]

The only media that you can be sure will be playable in many years is vynil. If you have an unscratched master CD, but there are no CD players, how will you do it? You can make a working record player out of a motor, some gears, and something pointy on a moveable arm. to hear better, you might consider some sort of amplifier, and I'm not talking about the electronic type....think low-tech cardboard megaphone.

Links for the do-it-yourselfer
http://www.discoverengineering.org/cool_things/cd/ cd_cool_thing_page.asp
http://www.arborsci.com/CoolStuff/cool14.htm (section 4)

Layne

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[DragonWriter]

The whole reason we switched to CDs from records and cassettes was supposedly the higher fidelity of CD audio.

The reason I switched is that CD's, while they might fail entirely, don't gradually degrade.

Oh, and random access.

Now we all listen to crappy mp3s that sound like cassette tapes.

If the cassette tapes I actually had sounded like MP3 files after a year or five, and had instant random access, I probably would never have switched to CDs in the first place.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[SevenHands]

Parent just posted truthfully that CDs deteriorate over time - enough to threaten data loss in the timespan you are describing. Decay times can be from as little as 5 years for a CD-R to decades for a factory stamped CD. Obviously if you kept the CDs in a chamber with constant humidity/temperature and no air currents never using them, you will probably end up extending the life. As far as the medial outlasting your lifetime, I highly doubt it, unless you eat at McDonalds alot or walked uphill to school both ways when you were young...

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[iangoldby]

That's before DRM was common on music CDs though

Remember that a shiny music disc that incorporates any kind of DRM is not legally allowed to be called a CD. The reason is that it doesn't conform to the Red Book standard.

Discs with DRM should not carry the CD logo. If you find one that does, you might mention it to Phillips...

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Reziac]

Similarly, I don't buy DRM'd shit, and tho I'll sometimes download, I don't distribute. I buy CDs mainly to have a pristine-quality backup of the MP3s that are my everyday fare.

Given that, here's my marketing thought for the day: Buy a whole album worth of unencumbered MP3s, and get the CD as a free bonus.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[elcid73]

Because this is america and I can buy whatever the hell I want!

Ok.. so I have crappy taste in music. What difference does that make? By all your arguments, I should only buy the best music ever made that is worthy of archiving and maintaining in my personal library for all of time? I don't want to! good or not.

Can't I still admire and respect music for what it is, but not listen to it anymore? What rule is there that I have to keep all my old favorite high school CDs around whether I liked them or not? I don't plan anytime in the next few years to fire up Pink Floyd and sit around with my buddies on Saturday night. And the time in 10 years when I do want to do that for nostalgia purposes, I probably won't find the CD anyway and won't really care. We'll all get on with our lives.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Pharmboy]

From the article:
...all EMI CDs will come with additional material to make them more attractive to the consumer.

Isn't that all was Sony was trying to do, give you some free software when you bought their CDs? ;)

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[monopole]

Dead on.
I rip and keep my CDs as a safeguard against failed hard drives, and the rise of better rippers and formats. I use the Nintendo Play-Yan cartridge as my primary mp3 player, so DRM is out of the question in any case.

If I can't rip, I won't listen anyway since I've become accustomed to having dozens to thousands of tracks handy for listening at any given time.

The same holds for DVDs, I buy them, and if they aren't "big screen" content, I often transcode them to my Play-Yan to watch during travel.

Books are heading the same way. I buy the book, but "obtain" an e-book for my PDA simply to have it on hand for when I have a chance to read. Make that multiple dead tree copies to give to my friends if the book is good.

I'm happy to pay for the content, but I want no DRM and the ability to transcode to portable formats.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Pharmboy]

Fair Use says you are supposed to be able to make archive copies, thus using it forever. DRM bypasses Fair Use, and the DMCA makes anything that can impliment Fair Use illegal.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[elcid73]

I feel really sorry for you for assuming that everyone else in the world puts the same level of importance into music as you do.

I feel really sorry that you assume everyone has to have the same level of appreciation of music as you. I feel sorry for you that every piece of music you've purchased has been exposed to more scrutiny, quality assurance, and testing than the friggin' Space Shuttle.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Golias]

The whole reason we switched to CDs from records and cassettes was supposedly the higher fidelity of CD audio.

Early CD audio was inferior to a good turntable. The adoption of CD players happened because:

1. An "okay" CD player was cheaper than a "barely acceptable" turntable.

2. Records are a royal pain in the ass to keep clean, unbroken, and unwarped. Mere house dust can damage them forever, and even simply using them as intended in a mythical perfect environment will degrade them eventually.

3. Cueing up tracks on a record is kind of a hassle on most players.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[amRadioHed]

Amen. Sure, not all the CD's I bought five or six years ago get much attention anymore, but still barely a week goes by that I don't listen to an album by Bjork, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Sleater-Kinney, or the Pixies which I've had for well over 5 years. I'm confident that more recent albums by bands like Wilco, Arcade Fire, Flaming Lips, and Postal Service will still be enjoying regular spins in my car five or ten years from now.

Good music doesn't get old, just look at the Beatles or the Velvet Underground.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[bismark.a]

The music distribution industry has a problem with the CD format. And it is spelled R-I-P. I have heard of people who borrow music CDs from friends or libraries and steal content by RIPPING.

Nefarious DRM methods has bought Sony a lot of trouble and a deserved acid response from the media and public. ( I still think Sony got away lightly. Imagine an art gallery selling paintings which can leave a hole in your wall to allow the whole wide world to come in and out as they please into your house. )

So iTunes etc. enabled DRM protected music is a convenient means for the distribution companies to protect their copyrights.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, awesome. Instead of selling the CDs or even GIVING THEM AWAY, you chucked them in the trash to sit in a landfill for thousands of years. Nice job, asshat.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[elcid73]

When did I ever say I'm against buying a CD (or physical media) for great music?

Why did you buy all that crappy music?

Girlfriends, gifts, for parties, learning what I like, realizing what I don't like... you know- life.

If your music purchases don't withstand the test of time...

...then maybe I shouldn't by the CD and put it in a protective casing? Maybe, if it's not going to stand the test of time... just maybe I should only spend a dollar on a crappy encoding that is sorta mine, but not really. But if it is, maybe I should take measures to ensure it's around when I want it.

It's halloween, I'd like to get some scary music for my front yard, and there's going to be a party at my house with some coworkers. So, I should just go straight for the "Bloc Party" CD because of the awesome lyrics and great music, and everyone will be happy then?

My point is there's room for both. The OP said s/he didn't understand how anyone could pay for nothing and not have something tangible.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[dgatwood]

You forgot:

4. You can't put a record player in your car, on your belt, or in a rack.

5. You can't fit a record (even 45 RPM) in your pocket.

Of course, #5 is the reason record contracts still have breakage clauses... except that instead of breakage, it's 5-finger discount.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[operagost]

Not only that, but my records used to skip like a bitch when I played them in the car.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Teun]

Last week I replaced my audio cabinet and rediscovered many old CD and records.

I remember clearly why I went to CD from records, I was so pissed off with the scratches and other noises they suffered!
And that was using some high quality turn tables.

My oldest CD's are >20 y/o and all sound as good as new.
Several of the old records have (due to not perfect storage) gotten a little warped and the noise because of dust, scratches and the rest (rumble!) pisses me off as much as when I put them away!

What 'extra' do I want with my 22 Euro CD? A 10 Euro voucher.
What do I want with my 99 cent download? A certificate of licensing that can be used when the download needs to be repeated.
After all, the RIAA claims we're not 'buying' the music but only paying the license to listen to it, I want a (paper) proof of that license.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[elcid73]

Oh.. so I'm getting beat up by music purists for not exacting the same standards on picking music as I do in a wife, and now I'm supposed to impose this stuff on others?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[swiftstream]

There are three letters that keep me buying CDs: DRM

Well, if that's the case, there's a simple solution: just rename the technology to something else, say, Purchased Privilage Enforcement (PPE). Not only does it more accurately reflect the manner in which the technology is protected by law bought and paid for in Congress, but if you deemphasize the final E when you say the acronym it's so fun to say people that people will start laughing.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Golias]

Actually, if you fill a car with CD's and drive them from one end of the country to the other, you've got some incredible bandwidth there.

Some simplified math:

A car holds, what? 600 CDs in the cases (assuming room for the driver)?

Let's call it 1000.

A typical album is around 45 minutes of music, let's call it about 410 MB. That's 410,000 MB

Driving from LA to NY takes just over 41 hours, according to MapQuest.

That's 10,000 MB per hour, or 2.78 MB per second.

The trip is 2780.82 miles, so At 20 MPG and $2/gallon, the transfer will cost $278.08, or $100 per MB of data.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[CastrTroy]

Everybody always get's this wrong. It's a CD, you can call it a CD. You can't call it CD-Audio. But it is still a CD, because it follows the blue book standard. Which means you can't call it CD-Audio, but you can call it an Enhanced Music CD.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Hatta]

By all your arguments, I should only buy the best music ever made that is worthy of archiving and maintaining in my personal library for all of time? I don't want to! good or not.

Well clearly I'm not going to make you do anything. I just think it's silly to buy something you're not going to want to keep. Consider perhaps that if you care so little about it, maybe you don't like music just as much as the next guy.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[cpuh0g]

What still amazes me is who draws the large crowds, and who doesn't. What band of the last 5 years is going to draw the attendance of say, the Rolling Stones, U2, or even Bad Company or Cheap Trick in another 5 years? (I can't think of any that recieve top 40 radio play on ClearChannel or Inifity...)

It's hard to tell. U2 didn't draw huge crowds immediately. Even after they released their 3rd album, "War", in 1983, they were still basically an opening act or playing small venues - and Oh, don't I regret not seeing them in a club back then (I was in high school/college at the time, Im an old man now). Check back in 5 years and see which of the big acts of today are still relevant or if you regret not seeing some of todays bands while they are still playing bars and clubs.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[iangoldby]

Thanks for the clarification. I was thinking of the CD logo, which as you say is the CD-audio logo. Still, CDs with some form of copy protection generally don't carry the logo.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[wuie]

Oh come on. The codec programmers don't need that kind of FLAC.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[guap]

Yes, I'm surprised no one has created a FLAC, too... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC) or (http://flac.sourceforge.net/) I salute the insightful humor of your post :)

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't even getting a guarantee that they can play that file for the rest of their lives!

Funny I didn't get that guarantee with my 500 plus albums or any 8-tracks, other tapes or cd's for that matter. Probably want to take that part out of your rant.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Jonny_eh]

You're probably being sarcastic but I'll offer this link anyways:
http://flac.sourceforge.net/

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[CastrTroy]

Maybe we should have an option then. Buy a disposable copy that will expire in 2 years, for much less than the CD, or buy the CD which will last forever. My biggest problem with iTunes is that the prices are about the same as a CD, sometimes more, sometimes less, and you get an inferior product. The only advantages are the ability to purchase single songs, which I rarely ever want to do. If a musician is good, they should be able to create and album where all the songs are at least good. The other advantage is that you get the song now, when you want it. Although I don't think that such a big deal.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[elcid73]

Maybe I like music *more* than the next guy. Maybe I want to experience many types of sounds, styles, artists etc. Sometimes I succeed in finding something I like but most of the time I don't. Why is it silly to spend time and money in pursuit of education/learning?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[metamatic]

Five years? Pah! I have CDs I've owned for 20 years that I still listen to, and CDs of albums recorded before I was born that I listen to.

(Yes, I was a very early adopter of CD.)

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[DestroyAllZombies]

Still true even further down the line. I still listen to CD's that are more than 20 years old. And I mean the CD, not the music.

Of course I had to go through the winnowing precess from LP to CD, and that makes a difference. The music I wanted I gradually bought in CD, and the rest of those LP's are in the same fake milk crate I had in Jester Center. A lot of Genesis, Gang of Four, other things haven't worn very well on me. Guess it's time to head on down to the used music store ...

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[tepples]

Yeah. Or until somebody creates a Free Lossless Audio Codec... That would be sweet. I wonder why nobody has done that yet?

Because the Free reference implementation of FLAC distributed through sourceforge.net is available only in the C language, not as a netlist for insertion into a hardware player's ASIC.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok.. so I have crappy taste in music.

Not entirely crappy. After all, you did acknowledge that buying Pink Floyd albums on physical media is worthwhile. :D

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[elcid73]

So do I.

But how about the ones you *don't* listen to anymore. Those are the ones I'm talking about. If you're telling me your entire CD library from 20 years ago is just as relevant/meaningful in your life as it is today...well, I'd say bravo good sir.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[klang]

No wonder the record Excec want's to elliminate the CD.
DRM can not be passed from father to son.
Material containing DRM has no value after it has been paid for.

Fair Use, is the downpayment for the protection the Law gives for a (supposed) Limited time to Copyright owners.
The Protected material should go into the Public Domain after a limited time, otherwise the copyright owner gets protected for free for ever.

It is asumed, that the Public Domain is paying taxes to the State that facilitates the Law that protects the Copyright Owner.

Use DRM and you shouldn't get the protection paid for by the people.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Chosen Reject]

If your music purchases don't withstand the test of time, you have crappy taste in music.

Which is exactly why buying CDs is stupid. A lot of music is fluffy filler type crap. I'm not talking about the latest trendy stuff. Personally I think a lot of the Beatles stuff is really good, but I had a friend who had all/nearly all of their albums. I listened to some and found that the stuff that wasn't played on the radio was pretty much junk, not all of it, but a good portion of it. Now my music tastes are different than yours maybe, but the only albums I have found where I liked every song have been Nirvana's Nevermind and Weezer's blue album.

So, if the music doesn't stand the test of time, or even isn't tolerable to listent to at any time, why should I buy it? That's where iTunes comes in. I buy only the songs I want and immediately burn and rip them. No DRM, no crappy songs. If you have CDs, maybe you don't have DRM (maybe), but certainly you have songs that aren't going to be classics, and that is independent of whether you like AC/DC or Ashley Simpson.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Woldry]

"Skipping Bitches" should have been the name for a punk band ...

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[davecombs]

A typical album is around 45 minutes of music, let's call it about 410 MB. That's 410,000 MB
The trip is 2780.82 miles, so At 20 MPG and $2/gallon, the transfer will cost $278.08, or $100 per MB of data.

Sorry, but 410,000MB (410GB) that costs $278.08 to transfer is $0.000678/MB, or about $0.68/GB. Your $100/MB is only about a factor of 150,000 too high on the cost. Nice try, though.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an IT consultant and when my clients are looking to secure their networks they are usually ready to lock everything down to do so. This is not a good idea of course because to do so would mean interfering with legitimate network traffic and software communications. The same applies to DRM, Windows Vista, etc. My client's biggest frustration; Just make the technology work so an idiot can use it. What they mean is, I don't care how it works, just make it do what I want easily and don't care about the technicality of it all. I want my internet to work without fuss too but that does not mean for one second that I want AT$T, Comcast or any other ISP securing my connection to the point that I can't do what I want on the internet whenever I feel the urge as long as I am not PHYSICALLY hurting someone else. This is a free country. Free means free. Free to do well, free to do badly. Free to get caught stealing, free to investigate, and free to make up my own damn mind. The word is control and no individual in this country should ever compromise on their freedom or personal control. Currently I can download whatever I want, whenever I want and that is how it must remain. And the music industry in general is learning. Unfortunately what they are learning is to keep the DRM movement strong until they force the security measures through and no one understands what they do or how they work. The more security put into place the less user friendly things become, in any arena. What to do? Find a balance...If security means I having to give up rights (digital, civil or otherwise)...I don't buy it. You sell me a CD, it is mine, I should be able to make a million copies FOR MYSELF and listen to them wherever I want. It is not we the consumers who need to change our habits and adapt to yours (RIAA, etc.) but your responsibility to deliver what WE the consumers want at OUR discretion. Copyright laws are the source of all of these arguments -- copyright, intellectual and other laws need to change to favor the consumer, the individual (human, not corporation) person. Here's a suggestion, STOP PAYING THESE ARTISTS FOR YEARS! No, I'm not taking away from the artists but I am saying that most of them make more than the rest of us in a lifetime off of one albulm and maybe that is a bit excessive.

No, I don't feel bad for what the music industry claims are lost revenues from the file sharing networks. 1) Because of the excess. It's sorry to feel bad for a fat man who only has a meal with soup and salad to eat instead of his normal 7 course buffet! 2) There is little supportive evidence that p2p is the cause and a lot of evidence to show that p2p is an excellent source of free promotion and advertisement for music and that if the consumer likes what they download, they buy it! It's called try before you buy and it works. Don't mess with it if it ain't broken. I have an idea. When artists write a song and sell it, they (or their estate) should receive royalty payments for a MUCH shorter period of time than is currently allowed. Why not? I don't keep getting paid every time a new user starts using networks I setup. Or should I? I mean heck, every new user is benefiting from my intellectual prowess and know-how. So shouldn't I get paid whenever someone new access and benefits or finds enjoyment from said network? Maybe I should be getting paid royalties for the next 40 years from every user on the network whenever they log in, and I can install key loggers and network monitors to ensure no one gets a free ride. If they do, I'll sue them and put them in jail. My god, what is happening to this once great country and the people who suck up oxygen within its borders?

One way or the other the market is going to have to force the industry. If we force our politicians to keep the RIAA lobbyists (hell, all lobbyists for that matter)from suckling their genitals, then maybe too the voters can force legal change and put the power back in the consumer, voter and tax-payer's hands.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Lemmy Caution]

See, I don't see any point in attacking anyone's taste, or anyone's disinterest in music. What I do find ridiculous are claims that there is "no good music out there," that people won't buy CDs because "the music sucks."

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[stang]

Some simplified math: [...] the transfer will cost $278.08, or $100 per MB of data.

Some better simplified math:

There are places that sell CDs all over the country. They manage to make a profit by selling a CD with roughly 500MB of data for $17, including:

• Manufacturing
• Record company and artist profit
• Transportation

So although a car may not be the most efficient form of surface transportation, ground shipping can be pretty cost effective. And increase the bandwith by a factor of 30 if we're talking about a semi full of 2-disk Special Edition DVDs.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[JasonTik]

I have to take issue at the comment about 600 or even 1000 CDs. While in their cases, perhaps, this is true, I would put said CDs in spindles if I wanted to transfer large amounts of data. Doing that, I could fit your 1000 on the passenger seat alone, without any stacking.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Hoi Polloi]

I just got a 8gb Sandisk mp3 player and it has really increased my listening of CDs I haven't listened to much in the last few years (XTC, The Jazz Butcher, Wire, etc). Not having to plan ahead on what CDs I want to listen to has made a big difference.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[jimicus]

Two minor issues there:

1. Absence of the CD logo does not guarantee that the product is not a redbook CD.
2. The record buying public does not appear to give a shit.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[handsome b]

From the FLAC site:

A whole new batch of devices and stores support FLAC: for portables there are the iAUDIO T2 and iAUDIO F2, TrekStor's Vibez, the Onda VX737, and the AP3000 from Green Apple. For the home stereo, Slim Devices' Transporter and Ziova's CS510 and CS505. For music in FLAC format check out digital-tunes for electronic and underground, or FestivaLink.net for live shows.

Bluedot's BMP-1430 portable supports FLAC.

AudioReQuest's new S.Series music servers support FLAC.

Cowon's A2 now supports FLAC with the latest firmware, and Olive's new Opus both plays and records to FLAC.

The new Iwod G10 portable supports FLAC.

Want some FLAC with your Volvo? Volvo's Digital Jukebox, developed with PhatNoise, is fully integrated with the car's audio system and available for the S60, V70, XC70, and S80. PhatNoise's PhatBox in 2002 was the first device to support FLAC natively and has gained a loyal following.

It looks to me like there is ample choice for playing FLAC on a portable, in your home or even in your car.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, what? 278.08 / 410,000 != 100

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[A Friendly Troll]

I will admit that the first thing I do with a CD when I buy a new one is CDex it to high quality MP3 format.

Why? Storage space isn't an issue as it once was, when mp3's were starting to hit the scene and 128 kbps was "good enough". I remember I used to pay the equivalent of $10 to a friend's friend to get a burned mp3 CD...

Anyway, I rip my CD's with Exact Audio Copy (offset-corrected) and archive them with FLAC on high-quality DVD media (plus leave a copy on the HDD). Covers and booklets are scanned, CUE sheets verified. In the end, I have a bit-exact copy of the original, and I can fit a dozen CD's on a single DVD. As a bonus, should I ever buy a Rockbox-compatible audio player, it will be able to play my music.

Give it a try. mp3's are a thing of the past.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[elcid73]

Agreed... and I never said that at all.

I buy CDs of music I like for artists I like. There's just not that many out there that I like. So I buy iTunes tracks for stuff I think is ok, but my life isn't over if Apple sends all my songs to SkyNet and enslaves us all.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[cayenne8]

"But how about the ones you *don't* listen to anymore. Those are the ones I'm talking about. If you're telling me your entire CD library from 20 years ago is just as relevant/meaningful in your life as it is today...well, I'd say bravo good sir."

I gotta say....pretty much, YES....most all of my entire collection...about 300+ cd's and much of it 20+ year old music...is indeed to me just as relevant to me, as it was when I first discovered it.

I am like many of the others that have responded to your views of 'disposable' music...most everyone I know in my age range...if they enjoy music a lot...don't ever think of it as 'disposable'. I don't know one would have that attitude? I never buy stuff I really don't like....in fact the opposite. I have to generally really like at minimum 2-3 songs on an album, and usually I've listened to most of the rest of it....before I buy the CD.

Again, maybe it is because I am from an older generation. Did we have better music then than now? Well, that is arguable. I love the old groups and own most of their entire collections...Zeppelin, Stones, Beatles, The Who...hell, even The Beach Boys and Chuck Berry. But, my tastes in music for the most part....has some bit of the old blues somewhere in it...with either driving guitar riffs...or great vocals or melodies. But, hell...I like old Metallica too...

IMHO, somewhere in the progression of music....there was a break in what had happened always in the past...one generation took from the previous one, and built upon it....50's to 60's to 70's...and even into the 80's I guess....but, somewhere in the 90s' I think music got 'lost'....but, again, that is debateable...but, I don't see much in music that takes from the past...I don't see real musicianship in today's music....in general...what happened to next Hendrix, Page or Van Halen? Where is a good lead guitarist?

Maybe something happened to make todays music more disposable than that of the past. I think that is sad...I love the music of my time and before my time...often while listening to it...I flash back onto friends and times when those songs were new to me..

Another thing I do see....is that young people today...don't appreciate good sound reproduction...I dunno what happened there. I started putting my stereo system to gether since I was about 12...over the years, I've bought, replaced, upgraded....till I got the system of my dreams. And yes, on it, you can hear the difference in a mp3 and a CD...even with my hearing loss over the years..hahaha. But, so many of today do thing...'good enough'. I don't mean you have to spend a ton of money...I didn't at first, I sure wasn't rich, but, I did hear expensive, very high end systems, and knew from a young age what things could sound like in a home. I dunno when kids stopped caring about how good the reproduction was. Is it that todays music isn't recorded well....or is it that there is less musicianship and imagination in songs that it makes no sense to listen with good fidelity? I guess if all you listen to is a thumping bass line...well, what reason is there for midrange and treble..if there is none in a song....

And I guess there is no denying it....people are different. To me...music actually moves me..at times, on an emotional level...at least the music I buy does. Maybe that is the difference...

But I have to wonder...if music isn't that imporant...if it doesn't move you...to tears or to wanting to destroy the walls in your house, or on some level....why do you buy it at all? is it nothing more than background noise?

Maybe it just all boils down to that....but, who knows....I'm just rambling, and throwing out possibilities....

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[stunt_penguin]

Hey, it's never too late now, is it?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[ShieldW0lf]

Early CD audio was inferior to a good turntable.

Another way to put it might be "CD audio remains inferior to a good turntable."

The only thing CDs were superior to was low-fidelity analogue tapes, and that only because they don't stretch. At no point were they ever superior to vinyl. Why do you think DJs still use vinyl even though we have digital mixers? It's not because they're Luddites, it's because digital sound is inferior to analogue sound. Period.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[mbeckman]

I will admit that the first thing I do with a CD when I buy a new one is CDex [sourceforge.net] it to high quality MP3 format. Then I put it on the shelf never to be played again. Why? Because that's my master copy that won't ever be scratched or stolen or lost. I may use MP3s to play my music, but I don't distribute or download them illegally. I'm well aware that I am copying them without consent but the only person that ever uses those copies is myself so I'm not afraid of a court case. Not one bit.

There's a better reason to not be afraid of a court case. Copying your CDs yourself for backup purposes, remixing, or any other personal use that doesn't involve giving the music to other people, is a permitted use under copyright law. The DMCA doesn't apply at all to your act, since you aren't disseminating the copyrighted work nor are you distributing a means to circumvent copyright. A useful, clear explanation of fair use is online at http://www.eff.org/cafe/gross1.html.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[KingVance]

The small sacrifice in sound quality is well worth the portability and flexibility that comes with the format.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[elcid73]

For what it's worth- I'm only 29 and almost all my CDs that I own are from your generation of the music you've listed and further still...I also have old Country like Hank Williams, J. Cash, and Motown- Smokey Robinson and the Miracles etc, and lets not forget the smooth stylings of Johnny mathis. I'd wager that about 80% of my library was recorded well before I was born. Anyway, the point is, I agree that something is lost.

But yes... I agree that music moves you. My only point is what's wrong with buying some music that you think is just ok every once in awhile. "yeah, that song's kind of catchy...."

So you said you were picky about buying a CD saying that you'd have to like 2-3 songs before you'd buy it. Me too! except it's usually 3-4 songs. :) I just use iTunes for albums that only had just one good song on it you know? Or for trying out a new sound... and new type or genre of music. I give a good run and if I like it, I test around more, look for whatelse I might like. Sometimes, that leads me to go out and buy an album of stuff I really like. ...I don't know, I don't see what's so terribly wrong with that. But slashdot seems to think I'm mr. DRM himself.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[nasch]

It's not because they're Luddites, it's because digital sound is inferior to analogue sound. Period.

By what measurement? Meaning that you should have some scalar value where the number produced when measured CD output is worse than the one from LP. Signal-to-noise, frequency response, etc - how is LP better?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[soft_guy]

The reason I switched was so that I could pay more and not have cool artwork and liner notes.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Firehed]

Most people can hardly tell a difference, if at all. Even with a pretty decent set of headphones or speakers, I generally don't notice a difference between original CD or lossless rip and midrange MP3 (I generally rip to 192k VBR, though I have an unfortunate amount of 128k CBR content as well). Now I hear audiophiles cringe at the very thought, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, most people my age seem to have no problem listening to music so loud that it's distorted by the speakers and with the equalizer set to completely ruin the music.

Of course, given what most people listen to, the quality of the actual sound is the least of my worries.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[ButHed]

If your idea of music is the latest hot hit by the Doovie Groovie Weenie Wagglers or some such drivel, then the degraded sound quality of lossy formats is probably a good thing. On the other hand, there are people to whom sound (and music) quality are important -- hence the persistence of analog (ie. vinyl). Even though CD's are not perfect, they still sound better (to many people) than most MP3, and so will continue to have a market.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[advs89]

Exactly, physical music CD's are my Anti-DRM. And like the parent poster mentioned, it is technically breaking the law, but you are not very likely to get targeted by the RIAA for ripping an audio cd and copying it to your Zen or mp3 player or whatever (notice I didn't say iPod - I do not like iPods - not flamebait, just my plain honest opinion). They are not "losing money" from this, and whereas with P2P, it could be argued that they are. (and in many cases, I think they truly are...)

So basically,
I agree with the parent poster. Physical audio CDs are the best way to go, and one of the most popular. You are fairly safe legally, and you have unrestricted access to the music. And besides, Where do you think the people on P2P services are getting DRM-free music? iTunes?? No. They get them from CDs that they purchased from a store. CDs are not going anywhere.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[TheRaven64]

Early CD players were inferior to a bad turntable. I have a CD player from the early days of CDs and the sound quality (with the same amplifier and speakers) is noticeably worse playing audio directly from CD than it is ripping to 256Kb/s AAC and then playing back from my iPod. The DACs in the early models really were very poor indeed.

Now, I can tell the difference between a CD and an audiphile's turntable (where everything is weighted and he's spent ages setting it all up), but a CD sounds better than a turntable that hasn't been properly calibrated.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[jkauzlar]

I generally pay between $7 and $10 for a new CD.

In Seattle, I have trouble finding a new cd (that I want to hear) for under $12. I've seen sales lately for cd's at a sale price of $14.99. (the new Decemberists album) I finally found it at $12.99 so I bought it and deleted my pirated copy. Usually I can't afford to buy every album I want to hear, so I have to wait until they show up in used bins for $9, which is a pretty reasonable price.

What band of the last 5 years is going to draw the attendance of say, the Rolling Stones, U2, or even Bad Company or Cheap Trick in another 5 years?

