"CD-format to be abandoned by major labels by the end of 2012..."

These examples are not really statistically significant, are they? Like the other one about smartphones being on the vane.....
What the music industry sees is that Facebook has 800 million users, so it seems that young people have computers and smartphones! Most comments concentrate on the fact that CDs are 70% of the sales, however these sales are not very profitable so it would not be too surprising if the push towards download and streaming services accelerated. Many people, even here in this forum of old f*rts, have been enticed to download things on iTunes because they have exclusive tracks.

What about singles? If CDs are 70% of the sales why are singles published only as downloads? They have given up on 70% of potential sales because they were not profitable. I don't see much worry for people without computers when it comes to singles! What would make the same move for albums so shocking?

Apple has just announced that ALAC is open source now; they would not have done it now if it wasn't necessary.
I don't think it's out of question that for minor acts we will only see lossy and lossless downloads and streaming options already next year.

 

So these people can't afford a pc but they spend a lot of money on music and the industry should make business decisions around them?
It's obvious that if they don't have 200 dollars of disposable income to spend on a item that needs replacement once in 5 years, then the music industry will not lose any money with them if the CDs disappear because they are not buying CDs either.

 

CD's (and Blu-rays / DVD) will always be the preferred medium for me. Perhaps not for convenience sake, but for archival sake absolutely. How long is a hard drive going to last? How many times should one transfer one's collection to another drive? Data rot anyone?

 

Will the RIAA be deactivating all CDs by the end of 2012? All of a sudden they wouldn't work anymore... THAT would be hilarious!!

 

The end of 2012 is only a year away. Since I've never seen a major label album getting a download only release I think the end of the CD is still a bit longer away than this article claims.

 

Second Law Of Thermodynamics

If one doesn't have a computer, one is either out of touch or broke. If one doesn't download music, they have no clue about what's out there, because Clear Channel will not add new music to radio playlists. The demographic that buys physical media for music is dying, shrinking and becoming irrelevant. There will always be a market for Edison Cylinders as well, and it will shrink until there are no more Edison Cylinders. Things are more different now than they ever were.

Music is soooooo last millennium.

 

Presumably, everybody here has a computer...or they wouldn't be posting.

What you seem to be in denial about is that this message board was intended as a discussion forum for audiophiles. Is it such a surprise that this subgroup of humanity might take issue with the concept of listening to compressed mp3files on an iPod or laptop? Sound quality matters to this segment more than trying to appear hip with the latest gadgets.

 

I'm 52 and ..you know what?
I don't care a sh....about cd.
Vinyl and download are the way to go.
If I Tunes goes ALAC for download it's good,but i think AAC 256 is very,very close to cd sounding wise.
And...ther's a whole planet of music on the web ...you know what i mean.

 

Fully agree.

 

I'm 31 and I don't care a sh... about i Tunes

And I do care about CDs

 

+1

 

I would be very surprised if Sony is on-board.....

 

Exactly. The on-line world is where I do almost all of my buying. Just ask my wife....

 

i cant believe how slooow the major labels are to put their product online direct..
they must understand by now that on the internet they dont need distribution to 'online retailers' for digital download/CDs/DVDs/Bluray..

at a BestBuy a couple days ago.. zero CD's and one ribbon of shelf space for Box Sets.
By the end of 2012.. sure, why not. The major labels could go online tomorrow if they wanted to. Then again, it's a good bet that they'll sit on their hands and do nothing. dunno

 

I am willing to bet that no American member of this forum would be able to buy a physical copy of even only 10 of the first 100 singles in the US chart.

http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100#/charts/hot-100?begin=1&order=position

It is clear that physical media is already irrelevant for singles and it will not be a big leap to make it irrelevant for albums too. Not to mention the fact that the relevance of the album itself is becoming questionable.

 

Unfortunately I think most young people think about CDs the same way they have been thinking about large stereo systems. They are old fashion things that old people buy........

I really don't have a iron in this fire as I own the majority of everything I want in physical format. ( ripped to Flac, and on a server BTW) Let the next generation buy nothingness if they actually are even paying for it at all.

I think the industry was misled . The young, and the media scolded them for not jumping on down-loadable files, and now that they have, people continue to steal them. They never stood a chance. Sales will never reach 90's CD levels. It seems that the files younger people value so much, have no monetary value to them?

