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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[blugu64]

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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[Jonny_eh]

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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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

[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

[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

[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.

What material would I'd like to see?

[revlayle]

$100 bills would be pretty frickin' cool

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.

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Hmmm

[Phanatic1a]

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

Good music?

[fluch]

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

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.

Rather have leprosy

[jenkin sear]

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

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!

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."

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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".

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: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

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.