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In Reply to: I agree with you half-way posted by Pacman on November 10, 2006 at 09:07:33:
If I were making a fresh start of it -- no sunk investment or behavioral patterns to break -- I'm sure I'd be downloading singles. That Mahler 8 is one helluva single, though! But, I (and all of the other Seniors) aren't "starting new". That said, I'll extend Bruce from DC's concept about folks not being well served by the demise of SACD to be that of the demise of ALL "physical media" where folks have sunk cost. To put it another way, apart from Sweet16 Pop (which is not my cuppa), if/when the first MAJOR Classical release is issued -- exclusively -- as a "digital download ONLY" -- no CD for me! -- I won't be amused. I -- EYE -- am "their audience". If they reject ME, they're making an odd decision. What would be the approach?...Y'all gotta CHANGE? Or, "we don't need to appeal to the old audience, we've got all of these NEW ONES we can sell to (Yeah...right). I'm just not seeing it. CDs (maybe some SACDs or DVDs) MUST CONTINUE TO CO-EXIST for classical music (due to the existing base of fans/listeners/collectors) for the forseeable future.One can "buy in" to "digital file only" and be OK going forward, I think. But, as an exclusive marketing/availability strategy for the "sources" it is impossible -- my opinion only, but I think it will prove to be right. I've read it elsewhere, BTW -- CDs (as a kind of "default format") are recovering their viability...and that comment has nothing to do with "sound quality".
Follow Ups:
I do not have any downloaded songs. My collection is all vinyl, CDs and SACDs. Sordidman is the audiophile of the future. But a self-described "Senior" is talking to a self described "Old-Fart". If I was a record company executive I would not be pleased about the age of my demographic.
I'm not crazy over the prospect of having to download music.1. I'm not very computer literate.
2. I would have to change a lot of hardware, which would cost money.
3. I believe that digital storage via hard drives and computers have a long way to go. They just are not reliable enough at this point in time.
They're reliable enough to keep all of your financial, tax, personal and medical data. Every business, you deal with, including the one you work for, every doctor and every governmental agency has the majority of its data sorted on a computer. These data are far more important than music collections,even for us. All of it is backed up daily and is put on mirrored drives. We have known that hard drives fail for a long time and every business has dealt with that fact since the first IBM mainframes. It is a solved problem and has been for a long time.Whether you feel you have enough expertise to trust your own software collection to a hard drive is a different story, but with cheap external hard drives, backing up these days is pretty easy and you can purchase an off the shelf computer with mirrored drives.
My medical data is on paper, I know, I see it everytime I visit the Doctor. I have a file.I get a financial statement on paper from my bank every month.
I admit, I don't have much expertise when it comes to computers.
HowdyI admit I haven't tried ITunes or any other online music in the last year, but:
I have nothing against artists (and the rest of the chain for that matter) getting compensated and not ripped off, but DRM as implemented has lots of problems and completely undermines backing up the music you own.
How many times have your been screwed out of access to music you own because some idiot key wasn't backed up, etc. I avoid it by technically breaking the law and using something like Total Recorder to make a clean but unprotected copy of each thing I buy so I won't have to worry about the next media player being able to deal with, say RealJukebox 1.0's DRM.
When they stop being paranoid and making the lives of their honest customers hell I'll consider buying more material for digital download: right now I'm quite happy with the selection of music I can get on SACD/CD, etc.
Note that I purchase most of my software as downloads instead of CDs or boxes and have had great luck even when I've had to get it back from backups after a computer crash. I would have lost the DRM versions of music I had if I hadn't also backed up my unDRMed versions of it.
It amazes me that most software companies can make a very profitable living selling across the net but the record companies are clueless.Apple makes record profits with i-tunes and Sony's answer is to put rootkit trojans on their customer's computers. Like you, I buy my software over the net and when I purchased a new computer, I transferred it over with no problems. The bottom line is that this is a solved problem. You can make money selling music over the web. The record companies just haven't figured it out yet.
Once a company becomes a large cap institution, changing course is like turning a super-tanker on a dime. It's very difficult to do and many fail. Just look at GM and Ford, failing while Toyota sells more expensive cars AND grabs increasing market share. Kodak owned the film business. But they didn't see the digital revolution coming and will never be a major player again.
The record companies have a lot of assets and sooner or later they might actually figure it out. But meanwhile, business abhors a vacuum and more nimble companies will step in to grab their market share. Apple already has. Micro$oft definitely sees an opening here. They need more products to grow significantly and they can match any record companies dollar for dollar. Look what Walmart did to the supermarket industry. Micro$oft could do the same.
BTW where audio goes DVD-V's follow. The film studios need to think about the transition as well, which they are not.
I wasn't amazed that you were right, I am amazed that that the record companies are so clueless. But you already knew that (grin).
You won't download music. Neither will I. The CD is not going away anytime soon and there will be enough vinyl to keep us happy for a while. But we are the last generation that will collect silver or black plastic discs. Silver disc swill always be a niche prodcut but the vast majority of today's kids will buy music the way they always have - on the internet song-by-song. Big record companies don't make money selling niche products and retail record stores are already an anachronism.The times, they are a changing. Watch for companies like Apple and Micro$oft to begin producing their own songs and signing on big-name groups while the big record companies flail.
Sorry to burst your bubble Sordidman, but it's just going to be a different batch of big companies. Apple understands the new business model. Sony does not. Apple will continue to succeed, Sony will continue to lose market share.
The Interent notwithstanding. The socialist paradise will fail as it has always failed. It's a chimera.
I agree with you.....Big business is closing down the once open internet quicker than you can say universal access...
Thoughts from above hit the people down below. There are people in this world who have no place to go
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