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It's Semi-Official: CDs to Die in 2013


Anderton

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http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/11/15/music-lovers-prepare-to-say-goodbye-to-the-cd/?ncid=webmail1

 

Frankly, I'm not surprised, and I don't doubt the sources are correct.

 

But...but...it seems an awful lot is dependent on the internet these days, and that's a scary thought. The internet remains an ill-defined entity that was not created for the purpose it serves. Security is lax, and even the best, "most secure" sites get hacked - banks, TV stations, news organizations, government, etc.

 

If all downloads are digital, of course they'll be sitting on people's hard drives or whatever, but there's a degree of impermanence. You can still play a 78 that's 80+ years old...I can't imagine any music sitting on anyone's hard drive that will still be around in 2091.

 

At least the Sumerians used stone tablets so we have a clue what they were about :)

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I personally think that what the major labels do or announce is increasingly irrelevant.

 

I'm not big on cds any more either, but if the gazillions of independent music makers out there on the planet (ie:- all of us in the population) want to keep releasing our stuff on cd, vinyl, downloads, cassette, or 8-track... the blank media will continue to be there to allow us all to do that. And for anyone who wants to buy in those formats, I don't see things changing.

 

Where's that home lathe cutter review Craig?

 

The upswing in older artists buying back their rights and masters from record companies is cool too. Once back in the artists' hands, you've got some actual care and planning into re-releases. And multiple formats. The big labels can not maneuver in the new world. They can only continue to exist in their own small pocket of their own media world. They are too fat and too slow for the general population. Releasing Downloads-only is their last gasping for any sort of low-overhead profit.

 

If the headlines change to "It's Semi-Official:All major labels to die in 2013", then that would be an interesting read for me.

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Yeah, I agree with Dano.

 

Physical Distribution is dead! Long live physical distribution! Record companies don't control how we distribute any more than they do who records now days. So all it would mean when and if it does happen is that they will give up physical distribution as an option, but the independents will still have it. Best Buy and other stores are full of vinyl releases and many of us are still using tape. The music scene is now so diverse there is no single direction, and no one has enough control to declare anything is dead. Ideally I would like to see a better quality optical disc, but CD is what we have and everyone and their grandmother can burn one. When manufacturers stop making CD recorders/players and medium that

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You don't take home any extra cash from a gig by telling folks "Here's where you can download some of my songs."

 

It wouldn't break my heart if the major labels stopped selling CDs of their artists, but I think the "merch table" will be important to independent artists for a while yet.

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You don't take home any extra cash from a gig by telling folks "Here's where you can download some of my songs."


It wouldn't break my heart if the major labels stopped selling CDs of their artists, but I think the "merch table" will be important to independent artists for a while yet.

 

 

Thumb Drives!

 

Although there is probably a way to just email your album to a fans smart phone once they transfer funds to your Paypal account.

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Thumb Drives!

 

As I asked Mr. Knobs - Are your fans smart enough to transfer files from a thumb drive to their smart phone? They know how to rip a CD using iTunes, but a file? ? ? That's like, a computer, isn't it? ;)

 

And how does the cost work out? You can buy a blank CD for a quarter or less, but even in bulk, a 1 GB thumb drive must be a couple of bucks.

 

Although there is probably a way to just email your album to a fans smart phone once they transfer funds to your Paypal account.

 

Maybe you could have someone at the merch table manning a computer to get their money right at the gig, but you have to sieze the moment.

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As I asked Mr. Knobs - Are your fans smart enough to transfer files from a thumb drive to their smart phone? They know how to rip a CD using iTunes, but a file? ? ? That's like, a computer, isn't it?
;)

And how does the cost work out? You can buy a blank CD for a quarter or less, but even in bulk, a 1 GB thumb drive must be a couple of bucks.




Maybe you could have someone at the merch table manning a computer to get their money right at the gig, but you have to sieze the moment.

