General Forum

Re: Second Hand Market for MP3s

vikinger — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:29:48 GMT

tournedos:

vikinguk:

I seem to recall a debate about blank audio tape cassettes needing to carry a special tax or fee (to be spread amongst music publishers) because they allowed the free copying of original material. After 30 years the tax didn't materialise and everyone moved on to other techniques and media.

We have had that bullsh1t in Finland since the 80s - on every blank media, be it cassette tapes, VHS tapes, CD or DVD blanks, or even a hard disk in a recording STB(!) - there is an added tax depending on the capacity and type of the medium. You can apply to have it returned if you can prove that you use the media only for content you produced yourself (typically only professional establishments need to bother).

This has created silliness like completely domestic webshops that ship the goods from Estonia, because you can import a small amount for "personal use". The copyright mafia has actually lobbied hard to get this extended to all hard disks, and I believe sooner or later the elected idiots will comply!

And no, I don't think I will ever stop listening to my CDs and FM radio.

So maybe we'll all get it or it will be dropped (once the EU decides on more harmony!)

Graham

Re: Second Hand Market for MP3s

tournedos — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:11:43 GMT

vikinguk:

I seem to recall a debate about blank audio tape cassettes needing to carry a special tax or fee (to be spread amongst music publishers) because they allowed the free copying of original material. After 30 years the tax didn't materialise and everyone moved on to other techniques and media.

We have had that bullsh1t in Finland since the 80s - on every blank media, be it cassette tapes, VHS tapes, CD or DVD blanks, or even a hard disk in a recording STB(!) - there is an added tax depending on the capacity and type of the medium. You can apply to have it returned if you can prove that you use the media only for content you produced yourself (typically only professional establishments need to bother).

This has created silliness like completely domestic webshops that ship the goods from Estonia, because you can import a small amount for "personal use". The copyright mafia has actually lobbied hard to get this extended to all hard disks, and I believe sooner or later the elected idiots will comply!

And no, I don't think I will ever stop listening to my CDs and FM radio.

Re: Second Hand Market for MP3s

cooldude — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:53:39 GMT

This thread indeed reason up some questions about digital music that many of us have been struggling with.

The price of itunes downloads are almost the price of buying a cd, and they are not exactly better quality as such. They are typical of our consumerism and are, I guess, supposed to be throw-away items (don't like it, just delete it..) ...
What if I loose my downloads ? Do I need to download (and pay) for them all over again? Doesn't seem right to me.

I have decided to close my itunes account last year and frankly I feel good about it. It reduced the amount of cr*p in my playlists considerably.

Also making the comparison to software downloads is just does not make any sense. Music is timeless but is software ? It is, only if continuously updated (at extra cost off course ...) And yes, there is a market for secondhand software. Also I do never buy the downloadable version of the software I want. I still want a physical disk.

For example I have to use some old software to avoid compatibility problems with the newer versions (autocad). The old version I sometimes use is not available or supported by the manufacturer.... Would have lost this functionality if we didn't have the disks to install in our newer computers.

I do still buy cd's as I want something physical in my hands to represent the money I have spent. Selling it on later is a way to recoup some of the money that I can reinvest in ....more cd's

Re: Second Hand Market for MP3s

vikinger — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:00:17 GMT

I seem to recall a debate about blank audio tape cassettes needing to carry a special tax or fee (to be spread amongst music publishers) because they allowed the free copying of original material. After 30 years the tax didn't materialise and everyone moved on to other techniques and media.

I for one do not pay for music downloads: I buy CDs and listen to both FM and N radio.

Having said that, everyone else in my family listens to downloads via iPods connected to cheap speaker systems with iPod docks and seem happy with the results. (But they are mostly listening to music that's loud and distorted at the time of production so another way to look at it is that their listening equipment matches the quality of the original material, much of which would be a waste on a Beosystem).

I can't see the CD disappearing for a long long time, at least not until there's another physical way of buying and storing. And going back to the original question, surely you buy an MP3 download for your personal use: you buy a CD capable of being passed to anyone. When your MP3 player fails, ther's a good chance you lose everything unless it's backed-up on another system or PC. Another reason I like CDs.

Graham

Re: Second Hand Market for MP3s

wirralsimon — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:59:21 GMT

Puncher

It's a very difficult question to answer as illegal MP3 use is almost by definition untrackable, but I have read that 80% + of music downloads are illegal ones.

