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To me, it just seems like last year's discussion... Ethics may have come into play at first as files became widely shared, but now enough people have already dumped physical cds that the death of the format is assured. (However, lps remain covetable and in fact RTI is all backed up with vinyl orders).

It seems weird to lament the end of cds, as when they were introduced most actual music lovers decried them as pieces of shit. The 'Rich Man's Eight Track' had them thar funny liner notes from SA about how in 10 years everyone would use cds as plates for serving bacon-and-egg sandwiches... It actually took 20 years, but here we are!

Aesthetically, I prefer the big lp format, and after buying reasonably nice equipment many years ago I could hear for myself how much better, say, 'Chairs Missing' sounded on lp. (Granted, that's an all-analog-era recording, so today's digi-jams would not sound better on lp, I understand.)

Anyway, 1TB storage will be standard on desktops very soon, so that's maybe 1200 lossless albums.

When you buy an album second hand, Generally someone at some point has bought it.
So to continue that line of thinking you would hope... at some point someone got paid at least a little for the work that went into it.

When you download its more than likely coming from someone who downloaded it from some else. (repeat over and over)
There is no way to tell if the artist ever got anything, or ever will.

I'm not anti download, but i am pro artists getting paid something somehow.
its just that there doesn't seem to be a effective system in place for that yet.

No one can actually buy/sell music. It is an intangible. When you buy a record or CD, all you are really paying for is the package. This may help provide a context for the songs, extra information, a pretty picture, the warm fuzzies when you have to get up off your ass and flip the record, or some other added benefit. That's it.

Used CDs: well, hopefully someone paid money for it at some point. What happens after that is fair game.

As far as mp3 sound quality, it's definitely a huge step down, but most people don't know or don't care. It's the 00s and the world is all about convenience and freedom so that outweighs the difference by and large. And plus the fact that it's free.

The way people comprehend and relate to music has changed irreversibly. It's a complete cultural shift. Sure there might be a few old sticks in the mud but as a society, the die has been cast.

It's the people inside "the industry" that need to catch up.The record label is a dinosaur. You don't need to have a horse and buggy come deliver a block of ice for your fridge like your grandma did. It's the same difference. At this moment, as a lbel guy, I am still part of a system that expects physical CDs (writers, radio, PR people), so I still need to make them. Do people buy them? hell fucking no. Where is this ging to leave me in the future? Probably out on my ass one of these days...

When you buy an album second hand, Generally someone at some point has bought it.

Or it could be a promo copy that wasn't bought. And it's the same with MP3 downloads--someone probably bought it as a CD or purchased download (unless it was a free promo). The difference with downloads is you can make an infinite number of copies which can be downloaded by people all over the globe.

I'm not anti download, but i am pro artists getting paid something somehow.
its just that there doesn't seem to be a effective system in place for that yet.

There is an effective system for that, isn't there? The problem is that it's hard to get people to pay for music that can so easily get for free.

Skronk wrote:

joelb wrote:

newberry wrote:What do you mean, never cared about? You're responding to a quote where I mentioned people ripping and selling CDs they love.

If you are dumping reference-quality recordings presented to you as the artist intended in favor of low-quality digital representations+money, I'd posit that you never "loved" the recording in the first place. I can't imagine selling a recording that I love unless I was in desperate need of money.

That's not exactly true. Say the person is ripping it to FLAC, it's a cd-quality rip, or in the event that it is a low quality rip, maybe the person just isn't tech savvy enough to notice. I don't think it says much in the way of loving or not loving an album.

As hard drive sizes on computers and personal music players increase, lossy formats should be dying out, but unfortunately they aren't.
The general public will be slow to improve the situation, for the reasons you described above.
There is (admittedly manufacturer sponsored) a push towards towards HiDef TV going on, yet people are still happy listening to low definition music. I suspect for things to improve, it will have to be spearheaded by those who make the devices we use to listen to music.
The Music Industry seemingly doesn't to know its arse from its elbow, no one really seems know what is going to happen.

If an album has been deleted, there is every possibility of finding it on P2P, when there is sometimes little possibility of finding it in a used record store. Any thoughts on the ethics of that?

As hard drive sizes on computers and personal music players increase, lossy formats should be dying out, but unfortunately they aren't.
The general public will be slow to improve the situation, for the reasons you described above.
There is (admittedly manufacturer sponsored) a push towards towards HiDef TV going on, yet people are still happy listening to low definition music. I suspect for things to improve, it will have to be spearheaded by those who make the devices we use to listen to music.
The Music Industry seemingly doesn't to know its arse from its elbow, no one really seems know what is going to happen.

I'm not sure I understand how the fidelity issues relate to the ethics issues. In any case, I'm pretty sure many if not most music consumers don't care that much about the audio quality. Lots of people bought 8 tracks and cassettes, and lots of people buy MP3s with lossy compression. I expect what will happen is in a few years consumers will be encouraged to rebuy their music in a higher quality downloadable format; just like the introduction of CDs caused many to replace their LPs.

If an album has been deleted, there is every possibility of finding it on P2P, when there is sometimes little possibility of finding it in a used record store. Any thoughts on the ethics of that?

I certainly don't find it unethical to download an OOP title (I also don't necessarily find it unethical to download in-print titles, but in some cases I do think it can adversely impact the artist and label, and not all labels are evil...).

You get a physical disc which will outlast whatever you put the files you would have downloaded on. CD-r discs will not last forever. You're "burning" an organic dye layer. Organic things decay over time. Hard drives don't last forever as well.

Audio CDs aren't exactly the Rock of Gibraltar either. One advantage of digital files is you can back them up in different places on different media. (Of course you can do this with audio CDs to, if you rip them.)

It's very fortunate when an artist you like bothers to press a readily-available, high-quality LP of an album they've released; I like to wait for the band to come to my town, then I see their show, then buy stuff right from them after. Cool.

But if it's not readily available, one has to look for it used. So now I have another reason to go to the record store. Good for me.

And if it's not on vinyl, one might have to settle for CD. To each their own.

But if you're settling for some downloaded/burned copy, you're kidding yourself.

newberry wrote:

When you buy an album second hand, Generally someone at some point has bought it.

Or it could be a promo copy that wasn't bought. And it's the same with MP3 downloads--someone probably bought it as a CD or purchased download (unless it was a free promo). The difference with downloads is you can make an infinite number of copies which can be downloaded by people all over the globe.

yes, it "could" be a promo, thats why i said "generally".
generally someone at some point paid for it so the artist hopefully saw something.

I'm not anti download, but i am pro artists getting paid something somehow.
its just that there doesn't seem to be a effective system in place for that yet.

There is an effective system for that, isn't there? The problem is that it's hard to get people to pay for music that can so easily get for free.

well i would hardly call it effective in the terms of artists getting paid then would you?

yes, it "could" be a promo, thats why i said "generally".
generally someone at some point paid for it so the artist hopefully saw something.

right on

well i would hardly call it effective in the terms of artists getting paid then would you?

No, not in terms of artists getting paid. I guess I'm not sure what exactly was meant by this:

i am pro artists getting paid something somehow.
its just that there doesn't seem to be a effective system in place for that yet.

An effective system for what? Selling the MP3s? Paying the artists? Keeping people from downloading MP3s without paying for them?