 

I didn't say it was foolproof :p

 

I just think that technology is going to change how we do things even more that it has now. My first band sold CASSETTE TAPES at gigs.

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If all downloads are digital, of course they'll be sitting on people's hard drives or whatever, but there's a degree of impermanence.

 

 

You're completely missing the point of the Evil Plan here. No corporate entity wants you to have ANY music that you "own". Downloads will also be going away, so music that's "sitting on people's hard drives" isn't part of the long term equation either. If you want to hear something, you'll rent it from the cloud. And you'll like it.

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Inevitable indeed. It'll probably slowly peter out. And it'll be interesting to see how it plays out, with the security issues, HD, thumb drives at gigs, everything else that people are bringing up. But necessity is the mother of invention, and people will always come up with something else to make something happen or figure out how to sell to audiences at a gig or other things.

 

It's interesting how much technology speeds up. We had generations of people who listened to records. CDs lasted a few decades, a little shorter time. We'll see what happens next.

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Yeppers... change is on the horizon. I wasn't even surprised last year when I went to see KISS I could have a Kiss USB Bracelet with the show http://www.kissonline.com/news/article/id/18916 to take home. Yes I went to my 1st KISS Concert at 52 years old.

 

The technology to download the music to a smartphone or wait until you get to a PC shortly after the show, even for a fee, is already available. I'd be surprised if someone wasn't already doing it.

 

USB drives can be bought in bulk for a couple $'s a piece and while that seems like a lot compared to CD's... You don't really need any special equipment to copy a file to a USB drive. In fact you don't really even need to pre sell them like a CD. You could have someone Burn them on the fly. Give them an assortment of USB's to buy, then copy the file to it, and you could even do at least a low level copy protection. The idea is you make the money selling the cute USB drive. Be it a wristband, watch, ring, pick holder, hello kitty, or whatever...

 

I totally agree that longevity is a MAJOR issue that MUST be addressed. Places like the Country Music Museum in Nashville are a step in the right direction with their huge sterile archive of 1000's of recordings and not just country, but it's going to take more than one museum. All of the non-commercially released albums by essentially unknown bands that got enough money together to make a run of records... the modern version of those talents will be lost unless something is done.

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You're completely missing the point of the Evil Plan here. If you want to hear something, you'll rent it from the cloud.

 

 

Sort of like the plan by some for software too. There is no software on physical media. In fact, won't even be downloadable locally. It's all in the cloud. The cloud is now also the new iDongle.

 

Which as longterm masterplans go, is to be expected. After all, everything will be holographic in-the-air.... in a minute or so anyway ....and there won't even be any hardware. So, you won't have a hard drive anyway even if you wanted to download something. Everything you see, hear, and motion to will just be wi fi signals in the air (to quote an old Don McLean song)

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You're completely missing the point of the Evil Plan here. No corporate entity wants you to have ANY music that you "own". Downloads will also be going away, so music that's "sitting on people's hard drives" isn't part of the long term equation either. If you want to hear something, you'll rent it from the cloud. And you'll like it.

 

 

To play the devil's advocate here...would that really be so bad for the majority of listeners? To not "own" any music? Take movies as an example - 99.999% of all the movies I watch I never own. We have maybe a dozen movie DVDs around the house - that's it. And I don't download movies either. I have no desire to fill up hard drives with movies when I can stream them or rent them so easily. It's never occurred to me that I was missing something by not "owning" in that context.

 

If this new paradigm allows the following:

 

1. the quality of sound is there

2. the availability and convenience is there

3. artists actually get paid as all the music goes through a legit commercial gate

 

then it looks pretty good to me.

 

Sure, there will be questions - will the artists be paid enough and treated fairly? Will the quality really be up to audiophile standards? Will pricing for various levels of access be reasonable? No way around those questions regardless of paradigm.