This question has always interested me. U2 was one of the few bands created after the mid 70's that can consistently draw stadium crowds without necessarily being entertainment-page stars or continuing to release high-quality records (some would disagree). A big cause may be that up to the early to mid-70's, what was good was also what was popular, for the large part and the counter-culture, which traditionally produces the music that we consider great, was enormous back then and had an unparalleled amount of influence. Since then, both the counter culture has softened and the music industry has become infested with money and marketing. Additionally, in the 60's and early 70's, rock music, as an art form, was in its infancy and an artist had far more freedom to explore new ideas. We'll never be able to say we've 'heard it all before', but most people don't listen closely enough to care about the subtle differences between today's Minders and the old Zombies, or whatever example you choose. The Beatles, Dylan and the Stones could create masterpiece after masterpiece without sounding pretensious, because no one had actually done it before.

There's a partial answer in there somewhere, but mostly I think it's something nostalgic, or a chance marketing thing: U2 became huge because fans *wanted* another Beatles or Stones and they wanted it for themselves and could live up to it.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[rlp]

Actually, if you fill a car with CD's and drive them from one end of the country to the other

Let's take this into the surreal. You take 10 spindles, each with 100 Blu-Ray disks. You load them into the back seat of your SR-71. You fly coast to coast in 64 min. That's 50 TB transferred, for a bandwidth of 13.02 GB / sec.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[L.O.Newman]

If the music you're listening to doesn't inspire you and move you, then you're either listening to the wrong music, or you're not listening properly.

Why so uptight about someone being able to appreciate quality that you can't?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, I can tell the difference between a CD and an audiphile's turntable (where everything is weighted and he's spent ages setting it all up), but a CD sounds better than a turntable that hasn't been properly calibrated.

Why don't you try to see which one sounds better double blind?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he's insecure, and doesn't really like listening to britney spears... but does it anyway because all his insecure friends do too.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between this and a physical CD is the protective cover containing album art. My proposal is simple- a lossless audio codec that contains the album art as a wrapper to the file. We'll it "the FLAC jacket".

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[tm2b]

A car holds, what? 600 CDs in the cases (assuming room for the driver)?

I don't think many people moving that many CDs around keeps the jewel cases. I've done this - if you use "binder sheet" style containers in file boxes, you can fit about 1000 CDs into a file box.

You can fit at least 20 file boxes into a medium sized car with one driver. So 20,000 CDs.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[jkauzlar]

First of all, guitar solos and 'riffs' are pretty much considered dead among the 'elitist' listeners. The White Stripes' Jack White and Ryan Adams have been trying to revive some of that 70's stadium rock sound, but while he could probably fill a good-sized venue, I don't think most would consider them to have the staying power legendary stature of Jimmy Page or esp. Hendrix. Much of the efforts in 'indie' music today is concentrated on textures, both in the small scales and large; putting different types of music together or creating albums that stand as a whole, rather than a collection of songs: see Destroyer (their latest album Rubies), Neutral Milk Hotel's 'In the Aeroplane Over the Sea', the Microphones 'Glow Pt 2' for some prime examples, and the last year alone we've had Sunset Rubdown, the Islands, Danielson's 'Ships', Frog Eye's catalog, and a host of others that take up where 'prog' left off with Eno and Bowie in the late 70's (probably not considered prog, but an improvement over the prog boom that ended in '74 or so) in one way or another.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Gr8Apes]

That's the thing, though. They grew slowly and over time, putting out album after album. They weren't really recognized for their initial work until several albums had been produced.

The current "crop" is 1-3 album blitz with the first being the "hit", and you never hear from them again. Usually subsequent albums are overall worse than the first, and generally there's not even one song on a later effort that even reaches the median of the previous effort. (IOW, they blew all their "talent" in a single album)

The Bravery, the Kaiser Chiefs, and She Wants Revenge all have some promise, although the Kaiser Chiefs might be a little too much like New Kids on the Block. Their sophomore efforts will tell.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[DeadChobi]

I do the same thing with my music CDs. That's what makes them attractive to me. Sure, it's a little piece of plastic, but it's also a hell of a lot more resistant to damage than a CD-R, less of a data-integrity worry than a hard drive, and competitively priced when you take the lyrics booklet, discography, and shiney case into account. Not only that, if a better-quality form of compression becomes available, I can just rerip from my originals instead of paying another dollar per song. At that rate, to replace my entire collection if it consisted of iTunes downloads, I would lose about a thousand dollars. Imagine paying that every few years to update encodes. Compared to that buying iTunes songs is like bending over in a prison shower. You don't own the data, the content is locked, and you can't play it on anything other than an iPod without some hacking. Don't get me started on the iPod user interface.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Gr8Apes]

In Seattle, I have trouble finding a new cd (that I want to hear) for under $12. I've seen sales lately for cd's at a sale price of $14.99. (the new Decemberists album) I finally found it at $12.99 so I bought it and deleted my pirated copy. Usually I can't afford to buy every album I want to hear, so I have to wait until they show up in used bins for $9, which is a pretty reasonable price.

You need a Fry's in your area, along with several Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Walmart (as much as I never shop there). Fry's generally does release week specials around here at $8.88. Target sells for 9.98 or less. BB and CC usually have specials weekly (sunday ads) that sell CDs, especially for little known bands (at the time) for under $7. (The Kaiser Chiefs, Killers, and Bravery were all had for $6.99 at Best Buy. NIN With Teeth DVD dual disc was gotten for $8.99. She Wants Revenge @ CC for $7.99)

I'm not saying that it's easy, esp if you buy these before they've ever hit airplay. I generally check out what's for sale, and do some combination of download/buy and listen. If I don't like it and I bought it, I return it. If I do like it, voila, I bought it cheap. e.g., the Killers are now regularly selling for $11.99 at the cheapest sale, $5 more than I paid before they hit the airwaves. As I'm mostly interested in new acts and a few select existing acts, I'll generally risk it for a new act that's being promoted. They'll usually have at least a single decent song.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Wyzardking]

Man that was awful! Where are my mod points when I need them? :)

Good idea, though. I like how you can store images (album art) in mp3 tags. On my todo list is a Desktop Sidebar plugin that controls Media Monkey/WinAmp; it'll show the artist and album as well as any album art stored in the mp3 tags (if it exists). Now I just gotta figure out how to do it. :)

Wish they'd release the source code for the existing Winamp plugin; that'd make my project a lot easier.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[mikael]

Again, maybe it is because I am from an older generation. Did we have better music then than now?

Music bands became popular through a different way in the past than they do now. In the past (at least in the UK), local nightclubs/pubs would pay local band to play live. This would give them feedback in making their music. From that, they could become famous. Unfortunately, the owners soon realized they were missing out and demanded that groups pay them to be allowed to play. So the music companies have to do the national marketing now...

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[burndive]

This is known as a "music subscription." It's a business model employed by Napster and others. It's one of the very few tolerable usages of DRM, since you're clearly not "buying" the music, you're just renting access to it for a period of time.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[ShieldW0lf]

By the measurement that it is an analogue medium.

It's like the difference between a film negative and a digital camera. The digital camera can grow in quality until it far surpasses the demands of the market, but it will never get even vaguely close to the quality of film.

It's the same with quality vinyl recordings. A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. No information is lost. The output of a record player is analog. It can be fed directly to your amplifier with no conversion.

You can find a good explanation of it on how stuff works:
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.h tm

Digital has many benefits, but quality isn't one of them. As a general rule, anything that's digital is of vastly inferior quality to its analogue counterpart by definition.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Kesh]

Then how is it I can regularly back up my iTunes purchased music, hmm? And even transfer it to another machine, if I like!

DRM does not instantly mean all Fair Use has been stripped from the product.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[astrosmash]

Granted, there are a ton of people out there that don't realize that they rely on iTunes to decrypt their music for them, I don't know how people can spend so much money without physically receiving anything. They aren't even getting a guarantee that they can play that file for the rest of their lives! They would have to burn it to a CD to ensure that.

Sorry, but that's an asinine comment.

If the CD format is dead, you're going to have to figure out some way to get a physical master copy to me or I'm going to be upset mighty fast.

Here's how: Click, click, burn.

You've got it completely wrong. People know damn well that their music only plays in iTunes, and they know damn well that they can burn their music to CD for backup purposes. Most people don't care.

Since when have the record companies guaranteed that the music you purchased will play forever? They haven't. But the ultimate reality is that music purchased from iTunes can be backed up permanently far easier than has ever been possible with other music formats. That's important to people like you and me who buy music to collect music, people who cherish their music collections. But you and I are not most people. Most people don't care.

Good advice today would be to burn all of your purchased music to hard copy, primarily because hard drives can crash, but also because there may be unforeseen DRM hiccups years down the road. Most people don't listen to that advice, even though iTunes nags you to do just that. Most people don't care

Good advice in the 70s would be to handle your albums with extreme care, touch only the edges, and clean regularly with a special brush and solution. If you don't, your album will get wrecked. Most people didn't follow that advice. Most people don't care.

We may be music collectors, but for most people, their music collection today will end up in a box in a garage sale 10 years from now. So what's your problem with DRM again?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[senatorpjt]

and the AP3000 from Green Apple.

It seems like it would be easier to just call your company "Lawsuit".

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[7Prime]

If you're comparing the average mp3/acc (which tends to be 192kbps these days) to cassette tapes, then you need to go back and relisten to your cassette tapes, because you are FAR off base. Even as an audio engineer, many times I have to really listen to hear the inconsistancies of mp3s. I'm not saying they're perfect, but there are many other much more important things to worry about: namely the quality of the player, DAC, amplifier, and speakers. Cassette tapes leave loud tape hiss and have a highly degradated frequency/response curve, FAR worse than the slight flanging you hear with standard quality mp3s.

That said, even as bad as tapes were, people didn't switch from tapes to CDs because of their quality. Well, that was maybe part of it, but it was more the supposed durability, random access, and general convenience of CDs that really sold them. People will almost ALWAYS choose convenience over quality. MP3s are far more convenient, now days, than CDs. I carry a 60GB harddrive on my belt, called an iPod (you may have heard of it), that includes my entire CD collection of 400+ albums, plus my entire resume of both my musical compositions and my video works. I have all that in about 30lbs of boxes. More convenient? I think so.

It's only a matter of time before everyone's main stereo system takes some sort of non-physical media, and everyone has a wireless hub in their home. Then the CD will truly die. When iPod drives become 400GB, standard, for video and everyone can stream non-lossy audio files off the internet, I think we'll start to see the disappearence of lossy audio, so the mp3 is most probably a stop-gap at worst.

Eventually, we won't even have our music files on our own computers. They will be streamed to us, wirelessly, on demand, and we won't have to ever worry about physical media breaking down, hard drives going out, or anything else... accept fucked up DRM

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[MojoStan]

I will admit that the first thing I do with a CD when I buy a new one is CDex it to high quality MP3 format.

Why? Storage space isn't an issue as it once was...

Anyway, I rip my CD's with Exact Audio Copy (offset-corrected) and archive them with FLAC on high-quality DVD media (plus leave a copy on the HDD). Covers and booklets are scanned, CUE sheets verified. In the end, I have a bit-exact copy of the original, and I can fit a dozen CD's on a single DVD.

I think this is getting a little off-topic, but I need add my opinion. I agree 100% that your method (EAC -> FLAC -> DVD backup) gets superior results compared to the GP's method (CDex -> MP3).

However, I think "proper" EAC setup and use (there are so many options) is still a little complicated for many users. I think CDex with "paranoid" rip settings is much easier to use and gives "good enough" results for most users. CDex is MUCH better than using iTunes, Windows Media Player, or Winamp to rip CDs.

Personally, I prefer Foobar2000's new ripper with "paranoid" settings. FLAC and Ogg Vorbis encoders are built-in, and it's easy to add LAME MP3 (LAME settings are included, but not the executable for licensing reasons). As an added bonus, Foobar2000 doubles as a good audio player too (Columns UI).

Burning FLAC-encoded CDs to DVDs is what really got my attention. I wish set top DVD players/changers would add FLAC playback the same way CD players have added MP3 playback. I think I can burn every Led Zeppelin album onto one DVD in FLAC format. Wouldn't it be cool to play them off of one DVD?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[SillyNickName4me]

First of all, a lot of music is used as 'background' rather then being listened to consiously, and often in environments that have a lot of background noise themslves usually.

Dropouts on tapes and scratches and dust on records are still quite noticable even on a low volume and when not listening consiously. This is not the case with the typical artifacts of audio compression like mp3 uses, so for many people mp3s provide a noticably better quality then what came before the CD.

I have a nice homebuilt amp and speakers, but nothing really special, and many visitors to my place comment on how old fashioned records that I play at times sound better then CDs on their home equipment (and no, they don't sound better then CDs on my equipment in general, but with some notable exceptions like the first Tracy Chapman album), and I would not be surprised if the difference between a somewhat decent mp3 file and a CD is barely noticable on the equipment most people use.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[SillyNickName4me]

Digital has many benefits, but quality isn't one of them. As a general rule, anything that's digital is of vastly inferior quality to its analogue counterpart by definition.

This is true, but of limited practical value.

The problem is that making a perfect analog reproduction is inmensely expensive, and with current analog electronics actually impossible due to the inherent noise of current technology analog electronics.

For practical applications, you can exactly quantify the losses of digital reproduction, while you can't in the analog case. You can make estimates, but unless you measure it, there will be uncertainty due to tolerance of components.

For this reason alone it is already easier to create somewhat good digital playback equipment.

With enough money and know-how, you can in many cases buy or build equipment that provides a better analog reproduction then any consumer grade digital media can provide, but for the same money, you can often also obtain much better digital equipment, and in both cases your next problem will be obtaining high enough quality media.

Whatever sounds more pleasant to your ears is an entirely seperate discussion.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[metamatic]

I have enough of a CD storage problem that if I decide there are CDs I never listen to, I sell them. I've only sold 10 or 20 over the years though.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[SillyNickName4me]

If you're comparing the average mp3/acc (which tends to be 192kbps these days) to cassette tapes, then you need to go back and relisten to your cassette tapes, because you are FAR off base. Even as an audio engineer, many times I have to really listen to hear the inconsistancies of mp3s. I'm not saying they're perfect, but there are many other much more important things to worry about: namely the quality of the player, DAC, amplifier, and speakers. Cassette tapes leave loud tape hiss and have a highly degradated frequency/response curve, FAR worse than the slight flanging you hear with standard quality mp3s.

I completely agree with your comment about the importance of good playback equipment before worrying too much about the quality of the medium. The same however applies to casette tapes, and there the type, age and accuracy of production of the casette mechanism and tape also play a big role. A 'high-end' consumer casette player employing hx-pro and dolby-s with a very good new metal oxide tape, comes very close to CD quality in most measurable aspects, and can surpass it quite a bit in frequency response. The studio decks you as a sound engineer should have access to should be able to do a bit better still. Of course most people don't own high-end players and tapes, not to mention degradation of tape due to age and bad handling.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Schemat1c]

You know what burns me up... The whole reason we switched to CDs from records and cassettes was supposedly the higher fidelity of CD audio. Now we all listen to crappy mp3s that sound like cassette tapes. wtf?

You must not be encoding your MP3's at the highest bitrate. I encode all mine with the latest lame encoder at 320KB/S. They sound just as good as CD's and with storage space being so cheap the extra size is okay. Of course if you want exact CD quality just encode with FLAC.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[dubonbacon]

he meant $100/(MB/sec) I guess

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[valindar]

I don't know what CDs you buy, but all the ones I buy have cool artwork and liner notes.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[steve_bryan]

Oh gosh, what a load of obscurantist nonsense. Yes, the Steinway in my living room produces much better sound than any CD or vinyl record so in a sense analog still occupies the top of the pyramid. But both CD's and records are mechanical contrivances for capturing and reproducing and they both fall short. If you spent enough thousands of dollars on your overpriced tube amplifiers, exotic turntables and wall sized speakers some of the more objectionable distractions from the music killing process of mechanical reproduction could be minimized. Of course it is still mechanical reproduction and you've spent thousands of dollars of which virtually none goes to actual live musicians. At least with CD's you can escape the neurotic care required to preserve records and the ever present analog hiss is less expensive to avoid.

If you care about music then spend less on reproduction (ie CD's rather than high end analog) and more on live music.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[metamatic]

I decided to do a statistical analysis of my music collection. My statistics dispute the idea that music got lost in the 1990s. For me at least, it was all up until 1994 and hasn't dropped much since then.

http://meta.ath0.com/articles/2006/10/27/proof-tha t-the-70s-sucked

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Compuser]

AllOfMP3 has the right price: around $0.10 per song. A typical CD should
not cost more than $1 plus cost of media (no more than $1.50 total).
The only way a CD should cost more is if it comes signed by the artist
and it was signed in front of you not at a factory.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[pyhack]

Heck I can do that right now! Who is bloc party?

Dang! Of all the bands to mention. Now I have to reply ;-)

[They're one of my favorites, as in "The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, U2, The Cure, New Order, The Prodigy, Radiohead, Bloc Party favorites"- not "NKotB, Britney, 50cent favorites" - though of course everyone has different tastes, so YMMV (or YMWV)]

Check out http://www.blocparty.com/ - you can listen to extracts from Silent Alarm to see if you'll like 'em.

I try to only buy music that is good enough to stand the test of time [so I also avoid DRMed music] - and for me the ability to have softcopies increases the need to do this. Since I ripped my entire CD collection to Ogg Vorbis & MP3, I've been listening to pretty much all of it, just because I CAN, without having to fumble thru hundreds of CDs.

10 years from now I fully expect to rip my Bloc Party CD to a new format, suitable for playing at the welcome ceremony for our Alien Overlords.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Custard]

You'd need to account for the time it would take to copy all that content from hard drive(s), onto the blu-ray discs, then again copy them to the target computer on the other side of the country.

Blu ray disc holds 25 billion bytes
That's 200 billion bits, and let's say you can read/write at 72 million bits per second (blueray@2x):

200,000,000,000 bits (bytes * 8)
/ 72,000,000 bits per second
2777 seconds per disc.
46 minutes per disc.
By 1000 discs
46,000 minutes to write all the discs. Or 766 hours, or 32 days. Assuming you have a 2x speed burner, and you have no downtime between discs.
And then another 32 days to read them all into the target computer :)

And I can't even calculate how many days it'd take to verify the data was written and copied correctly.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, here
And while you are at it, build in a SlimServer intrface for that.
Or you could edit the iTunes plugin to put the Artist/album/Song on 3 seperate lines.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sovereignist party in Quebec, Canada??

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[aichpvee]

I can't listen to MP3 anymore. The sound is too hollow and flat. DRM isn't even an option, that crap doesn't play on Linux anyway.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

CD is not dead. I will buy music on CDs, because a) I get a physical object, with cover art etc. b) CD is a good backup medium c) iTunes is not even available for my country.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[*computer*science*]

What is a music CD? Is it like a mp3 player?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Doctor Faustus]

Where is a good lead guitarist?
You might not like the overall style of the music much, but Dimebag Darrell from Pantera was a hell of a guitar player.
Deep Purple is still around with Steve Morse playing for them, and they're quite good.
Sonata Arctica is worth a listen, and they're definitely more recent than your cutoff.
Avenged Sevenfold has a good lead player.

Actually, guitar leads in general have gotten a lot more fashionable again in the last couple of years. If you wrote off modern rock before 2003 or so, you might want to take another listen.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[blugu64]

"They're one of my favorites, as in "The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, U2, The Cure, New Order, The Prodigy, Radiohead, Bloc Party favorites"

Dang that pretty much summs up what I listen to, add in the Guess Who, Yes, Genesis, and some Southern Rock and that's me. Anyway I'll definitly check them out then, any recommended albums other then Silent Alarm?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[doom]

Schemat1c (464768) wrote:

You know what burns me up... The whole reason we switched to CDs from records and cassettes was supposedly the higher fidelity of CD audio. Now we all listen to crappy mp3s that sound like cassette tapes. wtf?

Ah yes. You've discovered that people don't really care about music, they care about being up on the latest fads.

You might add that most people don't even bother to set-up a stereo with decent speakers, amp, etc, and just toss a box on their dresser (presuming they don't just listen on earbuds all the time).

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Schemat1c]

The comment you quoted me as posting was actually the comment of the parent poster of my comment but I hit submit before I noticed that I screwed up the quotes.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Bertie]

Come on, man. It's because vinyl's nicer to work with. Nobody in a nightclub appreciates the subtleties of tone and dynamic range, and any quality improvement it might afford (and I don't think it does, but anyway) will be more than negated by the vagaries of the club's sound system and acoustics.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[amRadioHed]

I know 5 years isn't impressive, but I have only been a serious music fan for less than a decade. My favorite albums from 20 years ago I'll admit don't ago too well, but cut me some slack. My parents never played me Tom Waits at that age, so my options were pretty limited.

Of course some of my favorite albums are from well before I was born too. No surprise there, it would be absurdly improbable for all the best music to have been written in your lifetime.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[amRadioHed]

The same happened to me when I put all my music on my computer. Occasionally I'll put it on random and hear albums I forgot I even owned.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[soft_guy]

So tiny no one can read it. Esp compared to LPs.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[pyhack]

any recommended albums other then Silent Alarm?

It's their first album. Their second A Weekend In The City is out in the US on Feb 6th 2007. I heard them live recently & the new songs seemed awesome too.

[Of course, it is early to tell if they'll stand the test of time, but I do feel the same way about it as in this respect I did listening to early (post Syd) Floyd (says me, showing my age!), U2, Prodify & Radiohead - the others I came to a few albums in. Who knows? They're been up there for me for about 1.5 years now.]

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out John Petrucci of Dream Theater

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[ebyrob]

Eventually, we won't even have our music files on our own computers.

Why wouldn't we keep local copies? Anyone expecting to always have network connectivity (or worse yet wireless connectivity) is just asking for things to work unreliably. With storage capacities growing by leaps and bounds, why send the same song to the same device repeatedly?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[nasch]

Digital has many benefits, but quality isn't one of them. As a general rule, anything that's digital is of vastly inferior quality to its analogue counterpart by definition.

Then I don't agree with your definitions. :-) What comes out of the speaker is always analog. Therefore, an analysis of which sound is higher quality should be possible to do double-blind. What you have said is "it's digital, therefore it must be worse." What I would find convincing is some kind of test indicating a specific shortcoming of CD vs LP, such as "CD signal-to-noise ratio was 6000:1 and LP was 7500:1" and preferably in some way that a human could perceive. For example I wouldn't be very impressed if LP frequency response outside the human range of hearing is better than CD. BTW I just made those numbers up. Do you know of any such tests, or are you just making your claim true by the way you define the words?

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[7Prime]

because computers/entertainment gadgets are becoming more and more mobil each day. Also, having access to your files, even when you're not on YOUR machine is going to become more and more commonplace (yeah Google Office!). Sure, you might have SOME local stuff, but it will probably be more like a cache than anything else.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[ShieldW0lf]

Your failure to understand the principles involved isn't my fault. It's spelled out for you in plain english in the aforementioned link.

The shortcoming is simple: Digital recording is capable of expressing a finite number of permutations per millisecond based on bitrate of the format. Analogue recording is capable of expressing a near infinite number of permutations. How many molecules thick is a record?

It's not a subjective thing we're talking about. If you understood how it all worked properly, you'd know how silly this discussion (and your position) is.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[nasch]

What you have failed to demonstrate is whether that matters. Yes, I understand the difference between digital and analog. If you can show me something that says that the analog sound waves from CD audio differs from LP in a specific and perceptible way, I'm interested. If you want to keep repeating that it's so obvious CD is inferior because it's digital, and how stupid I am, I am not interested.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[gfody]

The image in the link you provided is very misleading. It would have you believe that the waveform generated from the digital samples has a very jagged edge. In reality the waveform is interpolated smoothly between the available samples and there is very little difference between the 3.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[ebyrob]

Synching files between remote devices is certainly useful, but it still doesn't require sending the same data more than once to the same device...

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[Golias]

Twenty years ago, I would have agreed with the poster you are arguing with. I could not quantify the reasons why, but in a simple double-blind test I would choose analog sources over the best available digital stuff every time.

However, most of what we thought, back then, to be the flaws of "the digital sound" had precious little to do with sample rates. The problems with early digital were in fact due to the following:

1. Shitty D/A conversion logic. Early CD players (or D/A break-out boxes) were extremely stupid about how to fill in high-frequency waves based on the samples given. This resulted in a "harshness" which became very obvious when listening to brass instruments, violins, or soprano singers. It also caused percussion cymbals and other sibilant sounds to become a bit more unpleasant.

2. Component bias. Analog audio introduces several flaws into the process. The biggest being that records can't store low-frequency signals at their full amplitude relative to the rest of the wave. To get around this problem, the RIAA (yes, that RIAA) developed a standard "Phono EQ", by which recording engineers would dial down the low frequencies, and another EQ circuit in your stereo would crank them back up. This rather destructive compromise results in recording which are not, in fact, as good as the full potential of digital recording; however, the entire history of Hi-Fi from the 60s through the 80s evolved around building components which produced the best sound from these flawed sources.

So, an amplifier was judged as a "very good" amplifier if it more effectively "undid" the flaws of analog recording than a competing amp. Since the bass has been muddied by electronic tweaking, an amp that creates the illusion of "tightening" it up is regarded as a better amp.

Now, plug in a source without the audio problems of vinyl into one of these magically "good" amps, and what do you suppose the result is going to be? You've now got an amp applying corrections to a source which doesn't need to be corrected, resulting in an unsatisfying sound.

3. Source bias. For reasons similar to what provoked the component bias, many of the "gold standard" hi-fi recordings of the 70s and 80s were made by producers who knew their stuff would be played back on phonographs, and they adjusted their studio habits accordingly. Compression was carefully used in order to never veer outside the dynamic range of a turntable. Noise below the S/N floor of a needle being dragged along a wax groove was completely ignored. Prior to the mastering process, sources were colored to favor the playback experience of the final pressing above all else. When albums started getting moved to CD, these new CD's not only uncovered the warts in the original source material, they often enhanced them. Until digital recording technology caught up with the analog gear in top-end studios, most of the CDs you bought were from masters which were never meant to be rendered so perfectly.

4. Listener bias. A lot of people grew to love the sound of a good hi-fi record playing from a good hi-fi system, and failed to notice that the very pleasant "warmth" that they hear when listening to records is not actually present in a live perfromance. A CD can sound much, much closer to an actual string quartet sitting in the room with you, but the vinyl aficionado will consistently prefer the sound of his record, not because it sounds more real, but because it sounds more satisfying.

I am a recovering vinyl addict myself. I still love the sound of those old Scheffield Labs direct-to-master albums (even if most of the music on them is crap), but as CD sound got better and better during the 90s, the myths surrounding the "shortcomings" of 44.1 digital sound became more and more obviously debunked.

Re:What Is He Smoking?

[nasch]

Thanks for the info/comments. To be clear, I'm actually not arguing that CD is superior to LP in terms of sound quality. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't - to me it doesn't matter a whit because the obvious superiority of CD in other ways makes any sound inferiority (which I haven't noticed) irrelevant. And he's already mentioned that point as well. What I'm arguing about with the other guy is to try to find the evidence, if any, he's basing his claim on.

Novel idea

[nizo]

Record companies will need to make CDs more attractive to the consumer

Instead of including a pile of other useless stuff that I don't care about with the CD, how about charging less than $20 for something that I (as someone who buys music online) consider to be worth at most $6, and can probably download for roughly that amount? This is of course assuming I actually want all of the songs on a given CD, which is rarely the case.

They keep calling themselves record companies, which pretty much explains the problem: just like records, they are trapped way back in a time before the age of the internet.

Re:Novel idea

[smittyoneeach]

Or, go the other direction, and sell more compilations, of artists that don't suck, along with material that is interesting to fans.
Oh, wait: that would be a quality over quantity argument.

Re:Novel idea

[letxa2000]

Definitely. It'd take a lower price. Oh, and music worth buying. Even if those two requirements are met, I'm just not sure I'm into the idea of buying any physical media. Like the EMI guy said, I'd just use it to rip it and then store the CD. I can't imagine any material that would motivate me to use the CD for any other purpose than to rip and store. So why buy the CD?

Re:Novel idea

[Lemmy Caution]

This claim that there is no "music worth buying" line rings false. There is so much music, in so many genres, being produced right now, that I just can't believe that no one, anywhere, is producing CDs of music you would like.

I have outre tastes in music, and still I despair of hearing even a fraction of the music that I'd enjoy: any visit to a CD store of any breadth (Amoeba Music being the pinnacle of them, but there are many) reveals just how much more there is to hear out there.

Re:Novel idea

[couchslug]

The prices for music CDs have gone UP since they were first available!
I remember how happy I was to have an option better than vinyl or tape, but that was a long time ago.
Price them at say five bucks and CDs will fall into the "impulse purchase" zone.

Re:Novel idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You're looking at a lowest common denominator problem.

Your idea of "artists that don't suck" differs from mine, differs from some dude in Oklahoma, etc.

Re:Novel idea

[Rob the Bold]

They keep calling themselves record companies, which pretty much explains the problem: just like records, they are trapped way back in a time before the age of the internet.

