Piracy is terrible for you and society

[MrDudeMan]

The problem with physical pieces of anything is the time and effort required to manage, change, or update the collection. Some of what you say may be true, but the overhead is much too high compared to maintaining the same collection on a computer. Do you carry around a fanny pack with 500 CDs in it when you go to the gym? That's what an mp3 player offers as a primary benefit that your post doesn't address.

 

[Capt Caveman]

i like my movies like i like my women.. free and

dciscuss

But you're still a virgin.

 

[Rakehellion]

iTunes has been the #1 music retailer for some years now. They don't sell CDs.

 

[Rakehellion]

All compact discs contain is information. To suggest that it is worse to carry thousands of times more information in a package that is a tenth of the size is absurd.

 

[SPBHM]

CD's are easy to loose, to scratch, hard to manage, with Internet being so widespread using CDs makes little sense, if you dislike MP3 (I see no reason for that, high bitrate files are fine), you can use the wav files, flac, ape or whatever... CDs are not that impressive anymore, 700MB (74-80min)? 44.1kHz? stereo? you can easily store higher quality files on any device nowadays.


someone listening to a pirate mp3 or youtube video at least has shown interest for the artist, so it's more likely that this person would pay to see a live performance, or for some of their products, than someone who has never been exposed to that content...

If you want to buy CDs, I see no problem, there is even still a market and use for LPs

I bought my last CD in 2003,

 

[mnewsham]

there is even still a market and use for LPs

Yeah, I go to local record store once or twice a month.

 

[unokitty]

 

[IronWing]

. CD's, you just grab one album and listen to it in your car or something.

I was with you until this point. CDs are ungood for the car. Prior to long trips you have to agonize for days trying to decide which to bring and which to leave behind. With a <insert flavor of your choosing here> player you can take your entire music collection with you. I agree with your points on sound quality but to steal a Steven Wright quote "I drive way too fast to worry about sound quality". Add the risk of warping your CDs in the Summer heat and CDs are best left at home.

 

[Anubis]

What??? The average MP3 player holds about 5,000 songs now. A CD holds about 18 if the songs are short. How is that more convenient when you want to take your music collection in your car??

there is not a mp3 player made today (or ever) that can hold my entire collection


i still buy CDs because im not paying money for lossey compression
everything is ripped as FLAC and stored digitally.
New copies are burned for use in the car
the orig goes into storage

 

[God Mode]

Most people don't have good enough equipment to really distinguish between a decent bitrate mp3 and cd.

 

[IronWing]

Most people don't have good enough equipment to really distinguish between a decent bitrate mp3 and cd.

It really depends on the type of music. For pop/rock/hip hop I agree. For acoustic vocal and instrumental music the difference is almost shocking.

 

[lxskllr]

Most people don't have good enough equipment to really distinguish between a decent bitrate mp3 and cd.

I converted my flacs to 256kbs ogg. There's zero difference using my equipment. The only thing I haven't tested yet is highland pipes. I can really hear the difference between lower bitrate mp3s, and CD.

 

[SheHateMe]

I still have all my Britney Spears and Destiny's child album. I stupidly carved my name into my NSYNC CD as a child because I thought it would keep my sister from taking it....nope, it broke the CD....forever.

 

[desura]

I was with you until this point. CDs are ungood for the car. Prior to long trips you have to agonize for days trying to decide which to bring and which to leave behind. With a <insert flavor of your choosing here> player you can take your entire music collection with you. I agree with your points on sound quality but to steal a Steven Wright quote "I drive way too fast to worry about sound quality". Add the risk of warping your CDs in the Summer heat and CDs are best left at home.

I've just been grabbing a random cd I see on my pile before rushing out the door on the commute to work.

Before, I had used my ipod. Ended up listening to largely the same music because managing the musical chairs on itunes is a pain.

 

[desura]

Most people don't have good enough equipment to really distinguish between a decent bitrate mp3 and cd.

but in practice, I find that a discman sounds better than an ipod. It's not really about lossless vs lossy even though it is a factor. Like, to get lossless on an ipod, you have to deal with the huge cumbersome lossless files, which sync slower and eat up more space so you have to manage your hard disk space more.

To get mp3 on a discman you have to burn mp3s onto a cd, which is more effort.

More fun IMO to just grab a disc and toss it in the player and take the art as it is.

 

[SheHateMe]

Nah, I'm going to leave my "discman" in the Salvation Army box where it belongs. I like portable things.....by portable, I mean stuff that can fit in my pocket. I used to have my disc player clipped to my pocket.


...but that was YEARS ago. Like early 2000. And I never had an iPod until around 2008.

 

[LikeLinus]

I will say this....

I was thinking the other day about how I sort of miss going to get that new album by a band you love and having the experience of seeing the album artwork and listening to music in your car for the first time. It was more of an "event" that it is now. Now you generally download the album even before it's released and it's like "ok I got it". I don't have memories of that first time I downloaded that album! I have memories of that time me and my friend when and got that CD and listen to it in the car the first time and how badass it was. Just doesn't happen with a Computer.

Also, it's a bit different cause now you can download as many albums as you want instantly. It's different from when you were trying to decide which CDs to buy.