 

nat whilk ii

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One massive solar flare or a huge man made magnetic pulse and the Internet and alot of equipment is dead and there goes the music download industry. Hell, there goes civilization !!! Glad I have my massive vinyl and tape collection and antique stereo gear that will run on my huge solar panels. Worlds going to {censored} pretty damn quick. I saw a 5 year old at the grocery walking with her mom just chattin and texting away on a cell phone. My oldest daughter teaches and she said they have problems with pre-school kids and cell phones. Thats one technology I would like to see wiped out by a pulse.

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One massive solar flare or a huge man made magnetic pulse and the Internet and alot of equipment is dead and there goes the music download industry. Hell, there goes civilization !!!

 

Yeah, I was gonna say, if that happens people are going to be worried about a lot more than where their Akon MP3s are. :D

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Sounds like the premise of the 1990 film The Spirit of '76:

 

 

Originally
at Wikipedia:

Plot

By the year 2176, a magnetic storm has degaussed all recorded history, causing such valuable documents as the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence to be lost. Three time-travelers (Adam-11, Chanel-6, and Heinz-57) are sent back to July 4, 1776, to retrieve America's heritage, but due to an unnoticed time machine malfunction, end up in 1976 instead, during the United States Bicentennial.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

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Sort of like the plan by some for software too. There is no software on physical media. In fact, won't even be downloadable locally. It's all in the cloud. The cloud is now also the new iDongle.


Which as longterm masterplans go, is to be expected. After all, everything will be holographic in-the-air.... in a minute or so anyway ....and there won't even be any hardware. So, you won't have a hard drive anyway even if you wanted to download something. Everything you see, hear, and motion to will just be wi fi signals in the air (to quote an old Don McLean song)

Hold on a sec, let's not get carried away. The material in the cloud has to be stored somewhere. The cloud is just a metaphor for a collection of material which still needs residence somewhere. In fact the idea is that it has residence in multiple places, so if anything the cloud requires that there are more physical storage devices out there rather than fewer - doesn't it?

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No corporate entity wants you to have ANY music that you "own". Downloads will also be going away, so music that's "sitting on people's hard drives" isn't part of the long term equation either. If you want to hear something, you'll rent it from the cloud. And you'll like it.

 

 

Hey, that's just like the good old days when the only way I heard music was on the radio because I couldn't afford to buy records. The only difference is that I couldn't ask for every song I wanted to hear on the radio. I listened to what they played me and that's how I heard new things.

 

That's not such a bad model. I'll bet they'll even sell ads on the cloudcasts.

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I was just thinking today I'd probably buy more new music if all I had to do was order it and a disc came and I could throw it in my car.

 

Much of this change is just a way to squeeze more revenue out of listeners. $18 once for a CD people notice, but $10/month they don't.

 

I really really really hate screwing around with computer files, services, monthly payments, internet connections, any of that crap. I'm not going to buy an MP3 player that I have to charge and worry about breaking or losing and gets worn out and outdated within three years. My phone is a POS, and I like it that way. And I don't want some database somewhere keeping track of what I've been listening to.

 

Yes I predict they'll get the teens with their $100/month smartphone plans to sign up for more payments, but eventually when these companies have to make money and they have to jack the price, most people are going to bail. And just wait they're going to sell your playlists to marketers and slip commercials into your streams and all the other bs that inevitably happens.

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I was just thinking today I'd probably buy more new music if all I had to do was order it and a disc came and I could throw it in my car.


Much of this change is just a way to squeeze more revenue out of listeners. $18 once for a CD people notice, but $10/month they don't.


I really really really hate screwing around with computer files, services, monthly payments, internet connections, any of that crap. I'm not going to buy an MP3 player that I have to charge and worry about breaking or losing and gets worn out and outdated within three years. My phone is a POS, and I like it that way. And I don't want some database somewhere keeping track of what I've been listening to.


Yes I predict they'll get the teens with their $100/month smartphone plans to sign up for more payments, but eventually when these companies have to make money and they have to jack the price, most people are going to bail. And just wait they're going to sell your playlists to marketers and slip commercials into your streams and all the other bs that inevitably happens.

 

 

apt.

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