I have to admit that I still use the term "record" all the time. I don't think another word really describes an audio recording as nicely. I guess I'm just unable to associate "record" with LP the way most people are. When I wish to say "LP" or "cassette" or "CD", I do.

When I hear someone correcting me for calling a CD a "record", I tend to think of them as the one trapped back in 1987.

My point is: these companies are still producing audio recordings, but to go around saying "Audio Recordings" instead of "records" just seems too stuffy even for me. And to update the term with each new medium gets boring.

Re:Novel idea

[Lemmy Caution]

I see LPs, CDs, and tapes all as "records" as well. They are the product of some sort of recording. What is implicit is, of course, that they are all audio/music records.

What may be more archaic than the "record" in the term "record label" is the term "label." A "record service" may be more appropriate.

Re:Novel idea

[twofidyKidd]

Hmmm... you brought up selling compilations to record companies. Interesting.

They'd love to sell you nothing but compilations, because in many MANY cases, the artists' contracts contain clauses that allow the record company to exclude royalty payments on music included in compilations. This includes greatest hits compilations. While I don't know the exact legalese, basically the contract states that once the music is recorded for the purpose of the album, it's only good to collect royalties on sales of that album. After that, the copyright holders (record companies) are free to do whatever they like with the songs, including sell them on compilations. This is why there's a series of TIME/LIFE compilations that sell (on TV, special catalogs, etc.) because, from a business perspective, it's simply a matter of negotiating some sort of lump sum payout to the record company (copyright holders) rather than fix up some kind of agreement with the artists. This is also one of the biggest money-makers for record companies outside of their inflated prices for physical media. For instance, those "Now That's What I Call Music" compilations that sell big overseas are essentially pure profit for the record companies since they rarely pay the artists on the royalties of those sales. In fact, the record company calls them "marketing".

So whether the artists suck or not, they get screwed in the end if more compilations are sold.

Re:Novel idea

[twiggy]

Agreed. charge less, or give me a really cool product.

Tool's latest release, for example, did both. It was priced at $9.99 despite clocking in at a good 70 or so minutes, and it had some really phenomenal 3d artwork that you view through stereoscopic lenses. These are the kinds of cool things that keep music fans (who are inherently collectors at least to some degree) coming back to the store instead of to bittorrent or whatever the latest p2p filesharing tool will be.

It's going to be either that or a "fan club" type system where you pay a band X dollars per year to get all of their music and admission to one or more concerts. I don't see any other way for the industry to thrive as it once did. Well, yes I do, they could spend way less money on the overpaid producers and promoters, cut CD costs down to $6 or $7 and still make a healthy profit, but that'd put a lot of famous people out of work so it'll never happen.

Re:Novel idea

[tbone1]

The prices for music CDs have gone UP since they were first available!

IIRC, when I got my first CD player in 1986, they were $14 or $15 apiece. Today they are not much more than that, and if you index that to inflation or wages, CDs have gotten way cheaper over time.

Re:Novel idea

[Hatta]

This is of course assuming I actually want all of the songs on a given CD, which is rarely the case.

If a band can't fill an album with worthwile material, they're talentless hacks. You'll find that the one or two songs you think are good, are only appealing because of their novelty. Listen to better music and you won't have that problem.

Re:Novel idea

[The Mad Debugger]

Why buy the CD? Physical backup. I also use 'em in the car on short trips when I don't want to use my iPod, but I'm mostly grateful for the fact that if my HD dies, I can re-rip without problem, and I don't have to bother making backups of MP3s.

Add to that the fact that you can usually buy catalog titles for about $8 from BMG, and new releases for about $12 from Target, I actually think that good old Compact Disc is a pretty decent value.

As for "music worth buying," that's a different argument altogether and downloads aren't exempt from that problem either. :)

Re:Novel idea

[treeves]

This is true, but not like I thought would be when I started buying CDs back in . . . 1984?

I remember commenting to a sales clerk how they were expensive compared to cassettes or something like that and he remarked that "yeah, but as soon as lots of people are buying lots of them, the price will drop down to the price of cassettes, or even lower since they're cheaper to make. A CD costs like 50 cents to make."

The price *only* decreased because of inflation. The sticker price never changed, on average. OTOH, the very first CD I ever bought - a Telarc sampler CD, bought at the same as my Sony Discman, just so I'd have something to listen to - stills plays and sounds very good 23 years later. Cassettes that old sound bad, and I haven't listened to them much to cause wear.

I don't I buy many nowadays, but I'll keep buying CDs as long as it's possible.

Re:Novel idea

[metamatic]

I just use "album", "track", and occasionally "EP".

"Hey, heard the new Radiohead track?"

"No, I just got the Thom Yorke solo album though."

End of problem. No need to adjust wording whether I'm listening to vinyl, CD, cassette, MP3, or whatever.

Re:Novel idea

[shark72]

"how about charging less than $20 for something"

Once again, the Slashdot $20 CD meme makes its requisite appearance.

Why is the average $20 price that Slashdotters apparently pay, vs. the $12 - $14 or so that others pay, a big deal? Because any time the question of P2P vs. buy comes up, a fair share of people point out that even $0.99 per track is highway robbery. Thus, the $6 - $8 delta between the CD stores that Slashdotters shop at, vs. most other consumers, might be a big deal.

I agree with you 100% about the ratio of good tracks to fillers. I don't pirate, but I sure as hell don't buy CDs, or even full albums, any more. I buy the one or two tracks I want off of an album, and then buy more incrementally only if I really like what I got. It probably hasn't reduced my overall music spend, but it's allowed me to spread it out across a lot more sources. I've left the CD format behind and I'm not looking back.

Re:Novel idea

[shark72]

"The price *only* decreased because of inflation. The sticker price never changed, on average."

I am not sure why you wrote that. CD prices have been in freefall. Here's some data. I don't even need that data to show me what I already know: CDs were commonly $18 - $20 five or ten years ago, and they're $14 today.

Keep in mind that the overall net on music CDs is on the order of 10%, which is far less than lots of other industries. CD prices can't arbitrarily come down much lower until there's a massive cut in the production costs. Perhaps that needs to happen and will happen, but despite what the "net is the same as gross" crowd will claim, you can't expect retail prices to drop to $10 tomorrow. Even the low-overhead indie labels like MagnaTunes, which don't provide money for music production, still sell their stuff at $8 a CD, which is probably about the sell-in price that the traditional labels offer to distribution.

"I remember commenting to a sales clerk how they were expensive compared to cassettes or something like that and he remarked that "yeah, but as soon as lots of people are buying lots of them, the price will drop down to the price of cassettes, or even lower since they're cheaper to make. A CD costs like 50 cents to make."

Sorry you were mislead by the sales clerk. He may have been misinformed or simply not known what he was talking about; mechanical royalties alone can cost $0.80, and a CD sure as hell didn't cost $0.50 to press back then... I was pressing data CDs in qtys of 10K and more (ie. larger runs than most record companies) ten years ago, and I remember that it was a big deal when the cost went below $0.50.

At any rate, I paid $18 for Tears For Fears' "Songs From The Big Chair" in '85 (a good investment overall); that's $32 in 2006 dollars. Production costs have gone way down, but shipping costs and the salaries of everybody who touches the CD at every stage (including that store clerk) have gone up considerably since then. Given that, a drop of more than 50% in constant dollars isn't bad.

Re:Novel idea

[Rob the Bold]

I just use "album", "track", and occasionally "EP".

I do use the term "album" myself, even though the LP did pretty much kill actual "albums". It's a nice term, particularly for popular music realeased ~10 tracks at a time, with its connotation of an intentional collection songs. I guess "track" sticks with me, too. Although we'd be hard pressed to find a "track" on a CD. So, ya, let's keep 'em.

Re:Novel idea

[treeves]

I don't see how you can say "freefall" when you also admit that in your experience, the price has gone from $19 to $14. To me "freefall" suggests a 50% decrease or more.
I also disagree with the $18-20 figure. I've only paid $18-20 a handful of times, usually some European import CD or something. CDs, in my experience, have always cost *around* $15.

I'm less certain about what they cost nowadays. As I said, I don't buy many now. The last one I bought was a European import of a youth orchestra playing a Nielsen symphony and the Barber Cello Concerto. It was $17-something.

I admit, I don't actually remember, over twenty years ago, him saying "$0.50".
It was an order of magnitude kind of thing. I do remember reading a few years ago that they cost $0.60 to produce.

Re:Novel idea

[ozbird]

This is of course assuming I actually want all of the songs on a given CD, which is rarely the case.

It depends on the kind of music you listen to, I guess.
The bands I usually listen to produce albums - a musical work than means something as a whole, not just a collection of singles. I refuse to buy music track-by-track and I want to choose how to rip it to my media player: fixed vs. variable bit rate, MP3 vs. AAC etc. Ergo, I buy CDs.

I use on-line music sources to determine which bands are worth buying, which unfortunately isn't many these days. It seems to be very black and white: a band either has one or two reasonable tracks but the rest is rubbish, or their entire discography is excellent - there's very little in between.

If EMI are proposing to include music videos on the CDs, fine. Don't waste my time with pre-ripped tracks or rootkits, though.

Re:Novel idea

[Doctor Faustus]

If a band can't fill an album with worthwile material, they're talentless hacks. You'll find that the one or two songs you think are good, are only appealing because of their novelty. Listen to better music and you won't have that problem.

I have a few albums where I like nearly every song. On the whole, I don't really listen to them as much as the less consistent albums, because none of the individual songs are as good as the standout songs on the less consistent albums. For a metal example, Biohazard's State of the World Address is nearly all good, but nothing on it compares to "Punishment", "Urban Discipline" or "Loss" from the older Urban Discipline album. For pop, The Black Eyed Peas new album is basically all good, but the half of Justin Timberlake's new album that's any good at all ("Future Sex Love Sounds", "Sexyback", "Love Stoned", "What Goes Around Comes Around" and "Losing My Way") blows it out of the water.

I think it probably comes from a willingness to take risks.

Re:Novel idea

[Hatta]

The Black Eyed Peas new album is basically all good, but the half of Justin Timberlake's new album that's any good at all ("Future Sex Love Sounds", "Sexyback", "Love Stoned", "What Goes Around Comes Around" and "Losing My Way") blows it out of the water.

This is a joke right?

Re:Novel idea

[Doctor Faustus]

No. Justin Timberlake is not N'Synch (sp?). If anything, he sounds like old Michael Jackson.

I'd like to see a talking goat

[Gizzmonic]

Now that would be pretty cool.

Re:I'd like to see a talking goat

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a singing goatse?

Re:I'd like to see a talking goat

[Dunbal]

How about a singing goatse?

      Or a goatse-tubgirl duet, in B-fart major. Barrrrf.

full-frontal nudity

[the_wesman]

What material would you like to see?

you asked.
-w

Re:full-frontal nudity

[Anonymous Coward]

What material would you like to see?

full-frontal nudity

Perhaps you should purchase the Two Virgins album by John Lennon then?

What material would I'd like to see?

[revlayle]

$100 bills would be pretty frickin' cool

Re:What material would I'd like to see?

[letxa2000]

I might even pay $20 for the CD in that case.

Re:What material would I'd like to see?

[Anonymous Coward]

The good news is that new CDs will include $100 bills.

The bad news is that they are in rubles.

Re:What material would I'd like to see?

[b4lr0g]

I'd like to see some bundled software to rip them to MP3 :-)

Re:What material would I'd like to see?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, or a hat!

Quality

[SoapDish]

I will keep buying CD's until you can download music at the same or better quality, with no DRM.

Re:Quality

[ConceptJunkie]

You said it, SoapDish.

Add to that the fact the most of what I buy on CD isn't sold electronically.

Re:Quality

[Nerd4News]

I will keep buying CD's until you can download music at the same or better quality, with no DRM.

Same here. My ears are old and I won't take a 128k mp3 unless it's free. 160k is my minimum, 192k optimal and 256k is great. None match a CD though even with my ears but they're acceptable.

I remember reading a site (too long ago to even dream about being able to find it again) about a sound engineer and the antics around producing an album. Part of the story was how they tried different drum kits, amps and other equipment then tweak it lovingly to get just the right sound. Now all of that is for naught as it gets compressed to hell and sold as a digital download. Might as well hook a couple of mics up to a Soundblaster16, record it and ship it.

Well no

[misey]

I use CD's, I rip them, but I use a CD player instead of an iPod. That iPod always broke on me in the first year or so, and I've bought four. I hate the iPod, but I love my Mac.

disconnected from reality.

[Lumpy]

Yup all cars now have ipod capable stereos and NOBODY uses CD's in a car stereo anymore.

I guess the guy is either mential or chooses to ignore the millions of people that make below $40,000 a year and cant afford a new stereo with ipod and ipod adapter or mp3 player plus rf transmitter...

Most everyone at my kids highschool still uses CD's in their CD player.

Re:disconnected from reality.

[letxa2000]

Most everyone at my kids highschool still uses CD's in their CD player.

But do they use the CD player to play CDs they've purchased, or compilations they've burned from music they've downloaded or copied from a friend? I lived in Mexico (not exactly a high-tech, high-income area) for awhile and my sister-in-law and the friends of hers that I know did, in fact, use CD players... but the CDs were home-burned and I'm not aware of any of them actually buying any music in any form.

And at $20 a CD (or whatever they cost these days), it doesn't take more than about 3 or 4 for a low-end MP3 player nor more than about 7 or 8 to pay for an iPod Nano. The idea that MP3 players are only for the rich is absurd. Anyone that has money to spend on a CD on anything approaching a regular basis would be much better off buying an MP3 player.

Re:disconnected from reality.

[imsabbel]

?
MP3 capable audio cdplayer have taken over the classic "cd changer" niche over the last years over here.

Re:disconnected from reality.

[Volante3192]

Guess I lucked out that I never replaced the tape deck in mine with a CD player.

Re:disconnected from reality.

[Overzeetop]

millions of people that make below $40,000 a year

They're not targetting the destitute for CDs. Jack Valenti put it best, specking of the "working stiffs":

"...They make $75,000 to $100,000 a year. That's not much to live on. I don't have to tell you that."

But you're right - if their target audience is the $150k+ households, they're going after a pretty damned small world market. No wonder they're having financial troubles.

Re:disconnected from reality.

[IorDMUX]

My car came without tape player, CD player, external audio port, etc... heck, the radio looks like it thinks that FM is cutting edge. I don't like most of the same-old that comes over the radio waves, especially on the quiet gaps between cities where just a lost country station or two filters through however-many kilometers until the nearest radio station.

My solution? Build something.

With two linear power amplifiers (~$10), a big filter capacitor (~5$ from Radio Shack), speakers ($1 at a flea market), and plugs (~$10 for everything), I've built a decent and fairly powerful car stereo that runs off of my car's 12 V jack and takes input from my iPod or anything else with a headphone output.

There's a lot of junk on the market for iPod-n'such nowadays, but unless you're an audiophile with your mp3's (or ace's or whatever you like) encoded upwards of 300 kbps, cheap solutions are more than sufficient.

Re:disconnected from reality.

[Anonymous Coward]

News flash those making $30,000 a year outnumber everyone ABOVE that line 10 to 1.

Get that? for every 1 person making over $30,000.00 there is NINE more that do not and are more than happy with that new-fangled CD player they have playing those used CD's they buy.

Jack Valenti is a complete and utter moron. I have met salad bars that were out of lettuce with more intellect than that man.

And yes, I apologize to all salad bars out there for insulting them for being near the moronic IQ that a record company executive has.

Jack valenti is the absolute stupidest man on this planet, this is a proven and undisputed fact.

Re:disconnected from reality.

[ZombieRoboNinja]

The iPod cassette converter thing costs like five bucks, dude.

What i would want on a CD?

[TransEurope]

The licence to legally rip the contents to DRM-free formats and
to gave some copies to friends and family. That would be a fair deal.

Re:What i would want on a CD?

[pyros]

The licence to legally rip the contents to DRM-free formats and
to gave some copies to friends and family. That would be a fair deal.

You have that already.

The only requirement to circumventing DRM to make a copy is that you are making a personal copy for either backup or interoperability purposes, and will not be distributing copies either indiscriminately to the general population or for profit.

In order to give copies to friends and family, you just need to buy blank Music CDs instead of blank Data CDs. The extra cost of blank Music CDs is a royalty fee to the music industry to offset revenue lost to people giving copies to friends and family.

Re:What i would want on a CD?

[CastrTroy]

In order to give copies to friends and family, you just need to buy blank Music CDs instead of blank Data CDs. The extra cost of blank Music CDs is a royalty fee to the music industry to offset revenue lost to people giving copies to friends and family.

How do they know which CD's are being copied? How do they decide which artists get the money? Do they all get an equal chunk? or do they get a chunk based on how many albums they sold? Either way, seems kind of unfair to me. I think there should be a way to send money to the artists for the music you download.

Re:What i would want on a CD?

[pyros]

I agree with every point you raise. Many artists have to sue their labels to get any of these sorts of royalties (some haven't been paid for sales on iTMS, even). But fairness to the artist aside, you'r still legally allowed to make personall copies, and give copies to family/friends buy putting the copy on blank media that includes a royalty fee.

Bullshit

[Pope]

All I buy are CDs, so that I can listen to them in my nice home stereo. I can't at this point see myself buying a music download from, say, iTunes. CDs are convenient, sound good, and last a long time since I take care of my stuff. This exec is either living in the future or is out of touch with the average music buyer!

Re:Bullshit

[hurting now]

I find myself downloading from iTunes especially if the song is older, or in a genre that I normally dont listen to. Yet, I will admit, the quality of the songs, is much worse.

But shouldn't we be slightly happy that a music exec is looking towards the future? Even if he conclusions are wrong, the statement is becoming more accurate.

Re:Bullshit

[jb.hl.com]

iTunes purchases are alright if you don't really give a damn about audio quality (which, considering I rip all my music into 128 AAC, I don't) and you don't mind not being able to play them at full quality on a loud stereo if the mood takes you (which is why I like CDs better). The DRM doesn't really affect me all that much, to be frank; I must have reinstalled Windows about twice and have never gone over the 5-PC limit (deauthorising and reauthorising helps).

Re:Bullshit

[stevey]

I too buy CDs, but only ever second hand.

That way I can get an album for a cheap/fair price, and don't feel like I'm supporting a company which has the idea of value-add meaning "Won't play unless you install our windows-only rootkit".

I'd pay more for albums from companies who would stop being so litigous, such as not suing people who post lyrics online, for the rare time when I hear a track I like on the radio and miss the name.

I like music. I listen to music almost 24x7 when awake, but I won't support companies who sue at the drop of a hat, and try to restrict things we can do with out purchases.

God knows there are enough used record stores I could probably buy a new CD a day for the rest of my life and still find new interesting tunes.

Re:Bullshit

[danpsmith]

All I buy are CDs, so that I can listen to them in my nice home stereo. I can't at this point see myself buying a music download from, say, iTunes. CDs are convenient, sound good, and last a long time since I take care of my stuff. This exec is either living in the future or is out of touch with the average music buyer!

Everyone, at least under 25, pretty much uses an Ipod or other MP3 player for listening to music on a daily basis. This is the main target audience for most CDs, and this executive is dead on with the fact that people aren't going to buy something they aren't using.

If he were smart, he'd propose to do what I did years ago when giving copies of CDs out, you burn the CD along with an extra data track containing the MP3s of the album. Unfortunately, industry heads are afraid of this kind of freedom.

If CDs were 5 a piece, and you got the MP3s, good quality rips with the CD purchase, I'd definitely buy them again. As it stands, 20 bucks for something that might infest my computer with a worm when I try to rip it, or might not want to be ripped, or have a stupid autoplay that irritates me when I insert it, is simply not worth the pricetag when the product is free elsewhere.

The public domain is reclaiming artistry, even if it is a "black market" style way of doing it. If these people want to continue living in the entertainment industry they better figure out how to market the product to people instead of trying to tailor the people to the product.

Make it more convenient, and a whole lot cheaper and I won't bother with the torrents anymore. Keep up your draconian bullshit, and I'll keep downloading without paying your ass a red cent. Less money or no money, it's all up to you assholes. And for the record, when/if I ever cut a full album, it'll be freely released.

Re:Bullshit

[epiphani]

Or you are.

How long until it becomes stupid for you to physically handle your CDs all the time? How about you get a digital appliance of some kind that gives you your entire cd collection in a nice, small unit, with the ability to search, build playlists, and you don't have to risk actual physical media.

You're the one living out of touch with the average music buyer. Wait 5 years, and your post will look so stupid. Its like saying "casettes are so great, why would I buy CDs".

Re:Bullshit

[captainClassLoader]

It's not just audio quality that you need not care about. It also helps if you don't care about anything but postage-stamp-sized cover art, or about who actually performed, produced, and/or engineered the music. I can live without the cover art, but the lack of full CD-style credits in iTunes (and other download services) is a real drag for those of us who think of music as more than just audio wallpaper.

Re:Bullshit

[jb.hl.com]

Indeed; any kind of download can't really match a properly made CD.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

You are far from the average music buyer.

The average music buyer is listening to MP3's or some similar format. Period. It's you that is out of touch. Go out and actually exmine the general population and you will see the truth. You arn't part of it.

Re:Bullshit

[jltnol]

Like you, I buy a lot of music as well. But I am tired of collecting "stuff". I love the fact that music now can't be touched, handled, packed, dropped, broken, dusted, or otherwise take up space. I've got tons of vinyl, and even more CD's, and I'd trade it all in for the same material from iTunes if I could. Next time you have to pack close to a thousand CD's and several hundred vinyl records for a move.... you may change your mind. Yes, it does have DRM. yes it doesn't sound "as good" as the original format, yes, the HD can turn on me, yes Apple could go out of business leaving me high and dry, but how often do I listen to the very first song I bought off of iTunes? or the first album? No often. Music, for the most part has become 'disposable'.... yeah... I'll get written up for that comment, and that's not to say I never listen to older material, but by and large, for the most part, I 'tend to listen to stuff that is much more current. You have valid points all, and I don't disagree with any one of them.. BUT... for those of us who don't want to collect more 'stuff'... iTunes is a good thing.

Re:Bullshit

[An ominous Cow art]

You've expressed my attitude almost exactly.

Yep-- read my mind-agreemsg

[way2trivial]

I came here to post near-spot on the same thing..

Re:Yep-- read my mind-agreemsg

[Anonymous Coward]

not just you.. this is slashdot.. most of the crowd hurried to post similar thoughts.

EMI Moderation System

[agent dero]

Can we mod his comments -5, No Shit; or how about -5, Too little too late?

These ivory tower execs should have realized almost 7 years ago with the advent of Napster that the CD was dying. Frankly, I don't think the iTunes Music Store should have ever happened, they should have realized the market then and adapted, now they'll have to play catch up to those innovating the non-physical media market.

Re:EMI Moderation System

[darkrowan]

If ever you find yourself in a position of absolute power and untold sums of cash, only to that power and money flow disrupted overnight (at least it felt overnight to them)... let me know how you ract. The Recording industry did, amittedly, have it coming. They had, with the advent of each new media format (Record, 8 Track, Cassett, CD) they still had ultimate control because of the fact there was physical media involved. When the first CD-Rom came out, everyone was like 'what is the hokey piece of cr... Hey I can copy the music now?' That should have been when the Industry reared its head and attacked: The minute the first CD drive was installed into a computer.

Re:EMI Moderation System

[LordNightwalker]

When the first CD-Rom came out, everyone was like 'what is the hokey piece of cr... Hey I can copy the music now?'

Yup, because before that, you know, with the audio cassette and the 8-track there was no way in hell people could copy music. In fact, my entire highschool cassette collection taped from the radio and CDs, the one I played on my walkman while riding the bike to and from school, is just a figment of my imagination. I think that collection starred in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends once, because we all know it couldn't have been real...

Could it?

Lawsuits are not value added

[woodsrunner]

Today I bought my first CD in over a year and it had big FBI copyright warnings all over it and a mail in questionaire with many survey questions that could be seen as incriminating and a good lead for the RIAA to follow up with a lawsuit.

If this is what they see as value added, I think they got the eqation backwards... it's supposed to be value added to the consumer's experience, not the record company's legal squad.

Re:Lawsuits are not value added

[JacobMar1ey]

I don't buy any CD with FBI warnings on it.
Only the record companies owned by the big 4 members of the RIAA bother with them.
There are plenty of indie labels, with plenty of good music in every possible genre.

Re:Lawsuits are not value added

[Fozzyuw]

it's supposed to be value added to the consumer's experience

One way to add value, is to decrease/remove value. Get red of all those 'extra' features like DVD 'duel' sided disks, 'CD-ROM' PC enabled content, videos, etc. Give me the music and charge me $7 and I'll buy more CD's without feeling guilty about it. There's a lot the record industry could do, if they just thought outside the box.

I use to go to GarageBand.com and find all kinds of good stuff that I could download the MP3. I'd fill up some rock tracks and work out to some exciting music I've never heard before, and I'll never hear on the radio, keeping it fresher, longer.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Lawsuits are not value added

[woodsrunner]

If I had seen the CD before I bought it, I wouldn't have. I bought it online from Amazon because it was a decent price and I was worried the RIAA might come after me for having one of the songs from it running through my head illegally. :-)

Re:Lawsuits are not value added

[gatesvp]

What I'll never get is having the excessive FBI copyrights on things that were paid for.

For quite some time (here in Canada at least), the previews at the expensive cinemas consistently included this type of warning. In this case a stunt driver tells us about the danger his work entails and how unfair it is that people can just "click a button" and get this media at someone else's expense.

Notice, these are the expensive seats, I just paid the highest price in town to see a first-run movie and then I have to suffer some shill telling me that movie pirating is wrong! Talk about preaching to the choir, I just paid big bucks to come here and eat your over-priced popcorn and now I have to suffer this?

The girlfriend, the friends and I are all fed up. We now go to the second-run "cheap seats". The experience is better and the total cost is less than half (our cheap seats even have roomier seats).

Personally, the copyright warnings and the media-sponsored "stealing is bad" campaign are just insulting.

But hey, at least it's costing them out here. Our big seats upped their price at one point shortly after opening (from $8.50 CDN to $13 CDN). Our cheap seats at this point were charging $1.50 to $3 / ticket with popcorn and 2 drinks under $10. The high price point lasted about 2 months. All but the most clueless or most elite simply stopped going to the big seats. These guys bled for two months before dropping prices again. But it's already too late, the cheap seats made good money, set up a new theatre last year with twice the size and quickly became the talk of budget-conscious and family movie-goers.

So there's my two cents on a few aspects: give people respect and fair prices and you'll thrive.

Simple:

[Hawthorne01]

"Unrevocable permission is granted by (insert name of record label here) to the purchaser of this CD to store the contents thereof in the digital medium of his or her choice in perpeturity and to use said contents without altering their length, content or intent for any non-commercial purposes the user so desires.", or something like that.

And while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony.

Re:Simple:

[Reziac]

I like that. And the key part is "noncommercial". The moment money enters the equation, then they're free to either stomp your head or (if they have any sense) demand a cut.

I've had the thought that there's a goldmine waiting to be tapped in P2P, using (unencumbered) MP3s tagged so that people could try low-bitrate for free, and micropurchase high-bitrate as desired, and flagged so that the hosting peer could take a cut for his trouble and bandwidth. In short, where one could legally distribute far and wide, to the profit of all concerned, and at no cost to the RIAA members.

Re:Simple:

[SpecBear]

The sad part is that any of us feel the need to ask for such permission. For years I was able to buy CDs that didn't come with EULAs, DRM, or other such crap. The content of the CD is protected by copyright law. That's all the labels should need, and that's all that we should allow them.

If they know 60% of their users..

[onion2k]

"The CD as it is right now is dead," Levy said, adding that 60% of consumers put CDs into home computers in order to transfer material to digital music players.

If they realise that 60% of CD purchasers are ripping content then why on Earth are they trying to make it more difficult? If this guy is correct then increased anti-piracy measures will alienate more than half of their target audience.

Either he's wrong (I doubt it) or the music industry is trying to commit business suicide.

But I suppose we already knew that when they signed Ashlee Simpson. ;P

Re:If they know 60% of their users..

[alphaseven]

If they realise that 60% of CD purchasers are ripping content then why on Earth are they trying to make it more difficult? If this guy is correct then increased anti-piracy measures will alienate more than half of their target audience.

They're making it more difficult because they want you to rebuy all your stuff on iTunes and the like, not rip stuff you already have. They want to consumers to get frustrated and say "Guess I'll have to buy The White Album again." Though I agree that alienation is more likely.

Hmmm

[Phanatic1a]

Lyrics and sheet music. Or tab. And a flash drive with properly-tagged high-bitrate mp3s on it.

Re:Hmmm

[Ubergrendle]

In Canada several music labels have started doing this: CDs, with mp3s on them, and even mpegs of music videos. There was a re-release of numerous Tragically Hip titles in this way last year.

