Live data from Hacker News

There Is No CD Revival

dadadrummer.substack.com

21–30 of 201 posts

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#21

If I'm buying physical media in 2022 that I actually need to find from a shelf and put into a player it either needs to be of higher quality than the digital option or have something else going for it. Thus, it's LP's for music in my case. The cover art alone is worth it. For movies and TV, I have the cream of the crop on physical Bluray or DVD, the ones that I want to see even if there is a license pissing contest b…

Ok, I guess the "something else going for it" differs from person to person. I grew up with LPs too, but I don't have a lot of nostalgia for them. All the ceremony of carefully taking a record out of its sleeve, checking for dust, putting it on the record player etc. is too much hassle for me. A CD I can just pop in the good old stereo I have sitting on my desk and listen to it, or rip it and copy the files to my phone. With LPs, you're stuck with the format. I guess the music industry is happy with that, but for the consumer it's not the best deal. Ok, you get a digital download code with some LPs, but I'm not sure how common that is...

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#22
post #19
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

iTunes music has been DRM free since 2009 (with some exceptions, probably).

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#23
post #20

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.…

My strategy against this is listening to music on Spotify first, but if I really like an album or an artist and keep returning to them, I'll buy the CD.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#24
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

iTunes music has been DRM free since 2009 (with some exceptions, probably).

Was that retroactively applied? Because my music from pre-2009 remained DRM'd, but maybe I just needed to re-download them. On top of that, it was all AAC, and I regularly had to convert the files to be usable anywhere but Apple's products. It became such a chore, that I gave up on the Apple music ecosystem entirely, and I don't really have any regrets about it.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#25
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It depends on the jurisdiction.

I don't know what the status is in the US, but copies for personal use are legal in the Netherlands. In fact, you actually pay a "private copying levy" for most devices capable of storing media (blank CDs, hard drives, phones, etc.)

Looks like there's something similar in a number of other European countries, but I don't know the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#26
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

I am also not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that providing files you ripped to someone else ISN'T legal, even if they"ve paid for the album:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMG_Recordings,_Inc._v._MP3.....

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#27

  The revival we need, urgently, is of recorded music income 
Why? That ship has sailed. In 2022, as in 1922, 1822, 1722 etc musicians will have to earn their income by playing live.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#28
post #17
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.

Look at that subtle off-white metadata. Oh my god, it even has a watermark.

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#29
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That used to be true, but these days there are many sites selling legal FLAC downloads, like HDtracks, Qobuz, Bandcamp, and Bleep.

Only having experience with HDtracks, they don't really have much. Sure they have the most popular stuff for the most part but I often find that albums are missing for an artist or entire artists are missing. Not sure if it is a geographic restriction or if its like that everywhere.

> Sure they have the most popular stuff

That sounds like you need to try bandcamp, because they are missing the most popular stuff ;)

Re: There Is No CD Revival

#30
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.

The problem is the available library, and also, the need to convert to FLAC and re-tag for proper archival is no improvement over CDs.
Post reply on HN