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There Is No CD Revival

dadadrummer.substack.com

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Re: There Is No CD Revival

#11

Post by z3c0 »

This take seems very slanted towards new CD sales.

I listen to a lot of underground music (namely black metal, hip-hop, and the like), and not only are CD's selling out regularly, so are cassettes. Once they've sold out, they hit Discogs and Ebay at severe markups that people are happy to pay. Several CD's that I've bought in the past few years have compounded many times over in value, as the supply can be very limited but the demand isn't diminishing. The spread on my collection per Discogs ranges from $800-$2500. That lower bound has been continuous, but I saw the upper bound increase by $1000 in just the past two years.

It's also not uncommon for me to go hunting for CD's that originally sold in the 80/90/00's, so as to get around "re-masters" that undo the lo-fi sound underground music fans enjoy so much. I doubt my copy of The Cramps' first compilation* is going to reflect in last year's CD sales.

I'm aware that this is a niche interest, but it's a growing niche. There are a few subreddits that I've followed in the past (/r/CDCollectors and /r/CDKvlt), and in my time there, I saw those groups grow considerably.

There IS a CD Revival, if you look in the right place.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#12

Post by Guthur »

And yet the author uses figures to also generate a false dichotomy. Just because a gap in income might be wider does not mean everyone is worse off, it is not a zero sum game.

There is now far more music variety available than ever before, and I'm sure it's more and more difficult to stand out.

What has probably been lost is some word of mouth for music, the algorithms have taken much of that over for better or worse.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#13

Post by charcircuit »

dusted wrote: post #2

Many times, buying the CD and ripping it to FLAC* is the only way to legally acquire* music for use with your computer. * It must be lossless and high quality. * It must work offline.

Making a COPY from the CD to your computer is not legal us unless you have a license that allows you to do so.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#14

Post by z3c0 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6
dusted wrote: post #2

Many times, buying the CD and ripping it to FLAC* is the only way to legally acquire* music for use with your computer. * It must be lossless and high quality. * It must work offline.

Apple Music and iTunes are lossless, high quality (often higher than a CD as they have multi-channel masters) and work offline, for example.

Do you retain ownership of the files upon cancelling your membership? If not, I wouldn't consider that "acquiring" so much as "borrowing".

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#15

Post by brazzy »

charcircuit wrote: post #13
dusted wrote: post #2

Many times, buying the CD and ripping it to FLAC* is the only way to legally acquire* music for use with your computer. * It must be lossless and high quality. * It must work offline.

Making a COPY from the CD to your computer is not legal us unless you have a license that allows you to do so.

That depends very much on where you live. It is legal in Canada and most of Europe.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#16

Post by rob74 »

charcircuit wrote: post #13
dusted wrote: post #2

Many times, buying the CD and ripping it to FLAC* is the only way to legally acquire* music for use with your computer. * It must be lossless and high quality. * It must work offline.

Making a COPY from the CD to your computer is not legal us unless you have a license that allows you to do so.

IANAL, but ripping a CD that you own and then using that digital music yourself is legal - providing the songs to someone else (who hasn't paid for the album) isn't.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#17

Post by zekica »

z3c0 wrote: post #14
chrisseaton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Music and iTunes are lossless, high quality (often higher than a CD as they have multi-channel masters) and work offline, for example.

Do you retain ownership of the files upon cancelling your membership? If not, I wouldn't consider that "acquiring" so much as "borrowing".

You do. They have some kind of a watermark or metadata specific to your copy but don't have DRM.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#18

Post by bloak »

charcircuit wrote: post #13
dusted wrote: post #2

Many times, buying the CD and ripping it to FLAC* is the only way to legally acquire* music for use with your computer. * It must be lossless and high quality. * It must work offline.

Making a COPY from the CD to your computer is not legal us unless you have a license that allows you to do so.

You say that, but other people say the opposite. I have no idea who's right. If you happen to have a link to a detailed legal analysis, with references, feel free to post it. I don't promise to read it myself but probably someone reading this is sufficiently interested in copyright law to read further.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#19

Post by z3c0 »

zekica wrote: post #17
z3c0 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you retain ownership of the files upon cancelling your membership? If not, I wouldn't consider that "acquiring" so much as "borrowing".

You do. They have some kind of a watermark or metadata specific to your copy but don't have DRM.

Nice! It's about time. Too bad they spent almost two decades doing the opposite, or I'd still have my account.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#20

Post by uuyi »

I moved house with 3000 CDs once. I bought an iPod the month after and sold them all. Eventually this turned into Apple Music. I hope there isn’t a CD revival because the cost, logistics, transport and storage for the things was abhorrent.

There are literally only 5 tracks from my entire collection that weren’t on Apple Music in the end and more than one member of my family can listen to the same CD at the same time. That’s a pretty big admin and versatility win.

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