I don't buy popular music anymore so I'm not up-to-date on the latest trends, but I thought it was a cool idea. HMV's biggest Toronto store has pretty much moved all the music upstairs -- the mainfloor is 95%+ DVDs now. I think this is the best sign that CD sales are in jeopardy.

Re:Hmmm

[Ana10g]

I don't think we have software to rip an MP3 from sheet music yet, but I'm working on it. I think that one's a safe bet!

Re:Hmmm

[porneL]

CD cover as JPEG. Inset as PDF.

Alain Levy...

[Kazrath]

Does this guy read slashdot?

I have read several articles recently about people only buying audio CD's for some of the special perks inside of them besides just the music. Basically adding value to the CD purchase.

I think fundamentally digital downloads are more consumer friendly because in effect you cut out the middle men (Distrobution Centers/Resellers) and are able to get product directly to the user. Unfortunatly some of the digital download sites are charging to much per song to entice a greater number of legitmate downloaders.

Basically to justify the price of the CD's they need to add additional value and for digital only copies they need to lower the cost. I think their bloated prices are starting to finally catch up with them.

Re:Alain Levy...

[Ruie]

I think fundamentally digital downloads are more consumer friendly because in effect you cut out the middle men (Distrobution Centers/Resellers) and are able to get product directly to the user. Unfortunatly some of the digital download sites are charging to much per song to entice a greater number of legitmate downloaders.

Record companies (and RIAA) are the middlemen

Re:Alain Levy...

[dangitman]

And retailers are a whole other level of middlemen. Companies that print the CD covers and press the CDs are yet another level of middlemen. Online, many independent bands are able to sell their work, without signing up to a record label. This would often be impractical or impossible with physical CDs.

What about CD as a backup media for those rips?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll rather stick with a CD, regardless of any bonus material, as a convenient backup from which I can easily re-rip my DRM-free music :-) (hopefully DRM-free - so Sony music's out, sorry ;-) )

Good music?

[fluch]

How about to put some good music on the CD? For a change...

Re:Good music?

[wabbit season]

Seconded. I have no problems buying cds, I just don't buy as many as I used to due to the fact that there aren't as many being released that I'm interested in buying.

Re:Good music?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

So in all of the history of music from the whole world that has been released on CD, you have exhausted all of the good stuff? Amazing. Where do you get the time?

Re:Good music?

[Jesselnz]

There's tons of good music to buy, you just have to find it first. That's what BitTorrent is for.

Re:Good music?

[Unholy_Kingfish]

For me, I don't buy as many CD's because I am not willing to pay $20 for an album that could potentially suck ass. Yah yah, sales for "popular" stuff can be as low as $10, but that tends to the sucky stuff. I don't need the newest American Idol POS CD.

I'd be more willing take a chance on new music if it didn't cost me so much.

I do not need MORE features on a CD. I just want music and the ability to convert that music to a portable format of MY choosing.

Copyright profiteering is dead

[mlwmohawk]

I don't know what shape the future will take, but the fact that people could get rich by the distribution of media are coming to an end. Without some vast world wide police state, media is easily redistributable.

Historically speaking, it has only be an accident of the last few hundred years that "intellectual property" is even something that can be "owned."

We would still be paying Ogg for the patent on that wheel thing.

Re:Copyright profiteering is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

We would still be paying Ogg for the patent on that wheel thing

I'm pretty sure Ogg would want it to be unpatented...

Re:Copyright profiteering is dead

[Dunbal]

the fact that people could get rich by the distribution of media are coming to an end. Without some vast world wide police state, media is easily redistributable.

      I'd just like to point out, as an interesting side note, that US foreign policy requires that countries who want to deal with the US have to tighten up (or in some cases - create) their IP laws. An example - CAFTA. I live in Costa Rica. As part of the "Free Trade" agreement (which is a whole other rant), Costa Rica is supposed to adopt DMCA-type laws.

      So the world IP "police state" is well on its way. Thankfully Costa Rica has not agreed to sign the free trade nightmare yet, though.

Re:Copyright profiteering is dead

[Ana10g]

That's why I'm running for president in 2016 (when I turn 35 and am eligible). Get rid of this draconian BS.

statements...

[tomstdenis]

1. I will pay to download music that I like.

2. I will avoid DRM where possible.

3. I will REMOVE DRM when found.

HEY EMI GUYS, read these statements in your heads. Customers are like me. Forget about the people who pirate things because frankly they're the minority anyways.

Tom

Re:statements...

[planetmn]

Customers are like me.

I don't think they are. The average person on Slashdot may be, but not the average consumer. I think a more accurate set of statements for most customers is:

1. I will pay for music that I like.
2. I do not know what DRM is.
3. I do not know how to remove DRM, and don't know why I would.

Probably the biggest boon for the record companies right now (at least in regards to DRM) is iTunes. For most people, iTunes just works. It's easy, it's cheap, they can listen to their music on their iPod which connects to their car and home stereo, etc. Most people don't have the issues with iTunes that are pointed out on Slashdot all of the time. And as long as iTunes works, the record companies can point to it as a successful, consumer-friendly implementation of DRM.

My wife doesn't know what DRM is. My mom doesn't know. Neither do most people I know. As long as the average consumer can access his/her music the way they normally do (via iPod/iTunes or on a CD), they won't know and won't care about DRM.

-dave

Re:statements...

[trogdor8667]

I'm a computer science student, and am currently in our required ethics course. Our teacher asked for an example of technology that was intrusive and hurt our privacy and rights. I immediately said DRM. In an senior level computer science course, I was suprised that absolutely NO ONE knew what I was talking about...

Re:statements...

[infofreako]

Amen.

What's worse is, that just as VHS saved the MPAA's ass back in the 80's and CREATED an at home video revolution that created billions in revenue, the MP3's that they fought so hard against nearly 10 years ago is quickly becoming their bread and butter.

What concerns me most, as a consumer who prefers his music in Atoms as opposed to bytes, is the fact that a day may come where a DRM and/or Lossy option is my only option. That will be a sad day indeed.

And, I am sucker for cool/limited packaging. I will not spend $18 for the new Bob Dylan CD in a plastic jewel case, but I will spend $22 for the same disc a special package with bonus DVD.

-nfo

Re:statements...

[xiphoris]

You have a strange idea of rights. None of your rights include the ability to break a contract you willingly entered into with someone. Let's say you downloaded music from iTunes. In order to do that, you had to accept their contract, their conditions. Part of their contract said "you agree to use the music we provide in exactly these ways". Some of those ways include copying to your iPod, and forbid other uses.

Those are your rights. Your rights to the music you have are exactly the ones granted to you by your contract and nothing more. You don't have a right to that music. You don't have fair use, because you agreed to give it up in the contract you signed. If you look closely, you will notice you are not buying a copy of the music; you are buying a license. This license does not grant you 'fair use' or any other such things.

I mean, I understand what you're saying -- those terms suck. But it has nothing to do with your "rights" here. Your rights end when you willingly agree to give them up by signing that contract. And remember, no one is forcing you to sign this contract. You're choosing to buy some 'licenses' with their terms.

Don't make the issue about something it's not. DRM is just an enforcement of the legal situation that already exists because of the contract you signed.

Re:statements...

[stinerman]

That contract is unenforceable under the doctrine of first sale*. Once you buy a copy of a copyrighted work, you may do what you wish with it so long as you don't run afoul of copyright as that copy is your property.

*there have been conflicting decisions regarding whether copyrighted materials can be put under a EULA, so this is just my opinion.

Re:statements...

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the point. The contract you are entering into is invalid because of the preexisting laws make it so. Therefore they are the ones breaking the laws. The only way to get decent music again is to either force the record industry as a whole to change its business model or letting them commit business suicide. Something will rise to takes its place.
We have to stop twisting copyrights. Copyright has to revert back to 'This was created by me, you can't claim it as your own and sell it" only.
The industry must accept that their is a finite profit limit for all entertainment set at 100% profit. And that any company vanishes, thier software becomes public domain.
These are fair things.
I don't buy cds, nor do I use Itunes.I use my mp3 players record off radio function or use google to get mp3s. I time shift TV shows.
The industry forgets that the cnsumers are ultimately in control. The EMI exec is basically admitting that the war they are in is unwinable and that they will be forced to change to what they feel is a less proftable model. They believe that no DRM leaves to Napster which leads to them making less profit. But DRM has shown them no profit either as they see the alienation.
They won't give up DRM, so they will either finally accept that piracy is a part of business or die.

Bye bye Ms. American Pie.

[SatanicPuppy]

CD's are in a weird limbo, because their adoption of a fricking solid digital format is still hanging fire. The only formats record companies agree on are awful...No good to consumers at all. Consumer unfriendly formatting pretty much keeps me buying CDs.

Besides, I'm not sure what CD profits being 6 times online profits actually means...I buy one CD, that's going to cost the same as what? 10 songs on iTunes? At least? So, maybe it's just that online sales, being mainly single songs, are exposing the obvious fact that most albums only have one or two good songs.

Re:Bye bye Ms. American Pie.

[steve_l]

yes. Every post-CD format (minidisk, DAT, SACD, DVD-Audio) has been crippled by DRM that reduced the value of the format. CD is the best format for content because they can sell it through the legacy retail channel (shops), and because it is mostly DRM free. Now, if a record company embraced DRM-free content, at a reasonable encoding and price, things would be different. After all, its not exactly hard to go from DRM protected content to unprotected, so why do they bother? A willingness to give iTunes total control of the business?

If every CD only has two good tracks on it, then the real value of those two tracks is $10 each. The other eight are giveaways. The record companies want variable pricing so they can charge more for those two tracks. The alternative strategy: try and sell more hasn't occurred to them.

Re:Bye bye Ms. American Pie.

[mei_mei_mei]

He said 6 times the revenue, not the profit. He just means the money they get from pnline is 1/6th of what they get from physical sales.

It's actually a good Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

This is part of the reason why I'm willing to buy DVD's but not music CD's. DVD's have tons of outakes, commentary and what not and I can buy them for sometimes less then I can buy a music cd!

So heres what they should do:
Bundle a DVD with the music cd (Or better yet just say the music cd is "extra" becuase nobody is going to use it anyway) and include some live videos, the video that came with the single as well remixes of the current songs. Also include live interviews and other stuff.

And although must of us wont be able to tell the difference, if the music included on the dvd was at a better bit rate then the CD that would also be an incentive.

I mean if you think about it, that movie you bought has what amounts to maybe a 40 minute soundtrack and it probably costed less then the music cd you bought!

What matterial???

[thedarb]

How about good music on the entire album for once.

Rather have leprosy

[jenkin sear]

Wasn't the last additional material we found on a CD a rootkit?

Re:Rather have leprosy

[jb.hl.com]

EMI didn't ship a rootkit.

Please check your facts before you post idiotic crap like this.

Re:Rather have leprosy

[jenkin sear]

I did, which is why I didn't say it was an EMI CD. The point (which you are apparently not able to grasp, so I'll spell it out for ya) is that every time somebody bundles extra stuff on a CD or a DVD, it seems to come with it's own player that phones home, it's own executables, it's own spyware, and (in Sony / BMG / Colombia's case) an actual rootkit. There's no altruism here.

Maybe you need to stop jumping to conclusions and actually read the comments before calling people names?

Re:Rather have leprosy

[jb.hl.com]

Your comment did not say "player that phones home, with spyware, rootkits and executables", your comment said "rootkit". This is a discussion about an EMI statement, not a Sony/BMG/Columbia statement.

Maybe you ought to make your comments less vague.

Re:Rather have leprosy

[geekoid]

Your being intentionally obtuse. Stop it. It doesn't help.

Re:Rather have leprosy

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe pot-kettle-black but you are an argumentative idiot

Re:Rather have leprosy

[rootEToTheIPi]

Perhaps a citation? "It was written in 1910 by Dixon Lanier Merritt (1879-1972), a Southern US newspaper editor and president of the American Press Humorists Association." http://www.bdb.co.za/shackle/articles/pesky_pelica n.htm

Re:Rather have leprosy

[jenkin sear]

Very nice! I had always (mis) attributed it to ogden nash, of course. Thanks!

someone has to say this

[Anonymous Coward]

> What material would you like to see?

1) The songs of the CD in 320kbps MP3 format
2) Full rebate of the purchase
3) Ideally, some nude pix of female singer

No

[jb.hl.com]

When the main motivation for piracy (semantics nazis get off my back) is that piracy involves almost no direct cost to the consumer, it won't do much else.

Sad, really.

good music

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see good music on the CDs, not just 1 good song and a bunch of crap.

DVD: $9.99 Soundtrack CD: $17.99

[Dr. Zowie]

To keep me buying CDs (or, rather, get me started again) the industry would have to lower prices drastically. When the CD of the "Bride and Prejudice" soundtrack costs twice as much as the movie itself, there is a serious problem with pricing.

Easy Sony

[masklinn]

What material would you like to see?"

Why rootkits and virii for my computer of course!

Re:Easy Sony

[vmardian]

I think you mean viruses.

He probably wishes that they were dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the CD is almost the only high quality(bear with me audiophiles, and compare to 128 kilobit mp3), cross platform, simple, versatile, inexpensive, and DRM-free format in existence, it will be a good choice.

Sure, the retail package of bits model deserves to be killed by the internet; but, with the exception of a few independent outfits who have a clue, online music distribution sucks so incredibly hard that it is a step down from a format 20 odd years old. Pathetic.

Give me an online distribution method that doesn't suck, and then we'll talk about the death of the CD.

Additional Content?

[Muad'Dib129]

Shit. All of the "Additional Content" would be available via download sooner or later anyway.

Re:Additional Content?

[Dunbal]

All of the "Additional Content" would be available via download sooner or later anyway.

      How about, immediately? :)

Hmmm....

[8127972]

"Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs?"

Pron

How 'bout MP3 versions of all songs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like the CD to contain MP3s, so that I don't have to RIP them.

Copy DVDs!?

[Biotech9]

I stopped buying CDs year ago, because all I was doing was buying them and ripping them. I started to buy the albums I wanted on vinyl and just downloaded the MP3s of the music separately. Vinyl was prettier, held it's value longer, and was more fun to play on those special occasions when MP3s aren't enough :)

But the most recent CD I bought was by Richie Hawtin, the pre-eminent electronic artist behind plastikman. The CD came with a DVD (or vice versa), with a live show by him. The CD had a full album by him, but the DVD also had that album ripped as a high bitrate MP3 for your ipod, it had a longer version that wouldn't fit on CD, and also a lot of extras, to play with.

Basically it copied the way DVDs of movies have gone lately, lots of extras, low prices, and therefore high sales.

Re:Copy DVDs!?

[realmolo]

"I started to buy the albums I wanted on vinyl and just downloaded the MP3s of the music separately."

You do realize that simply owning the vinyl version doesn't make it legal for you to download the MP3s from somewhere, right?

To be completely legal, you'd have to make your own MP3s directly from your vinyl recording.

Not that anyone would ever care, but still.

Re:Copy DVDs!?

[LordNightwalker]

You do realize that simply owning the vinyl version doesn't make it legal for you to download the MP3s from somewhere, right?

No, he didn't know that. He appreciates you pointing it out to him though. So do the rest of us. If what you say is true, this is big news indeed!.

Now, since you've been so friendly to share some of that vast array of knowledge of yours, here's a free piece of info from me, I thought you might appreciate it: for all intents and purposes, gravity on earth works in a downward fashion, pulling things towards the ground.

Hey, I could back and forth obvious, generally known and utterly redundant crap with you all day if I wanted...

Three letters...

[interiot]

What material would you like to see?

Anything that's not DRM'd.

I know, what are the chances of that, huh? On the other hand, what's the point in including extra fluff that's DRM'd in a package where the primarily content isn't DRM'd? "Here's the cake you ordered, sir. And to thank you for your patronage, we've included a bonus poisoned pill. It's sugary though, yum!" "Umm, thanks... I'll just eat the cake."

Just Now?

[American AC in Paris]

The Music CD has been dead for a while now. It died the minute they started trying to keep us ripping tracks.

I haven't looked lately; can you still find a Red Book compliant CD in music stores anymore?

It's not so much what I want as what I don't want

[edbob]

Just put the music on the CD for a reasonable price and if I like it, I will buy it. Do not put rootkits, annoying advertising, or other silly "enhancements" that take over my computer when I try to play it. Allow me to rip the music myself to a format of my own choosing and I will continue to happily buy CD's.

Still buying CDs here

[Anonymous Coward]

Until they ditch the DRM on the online stores Ill continue to buy CDs. The wife has an Ipod, and Ive currently got a DJ and soon to get a Zune, so Itunes don't work on mine, and other DRM doesn't work on hers. Both cars still have CD players so no luck there either. Not to mention I still like to be able to hold what I purchase.

Material?

[Brothernone]

I don't want to see "Additional Material". Most of what stops me from buying CDs is that there is a seriuos lack of variety in mainstream Music. Theese days every other artist sounds like one you've already grown tired of hearing. it's not that CDs are dead, it's the music your selling that has become heartless and dead. Most music being produced and sold in stores are by wannabe celebreties not artists. It doesn't take much skill to sing prewritten words into a studio microphone, and yet sadly that makes up about %75 of the music found in stores anymore. I'll let the others get into the DRM issues.

The best feature of current CDs ...

[DrJimbo]

... is no friggin' DRM.

In a related question, buggy whip manufacturers are asking what features we would like added to buggy whips in order to make them more attractive to consumers.

What would it take?

[ivan256]

$4-$6, quality albums instead of filler that was written in their pop-music factory and performed by the artist with the best fashion sense, and a complete absence of DRM. As an added bonus, they could stop using my money to get laws passed that hurt consumers.

buying CD's

[polar red]

I will keep buying CD's, but only until they come with DRM. I want a physical item i am in total control of. If you can't sell me that, I am not interested anymore in paying for music.

Exactly!

[dafz1]

CDs only have a few decent tracks on them(no more than 6...hence being worth $6). The only benefit they have is being an archival copy of the song, which I can rip from over and over again.

The other benefit to a CD is I can "discover" an artist's other music(the "whole CD is artwork argument), in addition to the popular stuff I hear on the radio/Sirius. However, with notable exceptions, the fluff that takes up the other 8 - 10 tracks on current CDs is not worth the extra $12 over the $2 for the two songs I bought online.

Don't fight the market. CDs will be dead soon. Online distribution is the way of the present and future. If artists want you to buy entire works, put a couple of the non-single songs on the net for free for a limited time. If you want people to discover your work, either get your stuff on the radio, or put it out there for free, just like the "indie"/struggling up-and comers do.

Re:Exactly!

[Anonymous Coward]

The other benefit to a CD is I can "discover" an artist's other music(the "whole CD is artwork argument), in addition to the popular stuff I hear on the radio/Sirius. However, with notable exceptions, the fluff that takes up the other 8 - 10 tracks on current CDs is not worth the extra $12 over the $2 for the two songs I bought online.

Then you need to listen to better artists :) . Sure, I've purchased some CDs on which the only songs I liked were the ones on the radio (random example: Evanescense's "The Open Door"), but it usually goes the other way. Usually, my favorite tracks are ones that never got public airing (similarly: Evanescense's "Fallen", which just plain rocks).

Don't fight the market. CDs will be dead soon. Online distribution is the way of the present and future.

You overstep yourself. You are not "the market" any more than I am. You like online distribution: good for you. I have yet to purchase music online because doing so makes no sense to me. Sure, it's convenient--but it's also mediocre-to-crappy quality, restricted as all get-out, and intolerant of (inevitable) hardware failures. See how much you like the pure-digital approach the first time you lose all your music and have to re-purchase it all.

I will stop buying CDs only when I am no longer able to find them. And unless the music industry comes up with a vastly improved online distribution model, that will very likely also be when I stop buying music altogether.

If artists want you to buy entire works, put a couple of the non-single songs on the net for free for a limited time. If you want people to discover your work, either get your stuff on the radio, or put it out there for free, just like the "indie"/struggling up-and comers do.

You sure are quick to suggest that the artists spend lots of money to give you free stuff in the hopes that you might deign to buy one or two of their tracks. Good show.

I'd continue to buy CDs...

[OglinTatas]

at indie concerts and used record sources.
While I have downloaded mp3s from bands' websites and myspace *hurk* pages, I have never used itunes music store, the napster (the original) or any subsequent file sharing service or torrent site.
I rent CDs from the library, but I don't rip with the one exception of a funeral, the deceased had a particular request and I had never bothered to acquire that music before the eventuality, so I was pressed for time.
So yes, I will continue to buy CDs, (thanks ebay, amazon marketplace, cd-baby, and artists themselves) but you can bet your ass that I will continue to rip those CDs to other formats.

less is more

[Anonymous Coward]

Additional material?

How about just the music, at a reasonable price. I do not want to be charged $18(USD) for a disc which carries e.g. a root-kit as "additional material". I'll happily pay ~$10(USD) for a disc with at least 5/10 good tracks, and no hidden extras.

HD, Multichannel Sound; Songs, not whole albums

[sourcery]

For me, CDs have to two fatal flaws:

1. They can't provide hi-def, multi-channel audio (e.g., the sound quality of DVD-Audio or SACD.) It would also be nice if the format wasn't fixed, but could be extended and improved over time.

2. You have to purchase an entire album to the get the one song you actually want.

Whether music comes on a disc or is downloaed over the internet is a matter of secondary importance, as far as I'm concerned.

I know..

[matt me]

I know the arctic monkeys are shite, but I really wouldn't call this the end of music.

www.[ARTIST].com

[TheGreatOrangePeel]

I can't speak for anyone else, but because of all this RIAA nonsense, I buy from the Artist's website, anymore. It's not a sure bet that I'll bypass the RIAA that way, but it's been my experiance that, for the most part, you will and also that more of the money you just spent goes directly to the artist.

He's smoking $100 bills

[rob_squared]

Or he would if CDs were actually dead. DRM'd music files are the wave of the future, after all. They get all the "buying multiple copies" syndrome that they did with Vinyl/cassette/CD that they did before without actually having to produce anything physical. Did you buy music from napster/rhapsody or whatever and now want an ipod? Great! Now buy it all in FairPlay format!

It looks like the record execs finally found a way to profit on this new business opportunity that everyone was saying to evolve to. They did, but only because they found a way to squeeze us a little harder.

Re:He's smoking $100 bills

[Mateo_LeFou]

Lessig told a story in one of his books -- I think it was the Future of Ideas -- about one of the early videocassette models. It had a lock so you had to pay again each time you wanted to watch the tape. Studio guys apparently said this was unacceptable, because there was no way to know how many people were watching the tape each time. They wanted a mechanism that could charge each individual present for each viewing. They still want this. And with all this exciting technology, they might yet get it.

Re:He's smoking $100 bills

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll have to remove our eyeballs I guess.

What i'd like to see is

[moco]

I was very happy with the pre copy-protection scheme. I like owning the "original" plastic disc with the artwork and lyrics but i also like the ability to rip the music so i can play it at the time and on the device of MY choice.

A fair price would be nice.

[L4m3rthanyou]

I still buy CDs. Now, let me say, what would attract me to purchase more of them would be a more justified price on them. I'd buy a hell of a lot more CDs if they were $5. I like album art. I like having a physical copy of my music... and I like albums, not just songs. My biggest worry about the explosion of downloadable music is that it will forsake the album in favor of mass-produced, repetitive singles.

The record labels keep trying to add shit to CD packages (dualDisc? yuck) and cut costs by using crappy cardboard cases, when they could just stea-- I mean, charge less money. I mean, how much do you think it costs to stamp a CD? It's not like a lot of that money gets passed on to the artist anyway...

Re:A fair price would be nice.

[polar red]

It's not like a lot of that money gets passed on to the artist anyway...

That's why i try to purchase my CD's at concerts! More for the artists!

Re:A fair price would be nice.

[Reziac]

No doubt they've run the numbers, and are pricing 'em at the market sweet spot. Even so, I agree that's too high relative to their value, not to mention the few cents the artist gets from it.

I've noticed that my personal sweet spot for DVDs is about $8 for movies, and $1 per episode for TV. I've bought a whole lot more of 'em since they started showing up in that range.

Similarly, I seem to be willing to pay about $1 per song for stuff I REALLY like, and about 25 cents per song for stuff I like well enough but could live without.

Re:A fair price would be nice.

[Schmapdi]

QFT - If CDs were 5 dollars a pop I would have twice as many of them as I do now. I hate Dualdiscs (I'm trying to buy the last couple Talking Heads CDs I want without getting the damn things) and I hate non-jewel case packaging. IMO - there's no good reason for a cd to ever be over 9.99 - with sale prices dipping into the $7 range. For this price I should get: My cd, a jewel case, cover art/lyrics packet. I hate being forced into buying stuff I don't really want (i.e. dualdisc cds, or the pack in a disc of outtakes, etc crap that has kept me from buying Elvis Costello's old stuff thus far) Let me buy an old cd for $7 as it was made and you can keep your delux edition for $15.

Re:A fair price would be nice.

[pho3nixtar]

Not to defend the music business, but do you honestly think that the only place the money goes is to either the artist (the smallest chunk) and to the big whigs at the record label? How do you think the PR people, the advertising people, the people who create the art for the cd packages, the photographers for the photos included in cd packages, the A&R people at the label, the secretaries, the IT people, the business people, etc. etc. etc. Where the hell do you think the money comes from to pay all of those people who provide those services?

I have a front row view to the fact that the music business is not an artist-friendly place. For all of the things I said in the above paragraph, record labels treat true artists like shit. No, actually they treat them like diarrhea. They squeeze artists dry of the best music the band will likely ever have because after that initial burst of on-edge creativity, the band is forced into the studio every 1 and a half to 2 years to pump out some re-hashed version of the album they just put out. Music that took years of experience to build it up is just expected to be reproduced like some Britney Spears shit... whatever, I could go on. However, I laugh... no, I curse like a sailor whenever I hear people talk shit about how downloading the music helps them to determine whether or not they are going to buy the music or not. That's such an utter crock of shit that it's not even remotely funny. Why the hell would anyone, unless they were actually driven by a sense of right and wrong, buy what they can easily get for free off the internet? They can blame the evil music business empire or greedy "artists" all they want. They're just bums trying to get a free meal from the chef slaving in the kitchen.

What material would you like to see?

[git68]

Free p0rn!

In car music

[cliffski]

The guys insane. Im a computer programmer and I still buy CDs. why? because I can play them in my car stereo, or my wifes, or our home CD player, or the other CD player in another room. Thats 5 dedicated devices I have for playing these things. I can also lend the CD to a friend if I wanted. This is all way mroe convenient than arsing around with downlaoded files. If I only ever used my PC to play music, it would be different, and I *do* rip the very rare CDs which i listen to whilst coding.
I'd be amazed if you cant still buy high street CDs in 5 years, and probably in 10 or even 15 years.

Re:In car music

[geekoid]

You could download it, and then burn a disk for your needs.

Re:In car music

[cliffski]

why would I do that? thats just making like more complex for myself.

They're Still Missing the Point

[eno2001]

It's not about "extra material". It's about convenience. CDs, tapes, and vinyl are ALL a pain in the ass. The reason that digital music is better is because of what it COULD allow us to do if we were not held back by ridiculous artificial restrictions. Imagine being able to have your music collection centralized at home on ONE MACHINE. NOT files strewn about all over the place, but one centralized location. Imagine being able to listen to that music ANYWHERE and ANYTIME you want to. It's not an impossible dream. It's completely technically feasible today. If the artifical restrictions on the technology were lifted and the artificial price of wireless bandwidth set at a reasonable rate, we could be doing this in six months at worst. But because old, stupid business people with no grasp of technology want to hold onto old schemes, we're made to suffer. Currently, I stream everything from my house to wherever I happen to be. The only exception being my cell phone or the car because I can't waste that much money on wireless data services. But, work, a friend's house, a relative's house??? I can listen to (and in some cases watch) ANYTHING I want to. Today.

Re:They're Still Missing the Point

[kencurry]

All my music in on my powerbook.

All of my music is on my iPod.

I take my iPod everywhere, can listen to head phones or plug into cassette adapter in car, or headphone jack at friend's house.

This is pretty much what you describe that you want. Apple managed to give it to consumers within the scope of acceptable, semi-transparent DRM.

Why is this so bad? I think it's a very workable comromise and by the way, what's really wrong with getting old ;)

Re:They're Still Missing the Point

[Dr. Zowie]

Imagine being able to have your music collection centralized at home on ONE MACHINE. NOT files strewn about all over the place, but one centralized location.

You can do that now. I do. BSD Samba server + SONOS + iTunes = happy Zowie.

Re:They're Still Missing the Point

[eno2001]

Yeah. I started out that way too. I currently use Linux, Icecast, OpenVPN, NFS and a variety of media players depending on where I am. If I'm at home, I just hit an NFS share with a Linux media player (all desktops/laptops and the media center in my house are Linux boxes). If I'm at work, I hit an Icecast stream over OpenVPN (heheh on port 80) with Xine. If I'm at my folk's house, I use OpenVPN and Xine. If I'm at a friend's house, I might use Putty for tunneling over SSH and Windows Media Player or Real Player, depending on what they've got. If I could afford the cost and the bandwidth was high enough I could listen to music in my car via streaming over a cell modem. The point is that this stuff SHOULD be available to Joe Average, and it should be cheap. It should also allow the most flexibility possible. So, even though we can do this sort of thing through complex trickery, it's a shame the industry doesn't see the value in offering an easier to use and universal implementation (Mac/Windows and *nix) as being a viable option.

