My stance on digital music.

[izanbardprince]

The only thing you can do to make it improve is refuse to purchase it.

My logic is:

To buy the full album on iTunes or other online stores costs as much as buying the CD.

The difference?

The CD is uncompressed audio; The download has been heavily downsampled from the original to get the file size down to a practical level.

The CD has no DRM unless it's one of those fake CD's that ships with a Windows computer virus, in any event, those don't affect Linux and if I pop a CD into a Windows system I can hold down the SHIFT key to keep the malware from starting up (or disable Autorun), in any event, I can compress it to whatever bitrate I choose in whatever format I want, and play it on any device I choose; With the download, you get Digital Restrictions Malware which imposes artificial restrictions on how you can use your files, and you get them in whatever format and bitrate the store chose.

With the CD you get album art; with the download you might be allowed to burn them on your own CD-R and label them with a Sharpie marker, also the damage done by the compression codec is permanent.

Now I know some people are like "LOLZ!!! Just burn them to a CD then re-rip them!", the problem with that is now you've ran them through two compressions schemes and they sound like pure crap compared to the source, also you just burned a CD that I hope you want now, unless you used some sort of a CD burner emulator.

Finally, every time you give the RIAA money, they just go on more frivolous lawsuits against 12 year old girls, 90 year old grandmas, and people who don't even have a computer.

I usually just buy the CD's used and rip them to OGG Vorbis if I want them on my portable.

Trust me, there are enough people out there that buy things for a fortune, get tired if them, and sell them for pennies, why let the RIAA sell you a brand new copy for 3 times the price?

With all the DRM gotchas and the overpriced inferior content, is it surprising that people pirate?

:guitar:

[PapaWiskas]

With all the DRM gotchas and the overpriced inferior content, is it surprising that people pirate?

:guitar:

In my opinion, I think no matter how good the quality or how cheap they could make it, there would still be pirates. There are some people that just don't believe in purchasing when they can get if for free.

[Sunflower1970]

I have used iTunes a few times in the past for one or two songs, or for an album I really don't care if I have the artwork for or not.

But, I'd rather have the actual CD's and rip them if I want the music on my computer or portable. Most of the people I know feel the same way. One gets more for what they pay for getting a CD than downloading a digital version.

If iTunes or these other online stores allowed one to get some sort of .pdf file, (or other file versions) with the entire artwork for the CD and booklets so I could print them out if I wanted to, then I'd be more willing to use the stores.

As for pirating, it's always been around...it'll never really go away.

[doobit]

In my opinion, I think no matter how good the quality or how cheap they could make it, there would still be pirates. There are some people that just don't believe in purchasing when they can get if for free.

When I was a kid and we had "HIFI Stereos" with cassette recorders built in, we used to record music off the air and play it back later. Sometimes the DJs would even play an entire album with no breaks or commercials. Man, we were big-time pirates back then.
If we wanted a commercial vinyl disk, then we shopped the used record stores until the one we wanted showed up and then we got it at less than half-price. The guys who resold them usually had already "ripped" it to real-to-real tape. People have been pirating music as long as there has been recording equipment - maybe even before then.

[PapaWiskas]

When I was a kid and we had "HIFI Stereos" with cassette recorders built in, we used to record music off the air and play it back later. Sometimes the DJs would even play an entire album with no breaks or commercials. Man, we were big-time pirates back then.

Dude, I am so with you on that. Thanks for taking me back down memory lane man. I could not wait to spend my allowance on those Memorex Chromium tapes, remember those?:guitar:

Later on I bought a awesome boom box with the round grille speakers, that took 14 D batteries, I had to have a seperate skateboard just for it, strapped to the board with a leash and everything....

[izanbardprince]

I've used iTunes a few times when they had that Pepsi promo a few years ago, I was not impressed.

Specifically annoyed that I couldn't play the songs in anything other than iTunes, and CD burning is heavily restricted.

The whole DRM system is too short of a leash.

[happy-and-lost]

Yup. I love having an album in my hands (I have a bit of a thing about albums vs. collections of songs), it also gives me scope to do with it what I will and be safe in the knowledge that whilst someone can steal my laptop full of music, they'd struggle to steal 250 physical albums ;)

[tigerpants]

The CD is uncompressed audio; The download has been heavily downsampled from the original to get the file size down to a practical level.


