Comments on: The death of the musical CD http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/01/13/the-death-of-the-musical-cd/ Human Animals at the Crossroads of Culture, Science, Religion and Media Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:27:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 By: Dan Klarmann http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/01/13/the-death-of-the-musical-cd/#comment-15718 Dan Klarmann Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:25:02 +0000 http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=2036#comment-15718 The Edison cylinder gave way to the Victrola 78, fissioned into the 45 and the LP, wire recorders begat consumer reel-to-reel, then 8-track, then cassettes, then the stillborn floppy disk (originally designed for high quality random access music), then CD, then DAT (never reached a good consumer price point and only linear access), and now MP3 or similar (iTunes) that are medium independent. The cost of a CD is about the same as downloading all the tracks from iTunes. Music sharing was a big industry nightmare when cassettes proliferated in the 1970's. They adjusted to it. Artists are progressively considering bypassing the studios to publish and sell their music directly. iTune rippers are easily available so you can back up your tunes as pure mp3's. And illicitly share them like cassettes of old. It should settle down to again be as illegal as jaywalking. Military maxim: Penetrator technology always outstrips shield development. Historically proven over millenia in many fields. Hacks will always bypass protections in less time and for less cost than it took to implement the protection. Tale of King Solomon (but it was probably an old idea in his time): <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_too_shall_pass" rel="nofollow">This too shall pass</a>. The Edison cylinder gave way to the Victrola 78, fissioned into the 45 and the LP, wire recorders begat consumer reel-to-reel, then 8-track, then cassettes, then the stillborn floppy disk (originally designed for high quality random access music), then CD, then DAT (never reached a good consumer price point and only linear access), and now MP3 or similar (iTunes) that are medium independent.

The cost of a CD is about the same as downloading all the tracks from iTunes. Music sharing was a big industry nightmare when cassettes proliferated in the 1970’s. They adjusted to it. Artists are progressively considering bypassing the studios to publish and sell their music directly. iTune rippers are easily available so you can back up your tunes as pure mp3’s. And illicitly share them like cassettes of old. It should settle down to again be as illegal as jaywalking.

Military maxim: Penetrator technology always outstrips shield development. Historically proven over millenia in many fields. Hacks will always bypass protections in less time and for less cost than it took to implement the protection.

Tale of King Solomon (but it was probably an old idea in his time): This too shall pass.

]]> By: Erich Vieth http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/01/13/the-death-of-the-musical-cd/#comment-15697 Erich Vieth Sun, 13 Jan 2008 17:29:57 +0000 http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=2036#comment-15697 And here's an interesting footnote: Buried in a "music-industry-screwed" roundup in the Economist is this nugget: An allegation that music label EMI was spending $400,000 a year on party favors (booze, drugs, women, whatever) for its talent: http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/01/emis-400000-coke-and-hookers-budget.html And here’s an interesting footnote:

Buried in a “music-industry-screwed” roundup in the Economist is this nugget: An allegation that music label EMI was spending $400,000 a year on party favors (booze, drugs, women, whatever) for its talent:

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/01/emis-400000-coke-and-hookers-budget.html

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