Re:They're Still Missing the Point

[eno2001]

Nothing wrong with getting old at all. I happen to be huge fan of it myself as I'm really looking forward to 50. I'm currently 36. My statement about "old" business men has to do with the typical boneheaded decisions regarding technology being made by people who don't grasp it. Sadly, it's hard for people to keep up with the changes these days because they happen so fast and most people really want to hold onto their heyday even if it's no longer viable.

Liner notes are king in my book

[goodbadorugly]

The day they begin ofering liner notes and the insert artwork in downloadable music is the day I stop buying music CD's altogether. Theres a real art in my opinion of making a cd case and insert look pleasing to the eye. Some bands also add some insights in the liner notes, which are always fun to read.

Lossless audio is also important to me, but i think I can live without it as long as audio quality is pretty good, I personally cannot differentiate too much between itunes store tracks and stuff ive ripped myself.

Music geek stuff

[Rob T Firefly]

When Kurt Harland, the original lead singer of the band Information Society, released his first solo album "Don't Be Afraid," he included an entire second CD full of fannish goodness in data form. There was a previously unreleased music video, there were all sorts of text files and images, there were movie clips from his archives, and - best of all for music geeks - there were wav files of many of the samples he used to make the songs with. Furthermore, there was a segment of a massive digital scavenger hunt he ran, which spanned the data disc as well as many websites, the prize of which was a WAV file of the album's missing final track. There was a game, a Windows sound theme, and images from rare data discs distributed to fans in the band's early days. He even had some room left over after all that, so he solicited his fans to contribute pretty much anything they wanted to fill out the disc.

And all this was in 1997.

Innovate much, music industry?

Goodbye, EMI.

[Anonymous Coward]

> These ivory tower execs should have realized almost 7 years ago with the advent of Napster that the CD was dying. Frankly, I don't think the iTunes Music Store should have ever happened, they should have realized the market then and adapted, now they'll have to play catch up to those innovating the non-physical media market.

Only 7 years? Heck, almost 30 years. The music business doesn't require an economy based on artificial scarcity, but the record business certainly does.

With an unlimited supply,
That was the only reason
We all had to say goodbye.
Unlimited supply?
EMI.
- The Sex Pistols, EMI, 1977

Goodbye, EMI. Hello, artist-owned websites, P2P, wireless ad-hoc connectivity, live performances.

The Sex Pistols were only 30 years ahead of their time.

Some good music, for starts.

[Anonymous Coward]

What material would you like to see?

Some good music, for starts. It's hard to find that from the mainstream vendors, however. Downloadable music has really helped the small music labels get their music out.

Yay http://bleep.com/

root kits

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

That will be added things you get from a CD.

I Agree with This Post!

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that a CD is only marginally cheaper than a DVD of a film that cost $50 millions to make is a nutty. $5 would be a suitable price.

Downloading electronic media...

[doit3d]

...has admittedly probably cut into some of the profits of CD's, but let's be more realistic and honest. DRM has/is doing more, in addition to poor quality talent being promoted by the *AA's and outrageous pricing, to damage CD sales more than anything else. The CD is not dead yet, and probably will not be for some time, but the *AA's continued ignorance will assuredly facilitate a faster demise. It seems they do now have the insight to see the end coming for this form of media at least, but still lack the common intellect of the average individual to see why...

OTOH..

[davido42]

I have the opposite question: what could CD's achieve that cannot be downloaded? Scratch-n-sniff?

Prediction: DRM will be dead too in 5 years.

http://www.bitworksmusic.com/
P.S. Download my music.. for free.

No DRM please

[Ice Wewe]

Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs? What material would you like to see?"

I'd like to see a removal of the DRM that EMI puts on all their CDs. If I pay for something legally, I want to be able to use it on whatever I please.

Me?

[robyannetta]

I want to keep buying CDs.

In case of a catastrophic failure of my system and backup, I still want a legally-puchased physical CD in my hand to give me the warm fuzzies.

What material?

[Anonymous Coward]

What material would you like to see?

Non-DRMed lossless downloads.

what could they add?

[barchibald]

The real question is, what could they possibly add that I wouldn't want to rip to my computer or device or just download in the first place? If they can put it on the CD....uh...yeah. What they need to do, is get over it.

CD alive, CD PLAYER is dead

[HalAtWork]

He went on to say that most CDs are simply used for ripping onto digital audio players.

Traditional CD players may be dead, but the CD continues to be useful as a distribution medium. Clearly online distribution does not eclipse the traditional CD, in quality, in fundamentals (no DRM so you can rip to any player in any format, copy on all of your players at once [car, portable, PC], you get a permanent high-quality copy, particularly in DualDisc options, printed jacket + lyrics), and in extras (promotional material such as special editions with included DVDs etc).

The fact that listeners continue to buy CDs only to rip songs from show that the CD medium is very much alive and that online distribution can not match the value of CD-ripped music.

The traditional CD PLAYER on the other hand, may be dead.

Re:CD alive, CD PLAYER is dead

[steve_l]

In car players are still alive. the CD as a distribution format for playback in those systems still works. Only now you can burn a disk on demand, from your collection.

Somewhere up in my attic I have a pile of legacy analog audio technology. a record player, the LPs, a VCR and its tapes, a cassette recorder. The most valuable item is my grandfather's tube-based AM radio from 1938; I may bring that down and use it as a PC speaker. The rest is just lost space. Which is the problem I have with CDs. What do you do with them? Unless you want to show off your legacy use case, they just collect in a box?

Re:CD alive, CD PLAYER is dead

[halo8]

This is pretty much what i was going to say.

I dont like and aim opposed to ideas such as Valves Steam or EAOnline, call me old fashion but i like having something in my hand when i pay for it.

CD's make a great distribution medium.

Re:CD alive, CD PLAYER is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

I can transcode a CD into any new format, so the source media is still useful when a new medium to transcode it to comes into existance, i.e. with portable media players, etc. I wouldn't transcode an OGG into a new format, but I would go back to the CD, and rip it again into whatever new format.

What would you like to see?

[Rohan427]

What material would you like to see?

Something other than the crap that the labels are promoting these days. Enough with the bee-bop, teen-age "artists" singing whatever the label tells them to. Enough with the inexperinced "artists" singing about love when they're barely out of puberty.

PGA

Include the data versions of the song

[An anonymous Frank]

Indeed for years now I've been buying CDs only to import them on the computer and then put them away on a shelf somewhere never to be touched again. (A while back I used to give them away to friends, but then I got the sense that some of them would just show up to see what new acquisition I had, and it occured to me that this might not be entirely legal anyhow. Initially I was just pissed off at having been robbed so I didn't want to accumulate new posessions to lure opportunistic individuals once more.

Videos and other content can be fun, but I'll look at it (if I've got the time) only right after the initial purchase, and forget all about it later. (If most CDs had such content then I might be more likely to look it up but I'm not enough of a groupie to care for posters, etc.)

It's smiple, I listen to my music either on my 'puter at home, or my iPod otherwise, and that's it, so the CDAudio format has stopped being useful to me a long time ago (as in "years").

Now, if the CD included a session with the files already in mp3/mp4 format, with all the tags filled-in (incl. lyrics,) it would make the process of adding them to my library much quicker (and simpler). I wouldn't mind so much if they were DRM-ed somehow so long as the format was supported by my iPod.

Material

[StormReaver]

"What material would you like to see?"

How about starting by discontinuing litigation against your customer base? I stopped buying CDs when the lawsuits started. Granted, I was helped out by the music business itself. The stuff being sold today sucks so badly that I may not have bought it even if there weren't any lawsuits.

Re:Material

[polar red]

The stuff being sold today sucks so badly

I don't agree, but what i will agree on is : the music that is being marketed is bad.
go out on the web and discover new and exciting music. metal in 20 forms, goa, electro and other kinds of electronic music, music with multiple influences - like for example folk-metal.

Re:Material

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmmmm.... Vir Unis..

Carbon Based Lifeforms :-o~

revenue given to the artist, lyrics, and...

[surfsalot]

When purchasing a CD I want to know how its benefiting the artist. I want to be able to read the insert and the "official" lyrics. It would also be nice to have some way to download some other "recommended artists", though this should be based on the kind of music I already own, and the kind of music I've purchased, not just whatever the record company is pushing. I'd like to see the record companies stop being sleazy and start being "good".

Sound Quality

[kalis104]

I won't download anything from online unless its in lossless. Why have a good system and pump MP3s into it? I always use CDs in my car.

CD is already dead for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Long live the vinyl LP!

Vinyl generally sounds better than CD, it's cheaper, and has proven to last a LONG time with reasonable treatment.

All I want is for CDs to be easy to rip

[maynard]

Just stay out of my way and let me rip my music in peace. Additional 'features' are not of interest to me. All I care about is the music, and ease of transferring to my mp3 player.

what's the problem with current CDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right, I buy CDs just so that I can rip them and play them on my iPod.

So? I'm buying the CD. I want unencumbered two-channel audio of the highest quality I can find, and that means "Compact Disc." I like DVD-A for things good enough that I will sit down on my couch to listen, but mostly multichannel audio isn't that interesting. I don't like encumbered audio because I can't play it on my TiVo. I don't like low-quality encodings because they sound terrible.

I just want a CD.

If people are going to rip them, make it easier

[Coopjust]

I think one of the reasons people buy music online is because it is easier. Now, here's what I would like to see: A) Cheaper CD's. Charging $9 on iTunes and $20 + Tax in person is ridiculous. B) Digital files that are ready to import with all metadata included, maybe even a copy utility. Put in drive, tell it where to put the files. Maybe even an autoimporter that makes a copy for iTunes. C) I would consider paying $20 if the album came with the music videos and remixes. Even DualDiscs are reasonable if there is a non DD version of the album. I like CD's because you get a physical, attractive product without DRM and it is easy to keep safe, as well as being of higher audio quality than 99% of downloads. Why do I like CDs? Because they don't treat me like a criminal. (I always make sure that the album has the compact disc logo; if it doesn't, the album may have DRM and that's usually why they don't put it.)

Rippable SACD / DVD-Audio

[PowerEdge]

They need to make a rippable high-definition CD format. It makes no sense to me to buy a SACD or a DVD-Audio and not be able to rip it to a format that will play on a PMP. That, or online providers need to offer higher-end audio formats that can be burned to SACD / DVD-Audio. There are still people that care about the quality of the music on the medium.

How could anyone ask for more?

[Dystopian Rebel]

The Musical-Idolatry Complex already controls me completely, just like Hunter S. Eisenhower predicted.

It feeds me proto-literate lyrics, expertly Photoshopped images of poseurs, titillating videos that don't make any sense, the instrumental talent of digitized samples and vocal harmonizers, and -- if I can afford it -- maybe a ticket to a lip-synched World Tour performance with a team of 30 dancers and some fireworks.

People who download music miss all of this. They aren't cool. They hurt the Artists.

That's why Mariah Carey made "Glitter", you bastards. She was hurt.

Re:How could anyone ask for more?

[jb.hl.com]

That's why Mariah Carey made "Glitter", you bastards. She was hurt.

Nah, other way around: I think she made it to hurt the world. But, they did well: they made a film nobody pirated.

Or bought, or saw, for that matter.

Re:How could anyone ask for more?

[amRadioHed]

Your first sentence alone is worth +5 awesome!

In answer to your questions....

[Fallen Kell]

Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs? What material would you like to see?

Well, I would like to "hear" material that is worth "listening" to. I have purchased 3 CD's this year. All of them Joe Bonamassa albums. Other then that, there hasn't been a CD that I have heard worth buying. You see, I actually like listening to "music" performed by talented professional artists, not crap that I could pick up a mic or guitar and sing or play in 20 minutes. You want me to buy more CD's, continue to "develop talent", not grabbing the a band that had 3 songs that had the beat you were looking for and had the right "looks" for the teenie boppers...

I like music that I listen too and say, "HOLY CRAP! How did he/she make the guitar make that sound?", or "Damm that was an amazing riff! I can't believe someone could move their fingers that fast and hit the notes cleanly."

I Like CDs

[night_flyer]

I buy CDs, used however because of the RIAA tactics. what do I want? how about more than one good song with the rest being filler, I didnt like it back in the 80s and I dont like it now. There was a reason they were called "one hit wonders", and it wasnt becasue they had a Album full of good music...

Um...CD quality...

[ploafmaster general]

Until music downloads are widely available in a DRM-less greater-than-128 format, I'll stick to buying my CDs. And I feel some piece of mind knowing I have a physical copy I can rip any time I need to.

Re:DVD: $9.99 Soundtrack CD: $17.99

[King_TJ]

Agreed! I buy CDs to hear the music... I don't think I ever even looked at the "bonus material" they've included on some of my music CDs in the past. (EG. Windows screen savers and wallpaper on those dual-format discs.)

There's not much they could add to a CD to make me buy it besides more songs I want to hear. That's its purpose. What I want to see are lower prices. Even 10+ years ago, I started buying mostly used CDs because even if I didn't get the latest tracks first that way, I could get 3x as much music for my money or more!

The CD is dead! Long live the CD!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at it sideways like, it is in their best interest to make the cd dead whether it is or not. With people ripping from a cd then safely storing it, they've probably figured out the once fragile cd now has a lot more longevity. Without cd's rattling around on someone's dash, they won't be getting replaced as fast. If the original cd does get destroyed, the owner may be just as happy to continue on using the compressed audio files.

Get rid of cd's, and you also get rid of that pesky used cd market, which generally has a price point closer to what the downloads charge than a new cd, and they don't see a penny from the secondary sales. Make everything digital downloads, and there will be laws to prevent sharing them or reselling them. They gave us what we asked for, so why show any mercy to those pinko anarcho-terror-[insert flavor of the month bad guy]-communist pirates?

Re:The CD is dead! Long live the CD!

[Steve001]

When it comes to what it would take to keep me buying CDs, it would have to be a lower price and no DRM, as many others have already mentioned. A combination of price and selection (there are few new CDs that I'm interested in) have led me to seek out used CDs.

Something that I think has not been considered is that the demise of the CD might lead to the death of the modern music business. One of the reasons that DRMed downloads have been successful is that they are not the only legal option available to buyers.

It is not just the iTunes Music Store that is a factor in the iPod's success, it is also the ability to easily rip the music from your own CDs onto the device. How successful would the iPod have been if the only music that could be put on the device was music that you could download from iTunes?

But what happens when DRMed downloads, that are tied to a specific device, and cannot legally be transferred to another type of player are the only option for buying music? One of the best reasons for buying a CD is that I am the one who decides what bit rate, encoding method, and device I choose to use to listen to my music. I don't have to settle for what the music industry decides what is good enough for me.

He's hit the nail on the head - with wrong hammer

[Tired and Emotional]

His argument amounts to "why would you want to buy a CD when you can download the music and copy it directly to your eight track?" oops.

But seriously, CD should be dead - music should come on DVDs in at least 24 bit sample depth. 96Khz is not as important but 16 bit depth is not enough. Everything gets compressed to buggery and for many styles of music, any compression at the mastering stage should be avoided. But if you do that you end up having to worry about the noise floor. 24 bits is enough to avoid that problem.

Adding more content is good. Most of it will be shovelware but a few artists will use it artistically. But if you are going to do that you really want the extra capacity of a DVD, so that drives migration as well.

EMI CDs are not Actual CDs

[Needanewnick]

The one thing that would make CDs from EMI more attractive to purchase would be if they actually sold CDs. The last three CDs I tried to buy that were produced from EMI all failed to function properly due to DRM and non compliance to the CD standard.

I returned each one to the store (opened) explaning why I was returning the product, and got a refund or alternate product.
Then I stopped buying EMI produced music media.

I really didn't think the music was worth that much anyways.

Time for a New World Order (in music at least)

[GodfatherofSoul]

I want to see the entire friggin' industry flipped on its head. There's no reason for record companies any more. The industry should be service oriented from distribution, to studio time, to advertising, even album cover art. Everything should be driven by the band with the musician treated as the CEO and not an employee. People download with such reckless abandon because we're sophisticated enough now to know how so many artists the industry rips off anyway. Of course, the payola network in place has to be dismantled so that legitimate musicians are getting air time instead of the Britney Spears and Ashley Simpsons of the world. Let the bimbos go back to doing porn mag shoots and leave the singing to people with actual talent.

I vaguely remember the numbers for TLC's first hit, they got something like $1 million altogether for a $125 million hit record. After taxes and split three ways, they took home $200,000 each. You're not going to garner much support from the consumer when every knows you're raping stars like that.

Add to that CDs are WAY too expensive!

Re:Time for a New World Order (in music at least)

[geekoid]

Not a lot of people that are in a band can run a business.

Also remember that making the music comes out of the bands pocket.

I agree with you in principle. That each band sould be it's own company, and the labels provide the service of advetising and distribution. Both or which could also be split up.

What about quality?

[edmicman]

If not for CDs, where do I get "original" quality for my digital rips? I don't care about extras on CDs and crap. And yes, when I get my new CD home, I rip it, and really, the MP3s are the only method I actually listen to the music. But I like being able to a)know that I can rip the tracks at whatever bitrate and whatever method I want, and b)the original "master" recording is still sitting there on my shelf.

If the CD goes away, where will the baseline of quality be? Will 128k be where the bar is set?

what would make me buy

[Anonymous Coward]

I think sales would rocket if say the latest Christina Aguilera CD came with a naked music video.

A box of trojans

[thorkyl]

so we can protect ourselves from RIAA

Re:A box of trojans

[hiroller]

We don't need condoms.
The RIAA is raping us, not the other way around =)

Actually, they already sell cds with extra content. I know I have 2 CDs at home (one being NIN Downward Spiral and I can't remember the other one) where the provided the cd with the music on one side and on the flip side they provided DVD with some extra content. I really didn't give a damn about the extra content and to this day haven't seen any of it. I ended up buying the DualDiscs b/c it was the same price but with more stuff.

What they should be doing, instead of throwing in some crappy stuff, is dropping the prices of CDs. I haven't bought a new CD in a few months simply b/c I can't justify spending $14-$15 dollars on a CD. Nowadays, I shop at a local music shop that sells previously owned CDs. THe quality is great but the prices are even better.

Better Comparison of Market Share

[MightyYar]

CDs may outsell downloads by a ratio of 6:1, but that isn't really the most interesting stat. I wonder what the CD and (pay) download market share is compared to ALL music obtained. Include illegal and legal downloads of free music, as well as used music sales. I think that would paint a more interesting picture of where the industry is going, and what the potential market looks like. It is sort of like Coca Cola - sure, they want to know how much soda they sell vs. the competition, but their true measure of success is how much of their products are consumed vs. ALL LIQUIDS CONSUMED. That tells you where the real market is.

Why would I want a CD when I could have a DVD?

[Bryansix]

Even mpeg encoded audio on DVD's like the kind that accompanies movies features discrete audio for each channel. This is a huge improvement and is number one on a long list of why I would rather not buy generic music CD's at all.

Adding more content = head in sand

[haggie]

Adding new "content" to CDs is the industry's last desperate effort before they have to admit that they will have to dramatically reduce the price of CDs. It's like selling a Ford Taurus. It's a dog and even zero percent financing isn't going to move it...

LOL Additional material

[fury88]

Levy adds that by the beginning of 2007, all EMI CDs will come with additional material to make them more attractive to the consumer.

How about a price rebate!

When meeting..

[jvagner]

..new people, it used to be fun to ask, "what's the latest CD(s) you've bought?"

Nowadays people often get a quizzical look on their face, or the conversation descends into a "who buys CDs anymore?" spiral.

The last three house parties I attended were DJed by iPods.

I'm quite partial to Rhapsody for "daily" music use, and spend my CD money on small label stuff (Aquarius in SF, Other Music in NYC, etc).

Vinyl with nice artwork

[pkbarbiedoll]

Til then.. sucks to be EMI.

Paul is Dead

[Doc Ruby]

Of course now that the "official publisher" can't produce nearly as many CDs as mere mortals can in our CD burners, "the CD is dead".

What he would say if he were honest is "the unique privilege of publishing CDs by official monopolizers of 'the right to copy' is dead".

CDs are dying, but only as a medium in which to store music. It will be quite some time before even nifty network transfers totally replace physical objects as a transfer medium for music. Because people like to get something we can hold, physically hand over, to mark the transaction of "turning someone on" to music.

Network distribution and distributed storage will eventually make the CD as quaint as a parchment scroll commemorative document like a diploma. By then, EMI and its monopolistic business model will be long gone.

Re:DVD: $9.99 Soundtrack CD: $17.99

[homer_ca]

Thanks for pointing that out. That's gotta be the biggest insult to customers. The funny part is, the staff roll credits at the end usually run long enough to play 2 or 3 complete songs from the score or soundtrack. As for extras, freebies like screensavers are useless. Give us something good like a bonus DVD with a few music videos or concert outtakes.

oblig

[Morphine007]

OMG PONIES!!!

Re:oblig

[Morphine007]

dammit... that was supposed to be anon >.<

Re:oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG IDIOTZ!!

Additional material == DRM?

[enosys]

When I read "additional material" my very first thought was that they would yet again try to prevent ripping and put WMA files with DRM on the CD. Oh and I'm sure the music industry wishes the CD would die because it is a DRM-free format.

I want my (original) MTV

[Hercules Peanut]

If you want to add value to the CD experience, stop delivering just music and give me the music video. If it takes putting it on a DVD, fine. I remember browsing through the stacks and running across a band called Alice in Chains. I'd never heard of them but was intrigued by the accompanying VHS that came with their CD. The store manager, a buddy of mine, told me that he wished more bands would do this as it was a very hot seller. I loved the music and really enjoyed the video which was a live NY performance of the same music.

All of these years later, where are all of the music videos? I'd love to see the music videos of the old 70's and 80's music too. I'll bet it would be great on my ipod video.

Now, before you flame me for not buying from the Apple Music Store, let me make clear, I'm talking about having a reason for buying a CD (or DVD). High quality and a physical backup are still desirable. I'd still buy CDs as they are now but they are way overpriced and, oh yeah, the DRM/RIAA B.S. makes me not want to buy anything at any price, but that's another story.

P.S.

I hear some CDs have extra content but as they are made for some version of Windows they don't add value to me. If you can't give me a format I can play on any computer, don't bother. I don't want to be a slave to any OS be it Windows, OSX, *NIX in order to listen to/watch my music (or anything else for that matter).

CDs are getting onto the death bed

[SnapperHead]

They are not dead yet, but they are working their way to the death bed. Funny thing is, I can't rememeber the last time I bought a CD in the store. It had to be at least 10 years now.

Going to a store to purchase 1 CD is a serious hassle. I dunno about the rest of the world, but there is no way in hell I will go to a mall just to buy a CD. (Or even 10 CDs) You can't just go into a store without being bombarded by people to try this, try that, take this survey, do you want fries with that, do you want to sign up for our pointless credit card, etc.

Just like movies, people are losing an interest in them not just becuase you can download them. Its also becuase of the 9 million commericals at the begining of each. But, I won't rant about that now.

I heard a friend of mine talking about HD Audio CDs and I realized, wow ... thats a market that will go nowhere. Sorry, but people don't care or can't tell the difference between HD Audio and normal CDs. Hell, I know a lot of people who can't tell the difference between a CD and an MP3.

it's all about value ... I'd buy a factory CD if

[Anonymous Coward]

the price was right

who'd bother to burn a CD if they could buy it for $2

the record companies could easily sell billions of $2 CDs

especially from their non-released materials

truth is the recprd companies are incompetent

they are simply in the process of falling by the wayside

Stop the "Only 1 good song" BS

[businessnerd]

OK I've been reading through this thread and I'm getting a little annoyed. Every other post I see is that "Maybe if there was more than one good song on the album, I'd buy it" crap. Ok for a lot of music out there this is true, but if you also pay attention, you will also realize that the one or two songs that are supposedly good are in fact utter dog shit. I guess I'm a little more critical of music. When I hear a catchy song, I recognize the fact that it is a catchy song and not really a good song. A catchy song means that there probably aren't any good songs on the album and the likelyhood of a second catchy song is slim. Buy an album by someone who puts out a song that is truly good, and by good, I mean is unique and requires talent to produce (both lyrically and instrumentally) and you will find that there are a lot of songs on that album that is just as good if not better (I'm one of those people that kinda likes the ten minute epic towards the end of the album that radio will never touch). I'm a very passive listener when it comes to CD's. I pop the cd in the car stereo and it will play until the album is over. Some I like, some I don't like, but overall I have a good idea of how talented the artist is. How can you say an artist is good when all you have heard is one song? One hit wonders get remembered for their songs, but no one remembers who performed it, and then some other band comes along and does a cover and the one hit wonder is forgotten, obscured by the shitty (usually) knock-off.

Ok I kinda went on a long rant there (and i don't feel like proof-reading so deal with it), but my point is that people really should think about listening to entire albums again. This is something that has been lost on the CD generation, and now even more on the internet download generation. Now I respect everybody's choice to listen to whatever they want however they want, but I think some of you out there will get a great experience out of listening to an album in it's entirety and have a better idea of what makes a good artist vs. a bad artist.

To give you a little background on what music I think is good:
1. Listening to a single track of Pink Floyd's Dark side of Moon is a crime against humanity.
2. I you ask me what my favorite Led Zeppelin song is (or album) you will get an answer that goes on for about an hour. I don't think I can narrow it down to fifteen.
3. Artists should (and do) earn their living by touring and performing live, and a good artist will not perform any of their songs in the same manner as they were performed on the album. I bought the album, I might have seen the video, so why did i come here?

DRM made me stop buying CDs

[TheMCP]

Funny, DRM is what made me *stop* buying CDs. It's because the studios started putting DRM nonsense on their CDs, which could interfere with my ability to use my music, that no longer buy CDs, except from independant bands not on major labels. Conversely, Apple's DRM may be annoying but it offers me a clear path to how I can get my music out of its current format so that I will be able to convert it to other formats if necessary for future use (burn it to a CD, rip the CD), so I am comfortable that despite the presence of DRM on the music I buy from the iTunes store, it has a forward migration path and I will continue to be able to use my music in an appropriate and lawful manner.

If the music studios want me to buy more CDs, they need to apologize for having screwed around with the CD standard on the disks they produce and pledge that all their future CDs will be fully red book compliant.

Re:DRM made me stop buying CDs

[astrosmash]

Funny, DRM is what made me *stop* buying CDs. It's because the studios started putting DRM nonsense on their CDs, which could interfere with my ability to use my music, that no longer buy CDs, except from independant bands not on major labels. Conversely, Apple's DRM may be annoying but it offers me a clear path to how I can get my music out of its current format so that I will be able to convert it to other formats if necessary for future use (burn it to a CD, rip the CD), so I am comfortable that despite the presence of DRM on the music I buy from the iTunes store, it has a forward migration path and I will continue to be able to use my music in an appropriate and lawful manner.

First of all, it's not really Apple's DRM, it's the copyright holders' DRM; they won't allow their works to be distributed on-line without it.

Second, the DRM used in iTunes is not really that annoying at all. Yes, if you look at it in the context of traditional software and the internet, DRM is really annoying and stupid. But if you look at it in the context of the record industry, it's way, way, way better than anything we've had to deal with in the past, including CDs that scratch, tapes that can't be copied without sound loss, and LPs that are hilariously easy to ruin.

Other than that, I agree with you. The copy-protected CDs are utterly useless to me, and it was the last straw as far as I'm concerned. But that turned out to be a very good thing, because:

• Music has never been cheaper than it is today.
• It's never been easier to discover new music, and you can purchase music it from your home.
• Independent artists have more reach and exposure than ever before.
• You can buy only the songs you like, not the album filler.
• It's never been easier to ensure the longevity of your music collection, through backups etc.

And the record companies hate every one of those points. I'm not going to say that it's all thanks to DRM, but DRM has convinced the copyright holders to loosen their grips somewhat, so it's really a good thing. As the EMI Exec suggests, they would much rather go back to just selling mass marketed CDs. Actually, they'd much much rather go back to the days of fragile vinyl records, and recording equipment that was so rare and expensive that only the record companies could afford to even record music.

$10 Bill

[BitWarrior]

If there was a $10 bill inside the CD case, I would consider it. That would bring the price down to a little less than $10 for an average new CD. I think that's fair and I would be willing to pay that to have an original physical backup CD which I would then promptly rip into an MP3.

Re:$10 Bill

[SpryGuy]

Where are you that you think CDs cost $20 per disc?

I buy CDs all the time, and usually pay between $9 and $14 tops.

Additional Material Needed --

[dbretton]

...is money ...in my pocket

New music CD's are still too pricey, even at $13-17 a pop at your local Best Buy.