All that said, I still love my FLAC / MP3s and wouldn't give them up

 

[desura]

I will say this....

I was thinking the other day about how I sort of miss going to get that new album by a band you love and having the experience of seeing the album artwork and listening to music in your car for the first time. It was more of an "event" that it is now. Now you generally download the album even before it's released and it's like "ok I got it". I don't have memories of that first time I downloaded that album! I have memories of that time me and my friend when and got that CD and listen to it in the car the first time and how badass it was. Just doesn't happen with a Computer.

Also, it's a bit different cause now you can download as many albums as you want instantly. It's different from when you were trying to decide which CDs to buy.

All that said, I still love my FLAC / MP3s and wouldn't give them up

I agree.

I still have AAC's/FLAC's, but lately I've just been listening to my cds again on discman. I find that I enjoy music more that way, hence this thread. I do feel like music was *better* back then. Like, people really treasured cds in a way that they don't now.

 

[mnewsham]

I agree.

I still have AAC's/FLAC's, but lately I've just been listening to my cds again on discman. I find that I enjoy music more that way, hence this thread. I do feel like music was *better* back then. Like, people really treasured cds in a way that they don't now.

You're making the same argument as many do for vinyl, which I would agree with, but cd's are digital, so are mp3's and FLAC, vinyl is real, cd however was always just a stop gap to full digital.

 

[desura]

You're making the same argument as many do for vinyl, which I would agree with, but cd's are digital, so are mp3's and FLAC, vinyl is real, cd however was always just a stop gap to full digital.

well, I grew up with CD's, not Vinyl.

When I have listened to Vinyl, I actually hated it, believe it or not.

CD's are also decently portable unlike Vinyl. You can listen to a cd on headphones while doing dishes, which you can't do with Vinyl. Also, vintage discmans are cool, while I never got into turntables.

 

[lxskllr]

Vinyl sucks too. Extremely delicate, and it degrades over time. The only way to make music less convenient is hiring a band to follow you around everywhere.

 

[mmntech]

The BMG scandal was petty big at the time. Aside from the rootkits, it violated Phillips Red Book audio standard. CDs were never designed to include DRM. Meaning that these discs wouldn't even work in a lot of players. IIRC, it also came out some time after that Sony had pirated some of the code for the rootkits.

In a way, the entertainment industry has unintentionally encouraged piracy due to their high resistance to change. The writing was on the wall when Winamp and the Diamond Rio were launched in 1997 and 1998 respectively. Napster launched in 1999. Apple released the first iPod in 2001, which rapidly changed how we listen to our music.

And RIAA? They fought the change tooth and nail. They failed to capitalize on it and release their own service. P2P sites had free reign for four years until iTunes Store launched in 2003. Even then, all the music was locked down with DRM. It wasn't until 2008 that a legal service launched that offered a product on par with what the P2P sites had. That's a whopping ten years after the Diamond Rio! You have to innovate or die, and RIAA lost a lot of money because they decided to focus their efforts on a terror/lawsuit campaign.

We're seeing the same problems now with video, e-books, television, and gaming. The pirates are offering a better product (DRM free, better selection, higher quality encoding, instant availability) compared to the legal alternatives. The television and cable industries are actively fighting streaming. E-book publishers recently got busted for price fixing. Big gaming publishers are pushing for draconian copy protection. The industry as a whole wants to censor their customers. For such a technologically dependent industry, a lot of innovation/progress is being held back by resistance to embrace it. It's not about how we can make a great product but how we can stomp out those who challenge the status quo.

 

[WilliamM2]

Curious how lossless, MP3 users get the files in the first place if you don't buy CD's? Most of my collection isn't available for download at all, and what is available is low bitrate pirate MP3's. No thanks.

 

[TechAZ]

I will say this....

I was thinking the other day about how I sort of miss going to get that new album by a band you love and having the experience of seeing the album artwork and listening to music in your car for the first time. It was more of an "event" that it is now. Now you generally download the album even before it's released and it's like "ok I got it". I don't have memories of that first time I downloaded that album! I have memories of that time me and my friend when and got that CD and listen to it in the car the first time and how badass it was. Just doesn't happen with a Computer.

Also, it's a bit different cause now you can download as many albums as you want instantly. It's different from when you were trying to decide which CDs to buy.

All that said, I still love my FLAC / MP3s and wouldn't give them up

I agree. It's all about memories and experiences for me. The music industry as a whole just does not imprint those long living experiences. It could just be that I'm getting older, but having everything instant just isn't as enjoyable experiences. Instantly getting concert tickets, instantly getting songs, instantly watching music videos. No big stadium-touring bands anymore, no waiting in lines for hours with a friend, no excitement.

I don't blame ITunes, it's a combination of many things. Crappy bands, MTV not playing music, Ticketmaster, YouTube, etc. Technology is removing memorable experiences from us. I sound like the unibomber now...

 

[Anubis]

Curious how lossless, MP3 users get the files in the first place if you don't buy CD's? Most of my collection isn't available for download at all, and what is available is low bitrate pirate MP3's. No thanks.

if they are downloading they will be members of invite only torrent sites that specialize in high quality music downloads. and there are a few of them out there