Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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?
My work here is dung.
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.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
$100 bills would be pretty frickin' cool
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
And while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
"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.
;P
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.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Lyrics and sheet music. Or tab. And a flash drive with properly-tagged high-bitrate mp3s on it.
How about to put some good music on the CD? For a change...
Wasn't the last additional material we found on a CD a rootkit?
What a strange bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.
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.
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.
I don't get it.
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.
Twinstiq, game news
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.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
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:
- I will pay for music that I like.
- I do not know what DRM is.
- 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
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
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.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games