I personally would prefer to have the song on CD as opposed to downloading it. Plus I know what my legal rights are for songs I purchased on CD...

Most CD's are not loaded with great songs. If I am willing to pay 0.99 for a great song (downloaded), how much should I pay for those crappy ones that fill the remainder? 0.25? If so, then for a 14-song album, I should pay about $7.00 for a new CD (assuming I have ~3 great songs on it).

Want us to buy CD's? Make them cheaper....

CDs are why I do not pirate music

[Skapare]

The availability of CDs are why I do not pirate music. I can buy the music I want on a CD and rip it into whatever I want to play it on. That happens to be my Linux and BSD based desktops for the most part. As long as the CD is available, clearly the music industry considers me (a Linux/BSD user) in their market. So it would be wrong for me to deprive the music industry of wealth and riches by pirating music online, since online purchases like iTunes don't work on my computers. However, if the music industry were to stop selling CDs, then clearly they would not longer be considering me to be in the market. They wouldn't be expecting revenues from music I like. So then, downloading the music for free would not be depriving them of any revenues whatsoever, since they aren't expecting any from people like me (who use Linux/BSD). If that day ever comes, I would have no moral reason not to download. Also, if they decide that the "extras" on a CD shall be DRM that doesn't let me play the music I pay for, then I would consider that as being excluded from the market, too.

Re:CDs are why I do not pirate music

[geekoid]

"... I would have no moral reason not to download. "

Other then the fact that you are violating copyright law?
Just because you aren't marketed to, doesn't mean copyright law doesn't apply to you.

Plus, having an obscure OS(from their point) doesn't mean you get some special privlidge.

Are you saing I can create an OS that doesn't read CDs, and therefor download all the music I want?

well, one out of two...

[oohshiny]

"Alain Levy, the chairman of EMI Music, made a speech at the London Business School declaring 'the end of the music CD as it is.' He went on to say that most CDs are simply used for ripping onto digital audio players.

He's right on the second point. He's wrong on the first point, because companies like his have yet to come up with a reasonable alternative to distributing music other than CDs. CDs are a backup medium, they are a largely open format, and they don't have DRM.

And he can shove is "additional features" on the CD where the sun don't shine; as far as I'm concerned, any CD that comes with "additional features" is immediately suspect.

How about a lower price!?

[Nezer]

1. No DRM. No exceptions.
2. How about a lower price tag instead of some BS fluff material.

I can't complain now. I almost exclusively buy jazz CDs from amazon.com and find that there are often many titles in my wishlist that are on sale for usually under $9. Three of those and I get free shipping. I have yet to see any form of DRM on any CD release of a jazz recording originally released on vinyl around 50 years ago. Lately many of these titles have been remasters from the one and only Rudy Van Gelder who recorded and engineered the original recording dates. These are top notch remasters from some of the best performances ever captured in jazz. Add to that no DRM, a price point under $10 (on sale), and free shipping and I personally hope the CD doesn't go away anytime soon.

YUP

[Anonymous Coward]

you see the problem is that music listening has changed. In the old days, we had noce speakers, and we really cared to reproduce the music of the artist.

Now human don't give a fuck. We want a little rythm, a little harmonics and a little beat as we type away or nod our heads. But to actually sit and listen to a piece of music, no one cares anymore. Particularly the digtal types.

Music is becoming a monoculture and a monoculture of art does not need a particularly good reproductive medium.

I can't play any of the common codecs through my speakers, they all sound like crap. Nor can I play my ipod or my powerbook, the excess noise is blaringly noticable. But I have 60" electrostatic panels and carbon fibre woofers and all my amps are class A. So there I notice. In our office, I have some computer speakers I picked up at a grage sale hooked into my powerbook... mp3 or cd, no difference.

So...

yes the end is near... slowly turning to slugs... obesity goes up in amerika, and IQ's and music appreciation go down... not that the two are linked... or maybeeeee they are...

we had the opportunity to expand to the HDCD medium, and increase the integrity of our appreciation of artists music, but we gave it up for instant gratification.

what a wonderful day it is today.

yuk. I hope we get a nuclear war or plague or meteor or alien invasion... or something... soon... this wilting to degeneration is depressing. It's all become crap. Everything.

Re:YUP

[dangitman]

you see the problem is that music listening has changed. In the old days, we had noce speakers, and we really cared to reproduce the music of the artist.

Now human don't give a fuck.

Totally revisionist history. Back in the old days, there were like 50 crappy ghettoblasters or portable transistor radios for every nice Hi-Fi system. There have always been people who don't give a fuck. There have always been people who want instant gratification. There have always been people who just wanted the radio on for some background noise while they worked, or while they did the housework.

Very little has actually changed. You are just looking at history through rose-colored glasses. Then, as now, the majority of popular music was crap. You just remember the good stuff - and remember the nice Hi-Fi systems, because those are still around, while everybody has thrown out their ghettoblasters and transistor radios and cheap-ass quadrophonic miniature turntable systems.

Music is becoming a monoculture and a monoculture of art does not need a particularly good reproductive medium.

As opposed to the old days, with fans mindlessly screaming to whatever hunky pop-star with a manufactured image that the radio DJ told them to? Popular music has never been about the "art." And today there exists tons of quality "art" music, in much more diverse forms than yesteryear. But we still have American Idol and manufactured pop hits, just like then. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Do not change anything.

[Brit_in_the_USA]

The reis no need to change anything about CD's (albums) in my opinion.

Of course I would like them to be cheaper (esp. relevant to CD singles), but when compared to ~$1 a track for downloads they are priced just right in my opinion....
Music in stored in high quality digital format suitable as a source for converting to any other format. - Check No DRM (for most titles, or easily circumvented) - Check Physical "Backup" already made for you - Check Receipt and physical proof of ownership for contents insurance purposes - check.

release non DRM lossless downloads...

[llZENll]

and watch your CD sales fall to 0 faster than you can say "more profits for us". everyone wins.
- consumers get what they want more easily
- lables make more money as no more CDs are printed
- consumers probably buy more as more money goes to artists and labels (rather than best buy) and its much easier to purchase online

Something Bon Jovi did...

[psykocrime]

was include a code that would let you register to qualify for a special presale of concert tickets. That alone might not be enough to keep me buying music CDs, but that's the kind of thinking that they need to go for.

Blind faith in Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

One day, Apple with turn off the allowed CD burning.

Then what will your response be.

Will you issue a retraction of all you past itunes advocation?

Plagerized best of 2005 list

[jaypaulw]

You don't like any of this (99% is on CD, you know):

TERRE T'S BEST FAVES OF 2005

TERRE T'S TOP 10 OF 2005

1. LOVE STORY IN BLOOD RED - s/t (Backwards Masking) [(There are 2 self-titled LSIBR CDs; this refers to the color album cover, not B&W cover). Completely underrated, off-the-radar, insanely great, twisted melodic pop/folk/punk from Jason Frederick, ex-Means, about love, longing and heartbreak. i can't think of a record i listened to more this year -- a masterpiece. www.myspace.com/lovestoryinbloodred]
2. REIGNING SOUND - Live at Maxwells (Telstar) / Live at Goner (Goner) / Home for Orphans (SFTRI) [Three releases in one year: 2 amazing live documents and one album of older odds & sods "four-handkerchiefs" heartbreaking emoto stuff. Non-douche emo.]
3. MODEY LEMON - Curious City (Birdman) [They added moog/synths and fleshed out and freaked-out their great aggro rock]
4. LAURA CANTRELL - Humming By The Flowered Vine (Matador) [Expressive, poignant, lovely real country. Laura is a class act, i only wish i had 1/10th the talent, intelligence, warmth and beauty as she has.]
5. PORTASTATIC - Bright Ideas (Merge) [Mac from Superchunk's other band. Brilliant perfect 7Ts influenced pop]
6. ART BRUT - Bang Bang Rock and Roll (Fierce Panda) [Really smart snappy rock n roll that wishes it was dumb.]
7. HOWLING HEX - All Night Fox (Drag City) [Surprisingly uptempo twistoid rock n roll from Neil Michael Hagerty of Royal Trux fame.]
8. A-LINES - You can touch (SFTRI) [If you crossed Kleenex, Nancy Sinatra, Patti Smith and Girlschool and locked them in the studio with Billy Childish it would sound like this. Outstanding! feat. Kyra from Headcoatees]
9. ARMITAGE SHANKS - Urinal Heap (Damaged Goods) [Spirit of 77 ponk-Billy Childish meets the Members meets Sham69. Great record---they have sadly broken up]
10. REATARDS - Not Fucked Enough (Empty) [Holeeee shite!! Jay Reatard is a punkrok genius!]

40 MORE BEST FAVES OF 2005

11. Demands - Play For You (deep eddy)
12. Gris Gris - For The Season (Birdman)
13. High School Sweethearts - Heels N' Wheels (Get Hip)
14. Miss Alex White And The Red Orchestra - s/t (In The Red)
15. Roxy Pain - Best Of The Last 40 Years (Roxy Pain)
16. Buff Medways - Medway Wheelers (Damaged Goods)
17. Royal Purple - Instant Analysis (Umbrella) (go to www.myspace.com/theroyalpurple and get this CD from the band for free! b4 they run out!)
18. Outrageous Cherry - Our Love Will Change The World (Rainbow Quartz)
19. Heavy Trash - s/t (Yep Roc)
20. King Khan & BBQ - The King Khan & BBQ Show (Goner)
21. Electric 6 - Senor Smoke (Warner UK)
22. Guinea Worms - Character Assassination Bureau (Guinea Worms)
23. Ghetto Ways - Solid Brown (Alien Snatch)
24. Subsonics - Die Bobby Die (Slovenly)
25. Matson Jones - s/t (Sympathy)
26. M.O.T.O. - Raw Power (Criminal IQ)
27. Times New Viking - Dig Yourself(Siltbreeze)
28. Black Lips - Let It Bloom (In The Red)
29. Wide Right - Sleeping On The Couch (Pop Top)
30. Comet Gain - City Fallen Leaves (KRS)
31. Wreckless Eric - Bunglalow Hi (Southern Domestic)
32. Turpentine Bros - We Don't Care About Your Good Times (Alive)
33. Tralala - s/t (Audika)
34. MHz - Harness The Power (Flying Bomb)
35. Konks - s/t (Bomp)
36. Amber Jets - Swimming Lake Superior (Recodds)
37. Misty Roses - Komodo Dragons (Frog Man Jake)

It's all about content.

[Wolfger]

The CD is dying because if you go to the online music store of your choice, you can purchase only the songs you like. You buy a CD, and you're getting some songs you like, and (far more often than not) a lot of crap. So the price per good song on CD is atrocious compared to the price per good song on mp3 (or the digital format of your choice). If they want to save the CD, they need to lower the price per good song (ideally by producing less crap, but... one man's "crap" is another man's "totally awesome song").

CDs are dead? Time for a new format then!

[dolson]

I say that Sony should step in here and make a Playstation 4 system that plays a new format of audio CD, allowing for high-definition audio and 100s of GB of data storage. That would be a great idea, because this new format is what everyone wants - nay, needs - and it will sell the game console like hot cakes!

yes we want better cds but I don't think we will g

[gsn]

cheaper cds with better music and no DRM and rootkits? I should stop dreaming shouldn't I...

Thinking about it most of the cds i bought the last few years have been from small bands after a live gig. The one I liked best had a booklet with the lyrics to all the songs and a couple of free stickers and was still ten bucks.

So no CDs arent dead because I can't see myself going to a live gig and connecting over WiFi to some server and downloading their album.

Actually I think record labels would like cds to die. The no physical media of digital files is so much cheaper - the DRM is more capable format control than just a physical cd. Yes ofcourse I'm going to rip the cd and put it on my cowon and I'm not going to pay again for a DRM encumbered download (atleast DRM I can't strip and not be burning to disc and re ripping) and I doubt record companies like that. Putting on my tin foil hat I can imagine music that gets sold as pay per play or expires after a certain number of plays or degrades artifically digitally, after a certain period of time. Record companies can make more money with any of the above and so it will likely happen sooner or later. So they would much rather have the cd market die since they have much more control over all those kids buying their tracks from the iTunes store. A little yelling and they can get apple to change their DRM after all.

Music only please

[Anonymous Coward]

"...all EMI CDs will come with additional material to make them more attractive to the consumer."

I buy music CDs for the music. If I wanted extra content I'd go to the artist's website. The last thing I need is some lame data track blowing out my speakers.

Seems to me he's asking the wrong question

[foxtrot]

Revenue from CDs is bigger than revenue from online downloads by a 6:1 margin. Revenue, not profit.

Now, note that downloads have very little overhead, distribution costs, or production costs, where you gotta press CDs and ship 'em. So for every dollar of revenue you get from a download, more of it is profit than if that dollar came from CD sales.

It seems to me the question he OUGHT to be asking is: "How do I make it so I can sell the same dollar value of downloads tomorrow, which are a much higher profit margin, as I sell CDs today?" not "How do I make sure I keep selling more CDs than downloads?"

Asking the right question here makes your stockholders very happy, as they're fond of profit.

And the answer is: "Throw out DRM and sell 'em with online liner notes and such, so basically they're just like a CD."

-F

Re:Seems to me he's asking the wrong question

[robertjw]

Production and distribution costs for the CD medium is minimal. When we were producing software CDs a run of 3000 wasn't much, IIRC around $0.40 each. I'm sure music companies that create millions get it for a fraction of that. If you are selling through Walmart or a major CD retailer distribution, on a per CD basis, is minimal as well.

The real revenue issue between downloads and CDs is the quantity of music. You can break both mediums down by song. An iTunes download is $1.00. A CD of 10 songs is $19.00 retail. That's $1.90 per song. Take out the $0.90 as overhead, production and retailer profit and the recording company is still making $1.00 per song, but they sold 10, not just the 1 or 2 radio singles that were worth listening to. The trick is how do you get people to buy downloads of the other 9 songs?

Re:Seems to me he's asking the wrong question

[SpryGuy]

When was the last time you paid $19 for a 10 song CD? That's ridiculous.

Most CDs are in the $9.99 to $14.99 area, and usually have between 10 and 20 songs on them.

And on virtually all of the CDs I buy (I have several hundreds), the "radio singles" are generally not my favorite songs on the disc. And in many cases, the whole album has a mood or concept, where all the songs, played in order, add up to more than just listening to randomly shuffled tracks. It's a work of art, not "product".

Of course, a lot of today's music is corporate crap, and very much like product... and there are of course lots of artists with one or two hits, and the rest of the CD is filler or garbage. But that's a general problem with the music industry right now, not anything really special to CDs.

In several of my calculations, the "flat $1.00 per track" thing makes a lot of otherwise good songs not worth it (you mean a 2:30 song is the same price as a 6:50 song??) and makes comparison with full CDs rather meaningless (some 30 second interludes between songs are also priced at $1.00). I've found several of my own CDs that would have cost me significantly more than I paid, if I had downloaded the entire contents at one buck per song.

And on top of it, I get liner notes, album art, lyric sheets, and a physical, tangible hard-copy I can hold in my hands, and use universally ... everywhere ... no mattter what, for all of time.

There's just no contest for me. CDs are vastly superior to downloaded tracks in all cases EXCEPT one-hit-wonders. And even there, it's questionable.

Re:Seems to me he's asking the wrong question

[robertjw]

Me? I haven't bought a CD in ages, and when I did it was generally used. The actual numbers aren't that important, especially since I'm just pulling guesses out of the air. My real conclusion isn't that full albums aren't better or CDs are better/worse than downloads. The only point I'm trying to make is that most people buy music based on what they hear over the radio/satellite/podcast/TV. Odds are good that the majority are going to buy the singles they are familiar with if the songs are for sale individually. As long as a CD sells for $1.00 + the overhead costs they are going to make as much money as they do on downloads. Generally they sell for quite a bit more than this number, resulting in higher revenue and more profit.

Personally I have several hundreds of CDs as well - and they are just taking up space in my house. I've converted them to digital format and NEVER listen to a CD. I have more music than I can possibly listen to and more is available, for free or cheap, every day. I listen to podcasts, indie music, emusic downloads, I can't even keep up, so why buy CDs that I'm just going to have to rip anyway?

MP3-CD Player

[burndive]

That's true. I have one in my car that plays MP3/WMA, but it doesn't play DRM'd music.

I think the record companies need to wake up to the fact that distribugting CDs that people turn around and rip (but usually don't redistribute) is the same thing as distributing DRM-free music digitally, only if the record companies distributed the digital music, they would have a chance to embed an ID3 tag with a uniquely-identifying serial number binding it to that user. This tag could be easily removed, but it's inconvenient enough to be a speed bump to casual online redistribution, which is more than can be said for CDs.

There would actually be less risk of unauthorized online redistribution, but the tracks would be just as useful to the consumers as CD-ripped tracks.

What's more, it would break the intentional incompatibility (read DRM) that exists between the different digital content systems (iTMS, Zune, PlaysForSure, etc.).

Once that barrier is gone, there would be a truly free market for the consumer: he can mix and match any music source with any music player without worrying about arbitrary incompatibility. This will be a huge watershed for digital distribution, as DRM is the main thing keeping most people who want digital distribution, but thus far have not moved in that direction.

I don't want to be beholden to Apple, Microsoft, Real, or anyone else for being able to play my music on the best hardware on the market not just for the forseeable future (~5 years), but for the un-forseeable future as well. I don't care if the iPod is the best player on the market right now. I want the freedom to arbitrarily switch at any time. The mere possibility that I could switch like that will keep these companies competitive. Remove the competition, and there is no incentive to innovation, improvement, and price reduction.

CDs are impractical

[Anonymous Coward]

My issue is simply that my taste in music has outgrown devotion to a few good bands, and spreads to cover a wide range of bands and albums. Therefore it just isn't practical to own hundreds of CDs, all the while having to navigate them for the specific songs that I like or am in the mood for.

Extra content won't help-that would just be something extra on all of those hundreds of CDs that I may never pay attention to.

too obvious

[asmjunky]

I stopped buying music CDs many many years ago. Every few years I will buy a "Greatest Hits" CD and that is it for obvious reasons. I know this is broken and I've done it several times but, get rid of that gay ass data partition on those CD's. I'm tired of having to just rip the whole damn CD and toss the CD aside so I can play my music in Winamp or XMMS where I have an EQ and a playlist. Unless there is something useful on there, get rid of it or put that shit on a seperate CD. Metallica is somewhat heading in the right direction. When St. Anger was released and you bought the CD, you got access to all their live stuff for free that they recorded as a way of saying thanks. Granted the CD wasn't as good as their others, but I still bought it because it came with a DVD and I get to listen to their live concerts that they record for ever and ever through their website. Plus they are free to have and free to share and they actually do kick serious ass. I have put more of things like that onto my own music CD than anything else. So in short, start saying "Thanks for buying and being a fan" instead of "Thanks for your $20," here's your CD with 3 good songs.

Make it LP sized and revive cool artwork!

[spagthorpe]

The thing I misss the most about buying an album these days is that you don't get the cool artwork you used to get with an LP. Nothing was cooler than coming home with a new record, putting on the headphones and checking out the cover (the double LPs with the inner artwork kicked ass) and the notes on the sleeve. So many of the classics I have memorized to this day.

CDs have never had this. The art is so small that it's hard to care about it. I've seen some neat work, but it's so small that it's hard to take in. Fold out posters inside the jewel case are a joke, and as I've got older, I can't read the 3-point type in the booklet.

well well well

[DragonTHC]

Well it's about fucking time!

the train left the station years ago.

the EMI exec has been standing at the station with his thumb up the collective ass of the music industry!

maybe now they will stop fighting the mp3

CD ROM and DVD ROM are dead

[Hamilton Lovecraft]

"He went on to say that most CDs are simply used for ripping onto digital audio players." Likewise, the CD ROM and DVD ROM are dead. Most users just "install" the software from optical disk onto the hard disk right away, never using the opticals again.

What material I would like to see?

[LuckyStarr]

I know that. Good music, NO DRM, fair price.

I'd rather buy CDs than download music. This way I don't have to make a backup. CDs virtually last forever.

A thought

[Scentless]

Here's a thought Mr. Levy: lower the friggin price of the CDs. Why are CDs still going for 15+ dollars? They should be selling for around 3+.

Needs to keep his fantasies separate from business

[Hap76]

It's the fantasy of content and software providers everywhere to start providing "services" - the content they previously provided in hardcopy at similar prices but content over which the user has no real control, which can only be used in ways acceptable (or profitable) to the provider, and which can be revoked at any time. This assumes that the desires of the customer are irrelevant to their profitability, and that they will always have control over both their distribution channels and the legal apparatus that secures it. The fact that this model keeps failing in practice (like the use of lines from Penthouse fantasies for seducing women in real life) doesn't seem to hinder the CPs from its continued propagation. They must be hoping to find a market stupid enough to fall for it. Good luck with that.

I'll bite

[zogger]

1) Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs? ->NO, the regular CD has enough "material", it just costs too much to consider any longer. I haven't bought a new CD in years because it's a *blatant* ripoff based on all the technological advances that have occurred. There is no reason besides pure greed to charge ten to twenty dollars for a chunk of plastic with data bits on it, this is clearly consumer gouging that has been promoted by an industry wide price fixing cartel that should be busted by the DOJ and have a lot of execs sitting in the slammer now, if fair was fair. Of course, they can't even stop payola, which is small potatoes compared to price fixing, so I am not holding out for any action there, they have their media enforcement assets tied up elsewhere, where they can enforce the blatant price fixing for the cartel. Mob muscle in other words.

2)What material would you like to see? -> Just the music on the plastic disk, that's enough, with no BS added to it to make it a PITA to play in machine of choice and how I want. The same goes for the movie goons. Keep gouging, no sale. I don't download anything restricted, but I don't buy their crap either, with the exception of used a few disks a year at a more reasonable price (which should be closer to the "new" price), but that's it. Nothing full price new, I just detest blatant gougers. During the time period where complete computers have gone from thousands of dollars to just hundreds, due to tech advances and *volume sales leading to economies of scale*, their prices are *the same*. Sorry, but that dog don't hunt. I started purchasing entertainment media on disk-vinyl-in the 50s, and they have lost a customer over the past few years with their predatory actions. It's just wrong so I won't support it with my business. And no, I am not going to pay the same price to download some DRM infested chunk of bits either, that's just as much a gouge, in fact it's worse if you think about it.

Why the interest in selling CDs?

[zoeblade]

Am I missing something? Record labels profit from selling music, regardless of the medium they sell it on. So if downloads become more popular than CDs, shouldn't they just make less CDs?

Am I missing something?

[Sierpinski]

Revenue from CDs still outranks revenue from downloads by better than 6 to 1

How can they say that CDs are dead when they still bring in 6 times the revenue? Perhaps that number is declining, but oh, maybe that might have something to do with the fact that a damn CD that has 12 songs (maybe 2 of which you like, if you're lucky) costs not the $9.99 that it used to years ago, but $24.99? Gee, I can't imagine why they say CD sales are declining.

Gapless Playback and DRM

[synonymous]

For one people, either a lossless codec or .ogg is about the only way to go if you dont want your music interrupted between tracks, and if you're going this way, it appears as if your only method of achieving this is to have the CD. That or use a service like AllOfMP3.com which you can use a recording that they have mastered as CD data and transcode to a gapless format (i.e. .ogg). Nevertheless, there are portable players as well that playback gapless audio, such as Pink Floyd "The Wall" etc... one manufacturer being Cowon, that does a superb job at reproducing the music the way it was intended. It plays all the important formats that matter to me. I am utterly astounded at the sheer amount of folks out there that settle for less. I do realize that most people dont have any idea of anything else in the world aside of the ipod, but I suppose it doesn't matter any more than me to the music industry. Sooo, I'm sure we'll be living on different strings. Later

Burgers and T-Shirts

[bshell]

Ever since the days of Napster and John Perry Barlow's point about how bits are very different from atoms I've always wondered when the music industry was going to realize they had to start attaching atoms, i.e. things, to their bits. My prediction then and now are burger or t-shirt coupons. It's a win/win. Watch for it. Every CD comes with a coupon for a free Macdonalds burger. Or a t-shirt from Walmart. Something like that.

Not Dual-Disc

[Anonymous Coward]

Please.

I bought Weird Al's latest, and it appears to have only been released in Dual Disc format (that's a DVD on one side, a CD on the other).

I cannot play it in my car CD player (slot loader), my work and home computers (DVD-ROM drives), on my notebook (DVD burner), or my backup audio system -- my DVD player. And on all of the computer systems, the DVD audio stops playing after 20-30 seconds, depending on the track, and I still have to navigate to the audio to get it to play. (Curiously, the videos on the DVD side seem to play alright, it's just the audio tracks...)

I ended up having my officemate, who has a CD-ROM drive, rip the damn CD just so I could actually listen to it.

The idea of having a DVD with the CD is great, but have them separate discs.

Death to the CD

[r3dk1ng]

The digital format of the MP3 is where the market is at -- and I am surprised that many distributors haven't given up altogether on the CD yet. However, the ONLY good thing about the CD is the artwork, and the sometimes included song lyrics. If a company is looking for a way to prolong the life of the CD media, I suggest that they include something more collectable, something worthwhile for the consumer to physically go out to the store and want to pick up the real deal. Maybe only sell limited edition collections, with real artist signatures; signed and numbered: ex. 1 of 2000. Or special codes for access to a free soundboard recording CD that can't be found anywhere else. Other ideas are "stickers, posters, etc..." people love to collect. But I really don't think it will matter in the long run. The ipod and other MP3 players are becoming more and more predominate, and the CD will probabaly die out at the end of this decade.

Dead? I think not

[Anonymous Coward]

CDs aren't dead, they're non-living.

Better yet

[Anonymous Coward]

How about using something like the CD-Text standard, which was released over 10 years ago? It takes very little space, and would provide metadata for anybody who wished to rip the music to any format, not just MP3.

Of course, that would make too much sense...

It's the marketing stupid

[sou_alum74]

The music industry has shot itself in the foot. By creating a demand only for individual songs, they have dramatically cut the demand for an entire album. Is there anyone out there that would really just want to buy one song off of Pink Floyd's The Wall? If they continue to market only individual song rather than whole albums, CD sales will decline.

Additional material

[RomulusNR]

Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs? What material would you like to see?

The guaranteed right to share what I paid for.

Re:Additional Material

[MrCopilot]

I do occasionally pick up a CD at a show.

Additional Material

[MrCopilot]

How about including iTunes coupons for those songs, with the CD. Negating my need to rip the CD. That's about the only thing that would interest me in buying CD format music again.

What I'd like in a CD

[mfrank]

If the CD had the following included:

A URL to go to for downloading high quality music videos.

A unique number for each title that lets you see which music videos are currently released for that title. As videos are released, this list grows.

A number unique to that CD that lets you download each of the videos on that list once. If they want, they can watermark the videos and shut out that CD number if they find any copies floating around.

Re:What I'd like in a CD

[wmelnick]

Every CD that is released DOES have a unique number. That is part of the way that CDDB works. That fact that the lame-ass execs at the music company have not figured out a way to market anything using that nuumber is amazing, but not too unexpected.

Re:What I'd like in a CD

[mfrank]

CDDB uses the song lengths to identify the CD. But yeah, they could use CDDB, but they'd have to give them money.

EMI Announces Pony Giveaway

[OldManAndTheC]

At a hastily arranged press conference today, Alain Levy, Chair of EMI Music, announced EMI's new pony giveaway program. "We're taking this extraordinary step to show our loyal customers how much we appreciate their business, and how serious we are about meeting their needs. We're saying 'You want ponies? You got ponies! Everybody gets a pony!' Our customers have spoken, and we have listened. Sure, it won't be easy. But anything is possible if you dream it hard enough."

Asked if EMI would be revising its stance on selling DRM'd music CD's, Levy replied, "What, are you nuts or something? That's just crazy talk. Keep dreaming, pal."

I still buy CDs because...

[sdo1]

1) I still believe in supporting artists. If I can, I try to buy non RIAA CDs and/or CDs from bands who have managed to secure contracts that don't screw them over too badly (though that is sometimes hard to find out).

2) No DRM

3) I can rip at any quality I want. FLAC for at-home streaming. Lame encoded MP3 for my ipod.

4) I was raised to believe that I shouldn't take what isn't mine. I don't take that totally literally. I have no qualms about downloading a bunch of CDs off of usenet, but I do that to listen to bands that I might not have heard yet (to listen to the whole albums at decent quality, not a couple of hyper-compressed tracks that the record company or the band wants you to listen to)... and then if I like something I hear, I go buy the CD. See #1. I try to support the bands that I like.

Are CDs dead? Yea, kind of. I don't often pop a silver disc into a player to listen to it very often anymore. But until the music industry gets off this sue everyone and DRM the heck out of everything mode, I don't have much choice.

-S

Re:I still buy CDs because...

[scuba0]

Well new CD:s do use DRM, haven't you ever heard about Sony?? Most major comanies put DRM on their releases. Hard to get copies that actually works in old stereos..

Re:I still buy CDs because...