CD is compressed audio, otherwise they wouldn't be able to fit it all on a disc. Vinyl is uncompressed audio as its analogue. The difference in formats is huge - soundstage is bigger with analogue, for example.

Sorry, being pedantic there.

I've said it in another post, but its worth repeating here: show me one single piece of evidence that supports the claim by the music industry that filesharing is in any way detrimental to music sales. Filesharing and the ability to copy music and give it to other people is vital to music sales.

Someone popping off a compilation CD to give to a friend is not piracy, its promotion. Copying an entire cd, selling it on a market stall and pocketing the profits is piracy.

The music industry needs to wake up and stop behaving like a bunch of idiot pissbabies.

[Adamant1988]

I'm of the opinion that the music industry needs to learn to adapt. They need to make the music available cheap and shareable. Full albums should be available as .torrents and the music should be a promotional tool. Promote the CD, people will buy them. I have "pirated" every single one of Linkin Park's CDs before I bought them, but I always bought them, I just wanted to get a feel for the album. I'm a huge LP fan, and I'm going to drop cash for their next album without a second thought, I'll probably end up subscribing to the LP underground, and buying a T-shirt while I'm at it.

The point I'm aiming as is that the potential for music to be a wonderful promotional tool for goods and services is a great potential way to make money. Let us share the music, and you'll see profits.

[mustang]

The only thing you can do to make it improve is refuse to purchase it.

My logic is:

To buy the full album on iTunes or other online stores costs as much as buying the CD.

The difference?

The CD is uncompressed audio; The download has been heavily downsampled from the original to get the file size down to a practical level.

The CD has no DRM unless it's one of those fake CD's that ships with a Windows computer virus, in any event, those don't affect Linux and if I pop a CD into a Windows system I can hold down the SHIFT key to keep the malware from starting up (or disable Autorun), in any event, I can compress it to whatever bitrate I choose in whatever format I want, and play it on any device I choose; With the download, you get Digital Restrictions Malware which imposes artificial restrictions on how you can use your files, and you get them in whatever format and bitrate the store chose.

With the CD you get album art; with the download you might be allowed to burn them on your own CD-R and label them with a Sharpie marker, also the damage done by the compression codec is permanent.

Now I know some people are like "LOLZ!!! Just burn them to a CD then re-rip them!", the problem with that is now you've ran them through two compressions schemes and they sound like pure crap compared to the source, also you just burned a CD that I hope you want now, unless you used some sort of a CD burner emulator.

Finally, every time you give the RIAA money, they just go on more frivolous lawsuits against 12 year old girls, 90 year old grandmas, and people who don't even have a computer.

I usually just buy the CD's used and rip them to OGG Vorbis if I want them on my portable.

Trust me, there are enough people out there that buy things for a fortune, get tired if them, and sell them for pennies, why let the RIAA sell you a brand new copy for 3 times the price?

With all the DRM gotchas and the overpriced inferior content, is it surprising that people pirate?

:guitar:

Well you're ignoring one segment of users who use music services solely for the ability to buy individual songs rather than whole albums. If I want an album, I'll absolutely buy the CD but rarely any CD is worth the $10 (in my opinion for my taste of music). My policy is as follows: download the mp3 albums from my "sources" (ie pirate them) and buy the songs that I feel are worthy of the money from iTunes (or any other music service).



Finally, every time you give the RIAA money, they just go on more frivolous lawsuits against 12 year old girls, 90 year old grandmas, and people who don't even have a computer.


Well don't you give the RIAA money either way---buying it through an online music service or buying the cd from a retail store?

[izanbardprince]

Well don't you give the RIAA money either way---buying it through an online music service or buying the cd from a retail store?

I said I buy them used, of course the RIAA is trying to get laws passed to where you can't even do that without them getting a cut.

[Erik Trybom]

You're smashing in some open doors here dude... No one thinks DRM is good, but this is the wrong forum for enlightening people on this subject.

Anyone running Linux knows enough to make their own decisions about iTunes.

[Erik Trybom]

Hm.