 

It's funny how many I see and know who are audiophiles and videophiles when it comes to films but not when it comes to music.

 

It would be even more hilarious to deactivate the RIAA.

 

Why worry? Boomer music will still be released on CD (the majority of the target audience don't know what iTunes are), it's just that new-fangled youngster music that will be digital-only. With the hippin and the hoppin and the bippin and the boppin. As long as my lawn is kept free of delinquents with trousers hanging below their shorts I don't mind what happens.

 

What about radio stations? Don't the labels still churn out promo CDs to push their artists and the stations then play 'em. How many stations actually stream MPs?

I can see a phase out over 10 years but not a "one minute we're pressing CDs, the next minute we're not" scenario.

 

Things are always evolving in ways we don't expect. I can see in the not to distant future that major retailers will all have 'music purchase machines' for want of a better expression, in which all music will be available from online for instant download and burning to a CD, not unlike a jukebox of sorts, in which the customer swipes their credit card, makes their selection and walks away with a CD. This is the sort of system that will work for all those who want to continue with physical product and who remain intimidated with computer based music purchase/playback in general. And all of us who are comfortable with downloading music now will always have the option of burning our download to a CD anyway so physical product is available if you want it. You'll just have to DIY!

When it's all said and done, the only thing that changes is the delivery system, not the product itself. Not as revolutionary as some believe, just progress and if everything becomes available as hi-res, very good progress.

 

"CD-format to be abandoned by major labels by the end of 2012..."


What's the big deal?

Thanks to the Mayans, we all know that EVERYTHING is ending by the end of 2012...

 

Almost all valid points in this discussion have already been said, so let me reply with quotes.

Indeed, the article is all hype and not much substance, but since it's talking about marketing, this is no surprise.

"Smooth move" indeed. Ha, ha, but remember when the industry shot themselves in the foot with the Sony Rootkit debacle back in 2005? Who's to say they might not try doing that again, especially when EMI and Warners are now just bait for banks to sell expensive loans to investors? In this condition it would not be the purpose of the labels to actually generate enough money for the investors to recoup but it would be their purpose to not allow the investors to recoup so the label could fall back into the lap of the bank again and again.

Last year, there even was a tiny growth in CD sales again.

This is the reason why I'm not buying downloads and feel the paid-for streaming offers are a cheat.

There is this tendency somehow that the tech companies are trying to become the "new middle men" for the new music business. The music world is still in the process of getting rid of the "old middle men". Customers and creators can well do without that for the time being, selling CDs through official websites.

Since me and my girlfriend are together, I buy less music. And no, I don't download anything illegally. The two of us have different tastes in music. So I don't have as much time for music anymore and therefore buy less music than I used to, but I love spending my time with her and music has a lower priority here. We love each other.

Well, I don't know him but it is general consensus on this thread that abandoning the selling of CDs makes no business sense.

No, you cannot. Neither can you buy from an overseas iTunes store. I dislike it when people tell me I were supposed to only buy from the regional market which I sit in. I mean, it's one of the big benefits of the internet to be able to purchase stuff from all over the world and have it sent to your doorstep. In this regard, I'm also watching what's currently happening with the US Postal Service and it leaves a bad aftertaste. I live in Europe but does the demise of USPS mean deliveries will take longer in the future?

You have got a point there.

I know the labels must be bothered big time by the CDs enormous lifespan. The sales figures and symbolic prices of used CDs reportedly are worrying them. Marketers believe they can sell more stuff if people do not archive what they have bought. You are absolutely right that the buyer better beware. Therefore, I'm also sceptical of streaming services because when labels are worrying about the cost of the long shelf-life of CD, in case there came a time without physical sound carrying media, won't they one day believe music which does not recoup in the first month will never do and remove it from the download server without announcement, despite it essentially being good music?

Archiving solutions are a market of the future, though, because all those people who have a computer at home might not have the time for regularly creating safety copies of their stuff. Yet, these archival services should be done locally and physically. If they are done online and in the cloud, it will be just spying on customers like Facebook does again.

Addendum:

DIY? Is it still an industry if it is all Do It Yourself?