[sdo1]

OK... No DRM means (to me anyway) DRM that is trivially breakable. I do buy DVDs with... gasp... DRM. But it's trivial to rip them into a media server. That it is technically illegal to do so makes the law that restricts it utterly laughable. If I buy a DVD, rip the content, make still images from the video, print them on my printer, and wallpaper my wall with them... there should be no law that disallows that.

Now I could buy from iTunes as well... I don't, but not because of DRM because that too is easily removed. It's because of the crappy quality of the files.

The first major studio that sells CD quality songs and/or DVD quality movies without undue compression and without DRM is probably going to get a lot of my money.

-S

Oh yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop making CD's then... :)

How about an mp3 cd :)

[yaminb]

How about they bypass the ripping process and just include the mp3s in a folder on the cd.
Hey, maybe they could give us a single CD with all the works of an artist on mp3...Toss on their top videos and interviews in DivX format.

Nah, better to just release an actual CD, with some nice art. No point providing us with convenience of not having to rip or download, or hunt around for files.

Where is the money going?

[digitalamish]

That is what I am still trying to figure out. First they say it's for promotion. Bullshit! Beyond a TRL spot, what advertising is there, unless there is alot more payola going on now.

Next, they say production and distribution. Bullshit! The number of record stores is dramatically smaller now (see the closing of Tower Records). People buy most albums in big box stores, or on line. Both have very streamlined ordering processes. There can press much closer to the actual amount.

Next, physical media is expensive. Bullshit! Seriously, if I can get 100 blank cds for $10, the cost can't be more for them.

What is needed is an INDEPENDENT accounting of the industry. Talk about an industry that could use the Sarbanes-Oxley act for review. If the music industry is going to continue to force the government to act on their behalf, we as citizen should demand a formal accounting.

Finally, how come an album can come out and the first week it's $11, and then two weeks later it's marked up to $18? What causes a 60% markup like that?

Re:Where is the money going?

[Cr33pybusguy]

"Finally, how come an album can come out and the first week it's $11, and then two weeks later it's marked up to $18? What causes a 60% markup like that?"

Ask your local dope dealer. Give it to you a low price and when you get around to telling your mates about how good it is the price has gone up. More than likely they will sell it as a subsidy until it's popular enough to generate a profit. It's a time honoured business tactic.

Re:Where is the money going?

[shark72]

"That is what I am still trying to figure out. First they say it's for promotion. Bullshit! Beyond a TRL spot, what advertising is there, unless there is alot more payola going on now."

Many artists now have web sites, and many of them are very nice. Even if a web site with Flash and whatnot only costs $5K per year, that's still around $0.50 per CD if it's moderately successful. There's also co-op advertising... whenever you see a CD advertised by a retailer, the record company likely funded all or part of it. There's also music videos, merchandise and merchandising; ie. in-store displays -- if the record company didn't produce it, then the store did and charged the record company.

"Next, they say production and distribution. Bullshit! The number of record stores is dramatically smaller now (see the closing of Tower Records). People buy most albums in big box stores, or on line. Both have very streamlined ordering processes. There can press much closer to the actual amount."

The big box retailers typically want their suppliers to pay freight, and ask for margins on the order of 40% plus program (Best Buy, for instance, wants 7%+ program on many products). The mom and pop retailers are closer to 25% margin. Although the big box retailers can indeed operate efficiently, they have many vendors by the balls, and have the leverage to ask for -- and get -- more margin. The closing of the indies and smaller chains is actually a very bad thing for the record companies. Remember a few years back when the record companies set up the MAP program with Tower and got busted for price fixing? It was Best Buy and Wal-Mart who ratted them out.

"Next, physical media is expensive. Bullshit! Seriously, if I can get 100 blank cds for $10, the cost can't be more for them."

On the contrary; the cost of pressing a CD has nothing to do with the cost of a blank CD-R. If you're an unsigned artist and you're distributing your stuff on CD-R, then yeah, you can get away with it, but it's a different set of numbers if you're pressing CDs. If this is counter-intuitive to you, keep in mind that a typical music CD might have a press run of 5K - 10K pieces total, while blank CD-Rs are pressed in millions.

You're correct, however, that the physical cost of goods is a small percentage of the total cost of sale. It's like that in lots of industries. Unfortunately, many people who don't work in the retail industry don't get the distinction between "cost of goods" and "cost of sale," and "gross margin" vs. "net margin."

"Finally, how come an album can come out and the first week it's $11, and then two weeks later it's marked up to $18? What causes a 60% markup like that?"

That's one of many tricks the retail industry pulls. They launch at a promo price to drive sales and then raise the price once demand drops off. Or, demand may go up after a few weeks that the product's in the channel, due to the first wave of reviews coming in, or whatever. It might seem counter-intuitive as well, but you can be sure that the retailer does this because they know from experience that it maximizes profits.

I buy when it is worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I always download new cd's to test out, if it is good, I buy it. In comparison, I buy a lot more cd's than most people I know.

Read all about it!

[Kamineko]

Extras, eh?

How about all of the tracks used to mix together the songs on the CD in a lossless high quality format?

Re:DVD: $9.99 Soundtrack CD: $17.99

[Overzeetop]

How about the soundtrack to the movie in FLAC or 320kb mp3. There's usually more than 300MB of space left on most of the commercial dual-layer movies I've bought.

I want music that isnt formulaic regurgitated pap.

[Anonymous Coward]

That would keep me buying CDs.
=/

Don't bash vinyl

[Lazerf4rt]

They keep calling themselves record companies, which pretty much explains the problem: just like records, they are trapped way back in a time before the age of the internet.

Vinyl has its merits, and thank God record companies still publish music on this medium. I'll keep buying music on vinyl for a long time, and so will millions of other music fans. You're not going to see us represented too well on Slashdot, though.

There are two ways you can listen to music: in the background, or in the foreground. The portability of digital music is great when you want it in the background, like in your car, at the gym or on the street. But when you want to bring music more into the foreground, at home, vinyl gives you that hands-on experience which a lot of consumers happen to like.

Re:Don't bash vinyl

[hurfy]

hehe, we are here but usually know enough to keep quiet ;)

Actually i buy virtually no new music anyways. I don't remember the last time a bought a 'new' CD and have only bought a couple new LPs lately. I did buy a bunch of new CDs, as well as used, from ebay but it was store rejects mostly. There is usually a couple good jazz albums in the lots and my buddy likes the free rap ones i give away. Then give the christian rock to my neice and i have made use of 10 albums from a $25 lot.

The 2 most expensive ones lately were a 9 year-old CD popular/rare enough to still go for $25 and a Quad 8-track same thing.

The part about background vs foreground was great. I end up with a bunch of mediocre music thats is good for background when i am in and out of the room etc. Foreground music is mostly my old record/tape collection or a batch of used CDs of classic rock when i am too lazy to clean and flip LPs :)

Vintage music on vintage vinyl on a vintage stereo...least i haven't bought anyone in the music industry a new limo in a while :)

We can talk quality all we like but my twentysomething buddy didn't even notice the music he liked was playing from an 8-track the other day. Ok, i did have 2 12-band EQs and a dolby box hooked up to filter hiss but still ;)

------------------

As for the question at hand.

Perhaps they could start doing collectable covers, multiple versions for same album, then they can get people to buy multiples of same one on purpose :O

Re:Don't bash vinyl

[DrCode]

Vintage music on vintage vinyl on a vintage stereo...

Pretty much describes my setup, except my old Marantz receiver died about 12 years ago, so I have a modern A/V amp. But I still have the Lesa phonograph and KLH 17 speakers I bought as a kid (a looong time ago). I imagine that the speakers are pretty worn, but then my ears probably are too:-)

Re:Don't bash vinyl

[Lazerf4rt]

Vintage music on vintage vinyl on a vintage stereo...least i haven't bought anyone in the music industry a new limo in a while :)

Well, for my part, I probably spent $1000 on vinyl over the summer. Mostly relatively new albums. I like new music, but I tend to like alternative & indie-rock, and any new stuff coming from rock & roll greats. These genres are pretty well covered on vinyl.

We can talk quality all we like but my twentysomething buddy didn't even notice the music he liked was playing from an 8-track the other day.

The quality debate drives me nuts! I know that the capabilities of a CD exceeds LP on paper. I know that a CD can give you a pristine audio experience which is impossible on vinyl. And I have heard it. Problem is, every album is different. The CDs I like are overcompressed and flat, while the same album on LP often (but admittedly not always) sound warmer and punchier. I want my music to sound as good as possible. And that seals the deal!!

Perhaps they could start doing collectable covers, multiple versions for same album, then they can get people to buy multiples of same one on purpose :O

Beck (my personal favorite artist) did the multiple album cover thing with Sea Change (all pretty crappy, though). And his latest, The Information comes with a set of stickers to let people create their own album art. :-)

For the Art

[bigtimepie]

When you buy a CD, you don't get just the music. You get the art the comes with the CD. Something tangable. It's a package. You don't get that with downloads. I look forward to my favorite artists releasing new CDs for both the new music and the new look.

Plus it's not DRM'd and you can always re burn it or re rip it easily, should you need to.

Thank you

[Overzeetop]

It's about time someone pointed this out.

Unless you decide to go the AllOfMp3 route, you can't get a lossless (or even a 320kb MP3) digital version of the works. I rip all my discs to FLAC, then use MediaMonkey to transcode to 192kb for my portable. I've been fooled once by the lossy MP3pro fad (and had to re-rip all 300 CDs). I listen on decent headphones when I want to really kick back and enjoy the music. That means Sony MDR-V6 cans or Shure Ec3s - not the most expensive in the world, but damned good for listening. I might not be able to tell the difference between 256kb Lame encoded vs FLAC, but with FLAC I know that if I decide I want a [insert snazzy new format here] portable player, the recode can be done without an extra degradation step, all automatically while I sleep.

CDs are the only way to get a lossless or high-quality lossy copy in the digital realm. Tell Levi I want a fully tagged and annotated set of FLAC rips on the new CDs. They usually only put 40 minutes of music on those discs anyway - more than enough room to drop a lossless copy in the data track.

Re:Use a tape adapter

[vertinox]

I guess the guy is either mential or chooses to ignore the millions of people that make below $40,000 a year and cant afford a new stereo with ipod and ipod adapter or mp3 player plus rf transmitter...

I use my iPod in my old Honda 93 Honda Civic with a tape adapter.

Before I would fumble around with a CD walkman with the tape player adpater anyways. The thing only cost me $5.

The CD is Dead - Long Live Vinyl!

[Lexi_the_linux_girl]

CDs degrade, the booklets are small, and many lack inserts or anything special.

I miss the good old days of colored vinyl, or vinyl with picture on it.

What I'd like to see is vinyl like back in the oldie days including large foldout booklets of lyrics, inserted posters, photographs, and stickers. But since I'll also want to listen on my iPod, I also want a CD of mp3s included so I don't have to buy the CD too, or spend a couple hours with my steeo equipment attached to the computer in order to carry my music on my ipod.

I have been seeing more & more vinyl out there lately and buying both vinyl & CDs, but nobody's caught on to the idea of including a CD along with the vinyl.

Re:The CD is Dead - Long Live Vinyl!

[Anonymous Coward]

It could easily include a download certificate as well if the customers would want it.

It makes sense if you think a few years ahead. The only people who will buy physical records will be people who care about "extra material". From what I've seen of collectors and fans, a Vinyl would be the ultimate "extra material".

Simey says it best

[jgercken]

Leave it to a squirrel to condense the problem into a 2 minute rant. http://www.illwillpress.com/cds.html/

I hate this argument

[Manmademan]

CD's and DVD movies look alike but that's about where the similarity ends. Large hollywood blockbusters (the "$50 millions to make films..") have usually already made back their budget and then some via box office sales in the US and abroad. DVD sales are essentially pure profit after that, so they can afford to be priced much more reasonably than CD's, which have only direct to consumer sales as a source of revenue. Without box office revenue DVD prices would be sky high.

Even direct to DVD films (which operate on MUCH MUCH smaller budgets closer to that of a major CD release) still have the rental market as well as the sale of broadcast and cable rights to carry them. (if they're any good, that is.)

Nothing

[vorpal22]

A friend of mine recently bought me a CD - something I haven't bought for myself in years - and after I ripped it, I had no idea what to do with it. My entire music collection is stored on my hard drive and set up so I can access it on any computer in the house through the network. If I'm not listening to music locally, I have my iPod.

I ended up just putting it in a box in the closet. At this point, for me personally, any CD that I acquire is going to do nothing short of take up space that could be better used for other things.

Re:Nothing

[SpryGuy]

Think of it as a "safe, secure backup" for when your computer HD dies. :-)

I haven't spent a cent on iTunes

[LuminaireX]

Frankly, there are very few modern music titles even worth purchasing, even for a dollar. I still buy CD's, and will always do so, simply because what I download on iTunes is screwed if Windows (or Mac, or any system with a doomed hard drive) decides to crash and I need to rebuild. For that matter, if the system is beyond fixing, I can't simply buy a new one and expect my music to be there. Why would I pay for a scheme like that? I also buy CD's because frankly, iTunes screws the artist. I buy the CD, either from my local music store or directly from the artist, because it maximizes the artist's profit.

Computer Brain

[Anonymous Coward]

Inasmuch as my brain is an information processing entity, and inasmuch as thinking is the business of information processing, my personal computer could be seen as an augment to my brain.

Granted, the interface between the two is a bit klunky now, but once the mind-machine interface is available it will become quite clear that the process of thinking can simultaneously include both the wetware and the hardware.

So that means that things which artificially limit my computer's information processing capacity are artificially limiting the thought-capacity of the entity as a whole (that is to say, me).

Putting limits on what people can think (ie, thought control) is a crime against humanity.

DRM puts limits on what a computer can process. Therefore, DRM puts limits on what people can think.

Therefore DRM is a crime against humanity. :)

What I would like

[Sqweegee]

"What material would you like to see?"

Well as long as most people are ripping the CD to MP3, why not just include a high quality MP3 of the song on the disk in addition to the regular CD track. MP3 tracks that I can legally play in any player/computer I own, with no legal gray area.

New additions

[SeaFox]

Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs? What material would you like to see?

DRM is not one of them.
Music video would be nice, though.
Or a discount code to be used for buying tickets for a live show of the artist.

Every new CD from EMI should come w/an Ipod

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

Then i'd buy it for sure!!!

(bit o' levity, eh?)

It Done Be Amazin'!

[ackthpt]

You invite some executive or other would-be prognosticator to speak and the might as well turn their backside to the the microphone because they'll be talking out their arses.

Isn't it a marvel some of these people get compensated hugely and are so bloody stupid?

Just goes to show, there's really a Get-Myself-Promoted game going on, where the players just move up ladders and pad resumees until they can retire or, in the rare case, actually get caught, like Skilling & Company.

roses are red, violets are blue, yup, yup, yup, we're goin' to the zoo

Sorry, but it is over

[cdrguru]

The idea of a "music business" or a business based on the distribution of any sort of entertainment is centered around being (a) in control of the content and (b) in control of distribution. Today, the folks in the music business are barely in control of the content and not at all in control of distribution.

When people can "sample", "mix" or "re-edit" your content, you aren't in control of it. Trying to establish a "brand" with any sort of material that can be reedited, repackaged and resold the minute it ends up in a customer's hands is no control at all.

Any sort of bargain that people in the entertainment business might have thought they had with customers ended a few years ago. Today, the only reason more than a single copy is sold is inefficiency in today's piracy. Having global organized crime involved with it doesn't help either. The people buying CDs are generally those on dial-up Internet connections or those too old to have heard of Napster and all of its decendents. The fact that these people are spending six times as much as the people paying for downloaded music should be an important clue that virtually nobody is paying for downloaded music - they are just downloading it.

How will this end? Well, for starters it can be assumed that music distribution on physical media will end pretty soon. No more "record stores". Probably music "promotion" will end as well, and that will take VH1, MTV and most of the ClearChannel radio stations with it. This will have an pretty widespread effect, so if you are involved in a business that in any way interacts with physical distribution of entertainment media - such as selling big bulky CD cases or radio station advertising - you can just kiss your job goodbye.

Yes, the music CD is dead. The "music business" is probably dead as well, killed off by greedy younglings that want to collect all the songs they can for free. Movies? Probably the idea of a movie studio producing a DVD for profit rather than as an advertising vehicle will be gone soon as well. You might see some "theater-only" productions, where the only attraction would be that it is never, ever going to be available anywhere else but a movie theater.

Re:Sorry, but it is over

[asuffield]

The "music business" is probably dead as well, killed off by greedy younglings that want to collect all the songs they can for free.

I have no interest in collecting all the songs I can... but if it will kill off the music business, I'm all for it. The world would be a much better place without those vultures in it. They squeeze everybody they can reach for as much money as they can get, and pass draconian laws that cause no end of problems for people who have nothing to do with the music business. And what do we get in exchange? A fraction of a percentage point shaved off the unemployment rate? We're better off without them. If unemployment is the price of getting rid of them, it's worth every penny.

You're missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't *about* DRM. The exec is absolutely right -- most CDs are used only for ripping onto the consumer's iPod. Ripped files are not subject to DRM. What he's wrong about is the idea that they (record companies) have to add something to CDs to keep people buying them. What they have to do is *leave them alone,* and perhaps lower the price. (I say "perhaps" because they're already being purchased at their current prices. Lower the price, as was done with DVDs, and watch the sales increase.) The CD format is very high quality (despite the objections of a tiny minority of the listening public that prefers vinyl), and allows a variety of uses depending on the consumer's desires. Don't mess with it. --Dave

You ignore home and other quality markets

[AHumbleOpinion]

You are far from the average music buyer. The average music buyer is listening to MP3's or some similar format. Period. It's you that is out of touch. Go out and actually exmine the general population and you will see the truth. You arn't part of it.

(1) You are being quite myopic and only considering the portable market where quality is not much of an issue. The in-car market would appreciate a little more quality, but road noise limits this. The in-home market is where CDs still shine. This will continue until the online providers offer higher bitrates, right now they only target the low end portable players.

(2) You are being quite naive to think that listening to digital audio equates to buying digital audio. Many purchase CDs and rip so that they have DRM free files and higher quality and are future proof. If and when formats change they can re-rip rather than have to maintain multiple players, one for their iTunes Music Store purchases and one for the non-Apple solution that they moved on to. Or if they had ripped as MP3 in the first place it is virtually assured any future player will be compatible.

Re:You ignore home and other quality markets

[dangitman]

You are being quite naive to think that listening to digital audio equates to buying digital audio. Many purchase CDs and rip so that they have DRM free files and higher quality and are future proof.

Uhhh, no shit. Didn't you even read the writeup? That's exactly what this guy is saying - that people aren't playing music from the CD, they are just using it as a source of data. He never says they aren't selling, he's saying the CD is dead "as it is" - in other words as a standalone medium. Of course, slashdot omitted that part from the headline to make it sound more sensationalistic. Still, I would have hoped that some slashdotters would at least read the writeup, but many people apparantly don't make it past the headline.

Re:You ignore home and other quality markets

[AHumbleOpinion]

You are being quite naive to think that listening to digital audio equates to buying digital audio. Many purchase CDs and rip so that they have DRM free files and higher quality and are future proof.

Uhhh, no shit. Didn't you even read the writeup? That's exactly what this guy is saying

You have the posting hierarchy confused. I did not respond to the person you are referring to, I responded to one of his critics.

Re:You ignore home and other quality markets

[dangitman]

You have the posting hierarchy confused. I did not respond to the person you are referring to, I responded to one of his critics.

So what? The post you were replying to does NOT mention anything about people not buying CDs. He says that people are not listening to CDs, the exact same contention as the writeup. So, why did you call him/her "naive to think that listening to digital audio equates to buying digital audio" when he/she did not saying anything to equate listening to CDs with buying them?

What am I missing here? You appear to be reading things into people's statements taht aren't there. I don't see where I got the posting hierarchy confused.

I'll continue buying CDs as long...

[Slashdot Junky]

I'll continue buying CDs as long as they are rippable and available for a fair price. I do only listen to those that I have as MP3 now either on my homegrown jukebox at home or from my iPod in the car. I've never and will never do the P2P thing. I immediately rip and put new CDs in a storage box. Losing a hard disk or accidently deleting data could mean repurchasing a digitally-purchased collection. I'd just rerip at no additional cost if this happened to me. I could also rerip to a better format down the road. There's already so many reasons for buying CDs. I also like getting something concrete when I spend money.

Later,
-Slashdot Junky

The Extras I would like with my CD

[aplusjimages]

I would like an MP3 player to come with it. I would really like soundtracks to come free with the DVDs. What about just adding them to those DVD's that have the CD on one side. I would really just like to see the price of CD's come down. Why is it still the same price from 15 years ago?

I won't buy from iTunes

[The Relentless]

Of the ~10,000 mp3s and the like I have on my computer, I have only bought 3 songs online. The rest were burned from CDs or picked up through friends, limewire, whatever. Shortly after buying those 3 songs, I had a HD crash. I hadn't yet backed those songs up. No prob. The iTunes music store should have a record of my purchase and I should have no problem re-downloading those songs that I purchased a license to, right? WRONG. You lose them, they are gone. You have to buy them again if you want to download them. This was a year or so ago. Don't know if it is different now. The only songs I download from iTunes are the 2 weekly free ones....if I like them.

Sony called

[blueZ3]

They want their secret marketing plan back

distribugting

That, sir, is either a hilarous typo or an amazingly funny/subtle poke at SonyBMG

I *only* buy CDs

[SpryGuy]

Far from being dead, it is still the ONLY way I purchase music.

Why?

It's DRM-free. Period. I *own* the disc, and I can listen to it in my CD player at home, or in my CD player in my car. I can do anything I want with the disc, including loaning it to a friend, or giving it away to someone. I can rip songs to my hard disk and load them on my MP3 player.

It's precisely the way I want my music to be.

I don't steal music. I don't download free music. And if I borrow a CD or some tracks from a friend, if I like it, I go buy the CD itself so I OWN it.

I cannot stand the concept that anything I might buy is only compatible with my current player, cannot be played in my car at all, and would have to be re-purchased if my hard disk crashes or I get a new computer. That's just ridiculous, especially since it's essentially the same price as buying a CD (rather than being significantly cheaper).

Screw iTunes, screw Rhapsody, screw Napster, screw it all.

CD is the only way I purchase music, and the day they pump it full of DRM is the day I stop buying even CDs. I will buy downloaded music when they let me OWN the track, transfer it to any player I happen to have, and keep it with me even if I buy a new player, my hard drive crashes, or I buy a new computer. I don't want to *rent* music.

Besides, some of my favorite tracks are usually buried on CDs, rather than the "singles" everyone hears and tries to download. I love buying a cohesive work of art as well... where the collection of songs and even their order, is meaningful. I like getting lyric sheets and liner notes. There simply is no substitute for the CD for me, right now.

Dead? HARDLY. Music downloading is currently nothing more than an unfunny joke on the consumer. Fix all the multitide of problems, issues, compatibility problems, and worse, and MAYBE I'll consider paying for downloadable music. But not before.

Let's look at this another way ....

[Registered Coward v2]

If I were EMI I'd want the CD to die and be replaced with downloaded music? Why, well I can think of a couple of reasons they would like that:

1. It ends the secondary market - with no tangible medium to sell the used CD shops will go out of business. That gets rid of a whole revenue stream that they don't get their "fair share" cut.

2. They can develop a watermark for downloads to make them traceable to the original buyer. Makes it a lot easier to go after people who trade music.

3. They cut out a huge piece of the distribution costs - no CD's to master, cover art to create; no shipping and no returns to sell as cut outs (remember them?) Of course, that means more profit rather than lowering the cost of music.

4. You can keep a back catalog forever - once it's in electronic form for download there is virtually no marginal cost to keep it available, unlike Cds or LPs.

5. It lets them move into other business models more easily - such as streaming audio for business or individuals. I really think a rental model may be more prevalent in 5 years than most people think. Why not have a virtually unlimited CD collection for say $20 a month than one you have to rip and store? The movie industry is moving that way with Netflix and Blockbuster Online; and some streaming music sites already exist.

The downsides:

1. Many CD's are impulse buys - you see it in the store and buy it; people are much less likely to do that online.

2. CD's are a large revenue and profit machine for many stores - they're not going to be happy about losing that and may just say FU to the idea of carrying low margin players so the record companies can reel in the dough from their online catalogs. Some may argue Apple already does this but I'd bet their are enough CD sales for ripping to iPods that make it worthwhile to sell them.

For me to keep buying CDs (other than I like the tangible medium) I'd like to see pre-ripped mp3's and the ability to roll my own CD in store for less than I can do it from iTunes.

6 to 1???

[bill_kress]

Wow. Why would anyone buy online?

What I need of purchases is:
    A hardcopy, something that is archivable and won't get lost.
    Cross platform--if I get to work and want to play music, don't make me register, just make it work.
    Standardized format--No protection. I don't want to have to load any specific player.
    Physical Proof of Purchase--Something I can hold in my hand. A permanent license that doesn't go away if I lose a hard disk.

And even if a download could do all these things, it had better cost less than physical media otherwise I'm not risking entering a credit card number into a computer where we don't have ANY virus detection software that can be completely trusted to detect rootkits and keyloggers. I prefer trusting my credit card to the crackheads at the local record shop.

I'm with you on this

[benhocking]

Although I don't listen to much music, I feel the same way about movies, books, etc. I rarely watch the same movie twice, so why should I own a bunch of DVDs. I rarely read the same book twice (unless it's a reference book), so why should I own a bunch of books. For me the solution is my local library, but that might not work for you.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

- Henry David Thoreau

Re:I'm with you on this

[elcid73]

Thanks- you're about the only one it seems. That sums it up I guess. But everyone on slashdot seems to assume that:

a)My taste in music is exactly the same as a 29 year old as it was when I was 13.

b)If I don't listen to a song anymore, it's because it's bubblegum/top10/radio run/mass marketed etc and not because my appreciation for music isn't growing beyond what it was when I was in 10th grade.

Re:I'm with you on this

[Hijacked Public]

Put me on your bandwagon too.

When I was 13 I thought my particular taste in music was better than everyone else's and that if you weren't listening to Black Flag or Minor Threat you were an insufferable poser.

Then I grew up and realized that taste in music isn't a contest that can be won, so I no longer busy myself with telling people what complete jackasses they are because they don't like what I like.

Overstated?

[snowwrestler]

They aren't even getting a guarantee that they can play that file for the rest of their lives!

I think the "long term listening" case against iTunes files is overstated. DRM is ultimately defeatable, and there are already options out there to strip the DRM off iTunes files. As for CDs, well they don't last forever either, whether because of scratching or delaminating or just materials breaking down. There's no lifetime warranty on music no matter how you buy it. Either way you have to actively work to keep your music over the long-term.

Re:Overstated?

[Firehed]

There's a difference here - I have to break the CD (or not care for them properly), whereas the destruction of music with DRM takes no personal screw-ups to break - it's in someone else's hands. If iTunes shuts down at some point, there will be a billion and a half files that can't play anymore, and one serious shitload of angry purchasers.

What do I want?

[Anonymous Coward]

Videos are a nice bonus, I've seen a few CDs with music videos and even making of that music video.
I've seen a dual disc with CD and DVD that came with several music videos.

I'd also like nice booklets. Maybe I'm the only one who appreciates them anymore.
Back when DVDs were new, you'd get a nice book with a list of chapters, some insight into the film, other tidbits. Stuff that could as easily been somehow put onto the DVD, but it also made a nice book. The Ghostbusters 1&2 pack came with a nice book that also had sketches and storyboards. I've seen those on DVDs as well, but as a book its a nice bonus. Now all I see are ads in DVD cases. Other DVDs to buy. That's not what I want to see happen to CDs.

BTW, with some of the DRM they put onto these releases, it is NOT a "CD." It is a plastic disc with music on it. If it doesn't conform to red book standards, it can't use the "CD Digital Audio" logo, and is NOT A CD.

The record companies are blindingly stupid

[aussersterne]

For years now, I have been more than willing to buy a $10 album. I don't need a CD at all. Offer me:

- Songs and PDF cover art in a ZIP file or other format I can access from any OS
- encoded in a non-DRM format like MP3 or OGG, at high quality
- in a single-click download that bills my credit card.

I have bought several independent albums this way. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to make this kind of purchase of a major label album, but have instead just bought nothing rather than have to make my way all the way to some retailer, then all the way back home, then rip the damn thing myself--in combination, an all-afternoon project if you want an album.

With a $10 album download as a ZIP file containing MP3s, they'd get essentially the same price that they're getting already, without having to manufacture material goods, and they'll sell more albums (at least to me). It's paying for convenience. The ability to go to one site, complete a simple process, pay a known price, and have instant gratification beats any kind of P2P file sharing or any retail format. But somehow it just doesn't happen.

Instead they want us to choose between inconvenience (driving to the store, ripping it yourself) and inconvenience (DRM, proprietary software and downloads, having to buy one song at a time to get an entire album). So in the end many of us buy nothing at all.

Welle:Erdball's got it

[TheSpinningBrain]

I have a CD from Germany by a group called Welle:Erdball, who use a Commodore 64 as their main instrument. On the CD is a music video of one of the songs on the CD and a bunch of C=64 programs. I think that the music video itself is enough extra material to make you want to buy the CD, but the programs make it simply phenomenal.

It's dumber than that, even.

[twitter]

Granted, there are a ton of people out there that don't realize that they rely on iTunes to decrypt their music for them ...

No, even iTunes users overwhelmingly prefer CDs to DRM shit.

EMI is going to war against the CD format. What the ass is saying is that CDs don't make enough money for them, despite being the only thing people are willing to buy. The "additional content", we can be sure, is going to be DRM that destroys what makes CDs useful.

JPOP CDs tend to be doing this already

[failedlogic]

I've bought quite a few "big" name J-POP CDs and they usually come with a DVD including music videos and a CD with the 12+ tracks. I've bought these only through major music resellers (and not the pirate copies, I don't support that).

If the content is good and there is no extra mark-up I don't mind.

IMO, I would much rather the DVD-Audio format was standardized. I can tell there's a definite better quality there (though there is a larger price difference).

If they want a price preimium, put it on a goddam disc that resists scratches, direct sunlight and feeding after midnight*.

*Yes, CDs are as cranky as a Gremlin! ;)

reasons to buy and not buy CDs

[beaverfever]

If I buy recordings (which is rare) I buy CDs because of the audio quality. The data on a CD is vastly superior to any download service. Yes, I immediately rip to my computer, but I rip at a relatively high quality.

Reasons not to buy? One, too many CDs I have bought (particularly from manufacturer Cinram in Canada) are not recognised by my computer. CD retailers increasingly do not want to take responsibility for selling such defective product (whether the defect is intentional or otherwise) and their policy is to leave the customer hanging. Two, I am doing my best to wean myself from the corporate entertainment addiction.

Not even close

[dedazo]

No, even iTunes users overwhelmingly prefer CDs to DRM shit.

That troll article (which of course you submitted) was promptly dismissed by the community. Did you take the time to browse the comments? For example, this one pretty much sums up your agenda. I suggest browsing at +5 to see if anyone at all agrees with you.

Just because you found the that the article supports your weird crusade against the iPod and iTunes that doesn't mean it's true or even factual. It just means it got accepted to Slashdot, so please don't use it as a bullet point to try to prove your flawed arguments.

Some CDs do!

[StringBlade]

I was actually very pleasantly surprised when I purchased the Rent Soundtrack (can't remember if it was the movie or Broadway musical) and found that not only were the CDA tracks on the disc, but MP3 and OGG versions of the tracks as well at a high bitrate.

Actually I was more than surprised, I was blown away that they even knew what OGG was!

Re:Some CDs do!

[DoktorTomoe]

You wouldn't happen to be a KDE user? Ever heard of audiocd:/-KIOSlave?

Designed package (kinda Apple style)

[edis]

1. Essential there might be blowing idea of RECORD package: slimmer or extended, whatever is needed to reflect concept of RECORD, the way LPs excited. Experimented. Designed.

2. Additional capabilities stuff: higher quality sound burned in (kinda hybrid SACD), visual - DVD disc in the package or similar. Visual line is seen as very perspective by me, being quite buying recods fan, I find DVD instance usually winning over parallel CD issue - it has more and of better quality.

3. Connection things: real signature, photo of performer's kid, family, some jokes, original arts, first hands designed creativity.

4. Goodwill proofs: when I see artist achieving extremely low pricing for his best record, I know he accomplished and challenged something. Used to buy and recommend such record as very reasonable and worth. Hold greed, even fragmentically; explore us new artists. People could pirate books, magazines and newspapers alot, but they rarely do - pricing SHOULD be inviting, not punishing.

odd how the numbers don't back up his words

[Anonymous Coward]

now, I will agree that digital distribution is growing steadly though, slowly but why does he make the claim that the CD is dead when the numbers and revenue based on a industry trade group completely deflates his whole point, I think he is blowing off steam because all the other music companies are playing ball with the digital distribution people and he is not getting any piece of the pie.

I miss artwork

[Wansu]

It's certainly true that most CD players sound better than most record players but I miss one thing about vinyl, artwork. The shrunken down artowrk on CDs doesn't do it justice. Neither does displaying it on an iPod screen. Perhaps EMI could sweeten the pot by including folded posters of the artwork or something like that. I like reading about the the musicians I'm listening to and looking at pictures of them playing. Maybe they could include stuff like that. I'm interested in what kinds of guitars, amps, drums and other equipment they use. Perhaps they could include some of that info.

I agree with the top poster, DRM'd iTunes (and other issues) is prolonging the life of CDs. I buy CDs and rip 'em. If EMI wants to give me a little extra or cut their prices some, I'm OK with that.

From the headline

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I thought that someone in the industry had bought a clue. Then I RTFA.

Ah, well.

2 sided discs will solve most problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that the Music CD died a few years ago already. I will admit if I am jogging or out and about a MP3 based player is wonderful, small and can fit lots of music. But MP3 format sucks; and their players are very cheap on sound quality. If you are at home there is no reason you should not use CD's with a good component system. Even then the CD format is old. We should look to be switching to SACD or DVD Audio. Most people already have a DVD player which could play this file type, and the quality is far superior to CD. It is amazing that in all the new technology and Hi Def TV's and new HD DVD's that audio has been overlooked. I would be more than happy to sacrifice the quantity of songs for quality. In Europe most CD's have 2 sides, once side is a normal CD standard and the other is SACD (Super Audio CD) Keep the price reasonable ~ $10 and you will have very happy people. If you look at it we are slowly being forced to Hi Def TV, we should also be for audio. Music should be enjoyed, lush, warm, complicated. Not tinny and lacking quality like todays standards.

What I want from CDs to make me want to buy

[SaidinUnleashed]

>> What material would you like to see?

Less DRM.

If I put a CD into my computer and it does not work as I expect the first time, I take it back to the store and demand my money back, and I do not leave the store until I get it. I've had to talk to the regional manager *coughbestbuycough* of an area before in order to get my money back for this DRM'd trash, but I always get it back. I do not own a CD player and have not owned one in more than 6 years. I want my CDs to be a safe, high-quality master copy to rip my FLACs from to play on my media devices, nothing more.

You want my money, music people?

Give me what I want.

Here's my wish list

[blue l0g1c]

A sampler of other artists on the label. Full tracks that I can listen to, not 30 second clips. Everyone wins here. Do you know much I covet those CMJ cd's? Discounts on ticket sales for that band. I'm an avid concertgoer. One of the reasons is that I feel this supports the bands directly. This would also help take the edge off of the exhorbitant "convenience fees" that SOME masters of tickets charge. That is, until they get their come uppance. A pre-ripped mini-CD, free of DRM (I know, yeah right). But how nice would it be to just pop in the CD, drag and drop the files onto your mp3 player and go? If the album length provides, this might be able to be done on a single mixed-media CD. Make it cheaper. This has been repeated ad nauseum, but they never get it.

The dismal future of music without CDs

[bumptehjambox]

In the future, we could see albums with over $100,000 spent in production be compressed to about 80MB and sound worthless. That would make no sense, and thus never last, no one is going to spend months producing a record when most of their work won't even be heard due to loss. Another possible route is for even more artists to record themselves with some of those crappy ProTools rigs everyone likes to buy these days, and send it out for mastering directly to mp3, or even worse- try and master it themselves. I hate mp3s, I would never buy one, ever. I'm nowhere near an audiophile, but purchasing an mp3 while knowing how much better the source sounds is absurd. In a world where CD quality isn't meant to be the final product, I can only see less and less time spent on sound engineering, and instead on marketing. The internet is NEVER (yea, i said it) going to be fast enough to have millions of people buying 700MB albums, not for consumers anyway ...after all, they won't be on the right 'tier' for that ;)

So, do we take our digital music players to big city music stores that have the bandwidth to collect high-quality albums? Or will high quality never again exist? It's just crazy, to think the future is going to bring lower quality sound... I really hope CDs stay.

The CD may be dead...

[Seantotheizzo]

BUT GOD HELP US if the mp3 is the replacement. FLAC (or any other lossless format) is the way to go and everyone knows it. But... a) ISPs (who seem to be buddy-buddy with the RIAA and similar orgs) would favor mp3s over flac for obvious reasons b) Music providers also would favor mp3s over flac for the same reasons

I would like the music without compression

[thogard]

Every new album seems to be compressed to the point where the music has no energy anymore. The compression I'm talking about is from an audio term where they up the volume till the little red clipping light comes on. Take an old CD (like Bat out of Hell or The Wall) and listen to it... it will have soft spots and loud spots... then listen to the "remastered" versions and you'll notice that they boosted the volume of the soft spots and killed the emotion of the music. More and more music is compressed even inside a track so what used to be a soft spot before a loud part is now all equal volume. Rap has mostly avoided this until recently because the vocal beat messed with the automatic systems but the newer compressors seem to be able to mess with that too.

Wrong, Wrong, Wron

[Zetta Matrix]

Sorry, I know this will be a rehash of what has already been said 10 times over. But, in short, the problems with this (CDs vs. downloadable music)

1. Quality (uncompressed versus highly compressed = degraded quality)
2. DRM
3. Prices not directly comparable due to points 1 and 2
4. Having an actual "thing"
5. Having the booklet

Instant Karma!

[firemangreg]

Blah blah blah DRM blah blah blah rootkit. +5?

my 2 cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous Coward says "Modern Music is Dead"

Here's what I want...

[FirstTimeCaller]

I'd like to see some precautions that would prevent me from accidentally trying to transfer the music to my computer. Those music files are huge and they waste too much of my precious disk space!

I'd like it if the CD doesn't play in every CD player that I might own. Being able to play it in a variety of devices just confuses me and I end up forgetting where I left the CD.

I would like to be able to copy the music to a portable music player. Unfortunately, I get very confused trying to figure out which one is the best one to get, so it would be helpful if you only allowed me to copy it to one particular device.

I'd like it if music is subtly altered in some inconspicuous manner. This would be especially cool if it made the music intollerable to listen to when copied to another device. Don't ask me why I want this, I just do.

I'm sure I'm not alone in desiring these features -- I bet almost all of your customers feel the way I do.

BS

[pfunkmallone]

I call BS on this one. What they're really saying is that they make more money if they don't have to produce anything but bits. Creating the CD and it's associated packaging cuts into their profit.

I still buy CDs, because (call me old fashioned) I like to have "something" in my hand. If I ever want to create an MP3, I can. If I want to create an OGG, I can. I don't have to worry about an CD in my closet "crashing", or me loosing my DRM rights to listen to it.

My guess is that the industry wants to stop creating these things so you truly don't "own" anything.

re: What additional material

[mysidia]

Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs? What material would you like to see?"

A license document allowing for ripping and unlimited sharing of reduced-quality versions (MP3s) with friends online.

No. DRM is GOOD.

[astrosmash]

On-line music with DRM does not bypass fair use.

You buy music, legally, on-line. You burn that music, legally and easily, to CD. You make as many copies of that CD as you want for your own personal use, legally.

The only legal option before that was to go to a store a buy a physical CD, which scratches easily and will degrade in the long term.

The option before that was to purchase a cassette, which has poor sound quality, degrades in the short term, and cannot be copied without serious sound loss.

Before that, it was vinyl records that degrade in quality very quickly if you don't go to extreme measures (by today's standards) to protect them, and cannot be copied.

When you also include the fact that people can now discover and purchase music from their own home, and that they no longer have to purchase the whole album to get just the few good songs, how can you not conclude that the situation for the music consumer today is greater now than it's ever been, because of on-line music. And the only way copyright holders allow their works to be distributed on-line is with DRM. So, really, it's DRM that enables this new golden age.

I wish everything was sold on plain MP3, I think they would sell a lot more music that way, but I also don't think that will happen for a very long time.

So, if I buy a track off of iTunes, how exactly are my fair-use rights restricted any differently than in the past?

Re:DVD: $9.99 Soundtrack CD: $17.99

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to remember that movie studios make that money up in theatre sales. Record labels only sell the CD, and most of the Band's tour money goes back to the band.

Re:DVD: $9.99 Soundtrack CD: $17.99

[BroccoliGod]

You have to remember that movie studios make that money up in theatre sales. Record labels only sell the CD, and most of the Band's tour money goes back to the band.

It is a shame that the record companies receive no compensation for the music being added to the movie.

-BroccoliGod

Two words: WAV FILES

[RiffRafff]

Some of us, while indeed using CDs to rip for digital music players, are NOT ripping in the lossy formats the record companies seem to want us to use. We rip to wav files, and use real headphones like Grados or Shure or "Ultimate Ears." The problem is NOT that we need "additional material" to coerce us into buying CDs; it's that we need DECENT MUSIC to BUY. It's not "piracy," or "peer-to-peer networks" that's keeping us from buying...it's the selection, or LACK OF IT. I mean, just how many Justin Timberlake albums do you want us to buy, anyway???

Time for DVD

[Lotharjade]

What I want to see is them move to a video format on DVDs. In addition all songs will be urged (requred?) to have a video involved. IF that means only a simple video visual music affect, fine. In this world of video Ipods, DVD players for computer, and home, how is it the music industry hasn't moved into the video age? Provide support for the old non-video systems such as radios, but its time to move forward.

If a music label wants to really get ahead, post all music on DVD's or in online music download stores. Included on the DVD or online will be a high quality music video, and a (low and high quality) digital audio track (mp3, ogg vorbis, aac, wave, FLAC, etc...). Advertise that all the music they puts out are in video, thus you are getting more than a CD. Have contest for college students to create videos for their favorite band. Thus a band such as NoDoubt might have 3 high cost professional videos and the rest on the album a bunch of cheap fan based vids. This will help the music industry compete with movies on DVD. People will feel they are getting much more compared.

Educational opportunities

[jacrawf]

If your wife doesn't know what DRM is, that means you've missed an opportunity to educate her about it. Whenever my family members or friends and myself talk about music, movies, and computers, I often take the opportunity to tell them earnestly why I don't like the iTunes Music Store or Plays For Sure, and give them good, concrete examples of why DRM is bad. My family might not understand the nitty-gritty details of it, but they trust my opinion because they know I have a vested interest in pursuing good technologies and leaving bad ones behind.

This is very important to do because I know that my family also talks about media and computers with other people who aren't necessarily tech savvy as well. When I can arm my loved ones with good, strong reasons why stuff like DRM is bad and ultimately hurts them, they'll share that knowledge with others and word will spread.

Re:Educational opportunities

[planetmn]

You're right. I've never thought about it that way. Actually, now that you mention it, I should be teaching her a lot of things. For instance, she doesn't know anything about signal processing and filter design. Yet she is here in the same house with me and I could be teaching it to her right now.

Sorry to be so sarcastic. Yes there are things worth teaching. Is "DRM music bad" one of them? Not in my opinion, but that definately puts me in the minority on slashdot. Fact of the matter is, she doesn't care about DRM. She wouldn't want me teaching her about it just as I wouldn't want her teaching me about the different methods of teaching a child to read.

I'm a very opinionated person, but I generally only bring my opinions up when they are relevant. If she were having trouble playing music she purchased, or if she was asking the benefits of one format over the other, I'd let her know about DRM, but I don't go around preaching my views.

It's my opinion that this misplaced preaching is what ultimately harms an otherwise worth while cause. Get worked up over the important stuff. I don't buy music online (hell, I can't remember the last time I bought music period), I prefer a physical CD. If they aren't available to me, or don't play in my CD player, guess what, I don't buy them, I go on my merry way. It's how capitalism works.

-dave

Re:Educational opportunities

[debest]

Yes there are things worth teaching. Is "DRM music bad" one of them? Not in my opinion

That's fine. But if your wife buys a shitload of music off of iTMS (a substantial investment of time and money) and her computer borks on her authentication big time, don't you think that your wife would have appreciated it if you, as the "tech savvy" one in the house, had told her about this risk?

Just because she's having no issues now, doesn't mean that she won't in the future. Any number of reasons could leave DRM'd content totally useless in the future. Just knowing this fact could cause a great number of people to think twice before ever purchasing anything infected with DRM.

Re:Educational opportunities

[planetmn]

My point is there is a lot of information that I could teach her. It doesn't mean that I teach it all to her. Which was my point about if it comes up in a conversation. Do you teach everyone you encounter about safe sex? That could actually save their lives rather than just their music collection.

-dave

If it was a Black Crows CD,

[vandelais]

It could come with "Lamp parts", incense, and coupons for free sliders at White Castle.

I'll Tell You What This Means To Me...

[j h woodyatt]

I just stopped buying EMI compact discs.

Levy's folly

[thethibs]

Levy's an idiot. He takes the stat that 60% of CDs are ripped and concludes that CDs are becoming useless. Hey Alain! We want the CDs to rip from for the same reason we used to dub our vinyl to tape. The CD's versatility is why 70% of music sales are from CDs. Don't piss off 42% of your market.

There's an architectural principle that says if you find a path across the grass, don't block it—pave it.

If EMI wants to add value to their CDs, the obvious thing to do is to save us the problem of ripping—put the MP3s on the CD. I'll gladly pay a buck or two extra for that.

Talking about bucks, it would seem that EMI are getting sensible. I just bought a new EMI release for nine bucks Canadian. That's a reasonable price.

Forget CDs. I want better quality downloads.

[dircha]

I want CD quality album downloads through iTunes so I don't have to keep buying CDs in the first place.

New Flash RIAA: If I want a CD of the album I and most everyone else in the U.S. can burn CDs ourselves. They sound just as good as the ones you make. And when they get scratched we just burn new ones.

Marketing Research reply...

[anubi]

I am probably redundant here, but I will make the assumption that this question was asked on Slashdot as part of a marketing survey to ascertain interest in the music CD.

Yes, I will continue to buy CD's provided they continue to offer nice printed inserts and the little "extras" that make having the original CD a "collector's item".

For starters, continue making it easy to get the music onto editors so I can mix it to what I like. Getting music out of some containers is almost like getting sugar from a Tyvek envelope. Possible, but messy, and I had just as soon not mess with it at all.

There is a tremendous draw to having my source music in the highest-definition format that the pressed CD offers, and let me mix it and compress it to my liking before downloading my favorites mix to my portable player. My portable player will be subjected to things that may destroy it, and I take great comfort knowing that if the worst does happen ( my mp3 player gets dropped, stepped on, or worse ), that the thing most valuable to me - its content - is still intact on my home system. I can always buy another MP3 player, but it may have collectively taken me thousands of hours to prepare its content like I like it. I guess an apt analogy is that I do not mind it so much if I dropped the meal on the floor, if I didn't lose the kitchen in the process.

Things are changing, as they always have. Yes, I can share someone else's music - and no matter how much snooping and RIAA threats go on, I get the idea the RIAA is going to have as much fun policing music sharing as the authorities have had in controlling illicit drugs. People are intelligent and will find a way to get what they want. Put barriers in the "legal" way of getting it, and people migrate to illegal methods.

Personally, I'd much rather have my original source CD sitting in a safe place so I know I can always go back to it if any of my working copies get nailed. And I do want the original from the artist. Its a "having the original painting" versus "having a picture of it" thing. Yes, I can look at pictures of paintings for hours, but when it comes to the ones I really like, I'd just as soon have the "real thing" if I can get it.

I hope you marketing guys get this and reconsider that things are changing. You no longer have absolute control over your stuff. Nobody does. You will have as much luck controlling your stuff once you release it as I have in controlling what business does with my personal info.

Its just the way things are in the informational age.

Its as if all building materials became transparent with new technology, and others are free to observe any darned thing they want. Neither of us much like it, but its just the way it is.

quotes as food for thot

[flyneye]

There's unlimited supply
and there is no reason why
I tell you it was all a frame
they onl1y did it 'cos of fame -
Who? EMI

Too many people had the suss
Too many people support us
An unlimited amount
too many outlets in and out -
Who? EMI

And sir and friends are crucified
a day they wished that we had died
We are an addition
we are ruled by-none
Never ever never

And you thought that we were faking
that we were all just money making
you do not believe we're for real
or you would lose your cheap appeal?

Don't judge a book just by the cover
Unless you cover just another
And blind acceptance is a sign
of stupid fools who stand in line like EMI

Unlimited edition
with an unlimited supply
That was fhe only reason
we all had to say goodbye

Unlimited supply
EMI there is no reason why
EMI I tell you if was all a frame
EMI they only did it 'cos of fame
EMI I do not need the pressure
EMI I can't stand the useless fools
EMI unlimited supply
EMI Hallo EMl goodbye A & M

            --john rotten

Additional material requested: Lower Price tag

[fromvap]

I'd be happy to buy CDs if they dropped the price to about $5 a CD.

He's Smoking a Holocaust

[chef_raekwon]

Holy Dude, are you expecting a nuclear holocaust soon? Probably the only way you'd not find a cd player/dvd player....or get the one you found, to work.
Good luck with the Vinyl.

Re:He's Smoking a Holocaust

[SQLGuru]

I was merely referring to the fact that the parent-parent-parent post said that CD's would play "forever". If you don't think a technology goes out of manufacture, I have some old Beta tapes that I need converted to DVD. Can you buy a consumer grade Beta player for me? Or maybe the laserdisc version of Star Wars? My grandmother has some reel-to-reels of my deceased grandfather playing guitar and harminoca. I think she even has some 8-tracks he made, too. (And yes, all of those items are real items that I can access, not some fictitious items made up for a rant.)

I still buy CD's, but I don't have the expectations that I'll be able to use them 30 years from now. I was just saying that the only way to ensure that you have a media format that will be playable in 50 years is to rely on the lowest tech version of them all.

Layne

Why don't I buy CDs?

[Kell Bengal]

I don't buy CDs that have copy protection on them. It treats me like a criminal. I bought a Placebo CD published by EMI and I couldn't play it on my computer like a normal CD. I invest a lot in computer audio equipment and I'm not going to use their crappy little player program instead of my usual tools. I, a legitimate paying customer, could not play something I'd paid for. I found those same tracks freely available online. By paying money, I had disadvantaged myself. Since then, I have never bought a disc with copy protection. I have never bought a disc from EMI. They have lost a loyal customer. Of course, being a geek, I extrated the data from the disc directly and burned a new, unsullied CD for listening to, instead. It was very easy; they have not only lost a customer, but also gained nothing in return.

Admit, it would be a trip if...

[lquam]

...10 years from now you couldn't buy a CD, but you could still buy LPs. Perhaps I should start making room for another shelf for LPs rather than CDs. Maybe upgrade the Grado to something a bit better, trade in the Thorens for a new Basis table. Get myself a nice tube preamp.

I've done the SACD/DVD-A thing. What a fiasco. But he is right in one respect, most people don't give a rat about quality so if you do, start supporting those companies still producing vinyl. They may be your only source for music that isn't compressed to hell, DRM'd, and optimized for playback on Jobs' crappy earbuds in a few years.

Len

Re:DVD: $9.99 Soundtrack CD: $17.99

[Anonymous Coward]

Music is different from movies. How many times do you watch a movie you buy? Now, how many times do you listen to an album (or songs from an album) you buy?

If you're anything like me, you'll have albums in your collection that you've listened to tens of times, perhaps hundreds of times.
They are completely different things, and are used in different ways.

(Disclaimer: I think both DVDs and CDs are priced ridiculously high, but so are things like books. Have you seen the price of a new novel nowadays? There are paperbacks coming out at 2-3 times the price they were 10 years ago (for the same book, too!). Now THAT is ridiculous.)

Audiobooks on DVD

[ottffssent]

I have hundreds of audiobook CDs sitting on a shelf, wasting space and plastic. I don't own a CD player, so I run them all past grip first and then they're something I can use. But that added step reduces their value to me, and increases their cost to the producer.

One DVD is a whole lot cheaper to make, package, ship, and shelve than ten CDs. So why not spend the extra money on a second DVD that includes high- and low-bitrate MP3s and FLAC files of the book? I know DVD-audio isn't something a lot of people can deal with, but DVD-audio on one disc and MP3s on the other would cover a lot of the listening public. And you can always sell the CDs for more to those who need them.

The LotR trilogy is 46 CDs. Stephen King's Dark Tower series is over 100. That's a lot of plastic to be carting around the world. I'd love to be able to get that data in a format that's not older than I am.

What material would I like to see?

[PostPhil]

If they were going to add extras, honestly I would like to have the music videos come with the CD. Mostly because it's been years since I've seen the music video to a song I liked. So-called "Music" Television (MTV) doesn't actually have music videos anymore and neither does "Video" Hits 1 (VH1). They're basically teen pop culture TV nowadays and "reality" shows. If you'll notice, people almost treat the music video as if it is part of the song itself, and a good video sometimes tends to make a song famous and not the other way around. I would like to keep a copy of the videos on CD for nostalgic reasons. I know they've already done this to some degree, I would just like them to be more consistent.

Oh yeah, and also versions of the song greater than 320 Kb/s. Compressed formats like MP3 actually don't sound that great. CD quality is clear but harsh and cold compared to an analog recording or digital recording at a higher bitrate. It doesn't make sense to record using high-quality reverb and condenser mics if it just gets reduced in quality in the final mix. We've got compressibility and portability, now let's try making quality the next advancement in audio.

Stuff consumers want not what RIAA gives us

[JoeCommodore]

As a consumer I buy lots of CDs, I shop around and look for the songs I like on the CDs I can afford (rarely new hits, as the initial price really sucks and most artista are more akin to acting like porn stars than singers). I buy lots of the music I like, which is not always easy, some music isn't available on CD (or at least on CDs in the US.)

So my response is

• Sell stuff at a more reasonable price (you've recouped your investment in CD production make good to drop the prices)
• Get better artists or at least some variety that don't just do only pop, metal, rap.
• If I like the artist I buy the album, if I like only the song, I would only buy the song. (ive bought such artists as the PRoclaimers, Dexy Midnight Runners, etc, there are actually a bunch of good songs on there, too bad you -record co.- never promoted the playlist.)

What I would like to see...

[Karem Lore]

A dual partition disk with CD music on one side and high-quality MP3 files on the other, that is MP3, not DRM WMA or M4P or any other DRM rubbish.

Karem,

What would I like to see?

[Max Threshold]

How about some music that doesn't suck ass? High-quality MP3s ready to load on my player would be a nice touch, too. Or how about you just sell me the MP3s online for $0.10 each and save us both the trouble?

Raw tracks

[StripedCow]

It would be nice to have the RAW tracks they used to actually produce the CD, so that you can (re)mix the stuff yourself. (Okay, you'll probably need a dvd, but that would be really cool!)

Is this guy serious?

[AnXa]

I think his opinion will be very valid after every CD is copy protected. And at least I will not be buy those non-CD-standard compatible disks.

CD only for ripping

[tao]

Well, I agree that I only use the CD for ripping (even though I want the booklet with the lyrics too), but I definitely don't want the CD's to disappear. Why? Because then the record companies will have full control of the file format. This will very likely mean that I'll no longer have access to full quality flacs...

That's a no-brainer

[Frodrick]

"Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs? What material would you like to see?"

That's easy. I would like to see more than one or two good tracks per CD.

More appropriately...

[ninja_assault_kitten]

Physical media for storage and distribution of audio/video is dead.

It'd Better not Be Copy Control

[eBunny]

Incredibly stupid concept that involves mangling the CDDA audio standard thoroughly, causing multiple hardware players, and all software players except the on-disc software player (currently supporting recent Apple & Microft OS'es).

It has thoroughly alienated me from buying the physical, inconvenient, expensive, semi-legal licence to download a playback-compatible copy of the information contained therein ever again.

The fact that EMI have marketed and sold music CC-CDs in a form that's confusingly similar to regular CDs (okay, I bought one album by accident..) have thoroughly pissed me off.

For me to buy a CD, the company need to NOT be EMI, DRM is out of the question, and I have to genuinely LIKE the artist as well as the music.

For everything else there's a online music store's TOS that 'just works'.

Man's got a point

[john-da-luthrun]

"most CDs are simply used for ripping onto digital audio players"

I refuse to buy DRMed music, so all my music is either on CD or from eMusic. But when it comes to CDs - yup, I buy it, rip it and stick it on the shelf. But at least I have the full-quality master version - usually for the same money I'd have had to pay on iTunes.

(And of course, Apple have saved me the trouble of having to make an "ethical" decision on whether to use iTunes or not. No Linux version = no DRMed iTunes stuff, even if I wanted to.)

Dual Disk is the only way to go...

[RassilonInc]

I decided some time ago that I wouldn't EVER buy a CD again... I was going to only buy DVDs. Unfortunately, some artists haven't released DVDs of their music so I've had to go back on that promise a couple of times.

I also tried using one of those LEGAL download machines, but it gave me WMA files instead of MP3, so that's out too.

I like the idea of dual mode CDs (one side DVD one side CD) or Dual Disk (One CD + one DVD). I'm mainly interested in music videos, though concert footage or making-of featurettes might be good too.