I suspect age is an issue here too! Almost all of my MP3 music is either ripped from CD's or bought from Amazon when the MP3 download has been the cheaper option, but I suspect that there are many young people who grew up in the internat age for whom music purchase is barely considered as an option.

Simon

Re: Second Hand Market for MP3s

Puncher — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:49:23 GMT

Another thought occured to me (I have to write it down, it doesn't happen very often) -

Is a hard drive full of music the same as a CD or Vinyl collection (no matter how modest)? - I'm sure to a lot of folk it isn't. How many stamp collectors have given up the stamps in favour of looking at pictures of them on their PC instead?

Does anyone know the relative percentage of legal versus illegal mp3-like music currrenty in use? It would also be interesting to know what percentage of legally owned mp3 music was purchased as such rather than ripped from CD.

Re: Second Hand Market for MP3s

wirralsimon — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:26:06 GMT

I think it is closer in concepot to software i.e. you get a soingle non-transferable licence to download and listen to the MP3 files. Nobody would think of reselling softwware they had paid to download and I don't hink a market in reselling digital music files is realistic, not least because it is so open to abuse.

Because of the lack of resale value or physical product it is also reasonable to expect that MP3's should be cheaper than CD's but this is where it falls down at the moment because in many cases the CD can be bought for less and the MP3 market will remain relatively small compred to the CD market for some time to come.

Simon

Re: Second Hand Market for MP3s

Puncher — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:34:22 GMT

tournedos:

So to create "real" re-sellable digital music, it should come in a jewel case on a memory card. Such nice, round, golden 650-800MB memory cards have been sold with great success for more than 25 years now...

Works for me - I know my rips are "1st generation" and I get a little booklet I can read if I want. They are generally priced roughly the same and they do have (a small) residual value (and nothing short of a direct hit, earthquake or housefire is going to destroy them all in one go)

Re: Second Hand Market for MP3s

tournedos — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:18:40 GMT

IMHO the biggest problem with second-hand digital music is immateriality - how do you know you are getting something "genuine", and that the seller doesn't keep it as well and sell it again and again?

In short, why pay a crook for something you could just as well steal yourself?

I guess DRM is supposed to address this (or more like force everybody to buy everything over and over again), but creates more problems than it solves.

So to create "real" re-sellable digital music, it should come in a jewel case on a memory card. Such nice, round, golden 650-800MB memory cards have been sold with great success for more than 25 years now...

Re: Second Hand Market for MP3s

moxxey — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:33:00 GMT

Tracks you download from the iTunes store are tagged with your account info - ie. email address. I don't think you can sell them on, legally.

Second Hand Market for MP3s

TripEnglish — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:22:19 GMT

Hope Leo doesn't mind, but I was so intrigued by his reply on another thread that I felt it should be discussed alone. The transition from hardware to software definitely makes this particular transition unique when compared to the LP to tape to CD and all other intermediary formats.

leogenghis:

One thing I've never heard of anyone doing is re-selling digitally-purchased audio or video files. I've bought quite a lot of used CD's very cheaply ($5 or less) off eBay, and even sold a few, but online stores like iTunes and Amazon generally sell individual songs for a dollar each, making an album cost almost as much as an actual new CD. I also dislike the fact that quality is usually compromised (Amazon's mp3's are ~220 kbps). My Playstation 3 has ~$40 worth of downloaded movies and cartoons (and I bet others have tons more). What do you do when you want to get rid of them? I don't know about other people but I don't like the idea of DRM or whatever effectively making the dollar value of my purchases' zero.

I've downloaded from Amazon a few times for the convenience (it's great to to be able to hear a song you crave immediately), but I highly doubt CD's becoming obsolete. Books and magazines have not gone the way of the dodo despite the internet and the Kindle, and neither will the CD and its future iterations.

Leo

(by the way, I'm under 30 years old)

So while I agree that it's an issue, this alone will not keep CDs going. A thriving second hand market for digital music has existed since Napster but the challenge is to organize and monetize it. Different artists have experimented with democratic pricing (radiohead springs to mind), and others have endorsed file sharing (mostly young artists) marking a shift in revenue generation within the industry.

There's plenty of literature out there on the coming of the "free" economy and there are more valid opinions than can be discussed by one person, but it seems inevitable that the only working model will be to lump the entire wealth of collected knowledge & content together, charge a use fee, and distribute it based on traffic. This is how cable & satellite television work and it's the only way news & entertainment can make an honest living.

No matter what happens a major stumbling block is that people have a difficult thing valuing a song the way they value a sweatshirt, even though Eleanor Rigby may have a great deal more objective worth than a Polo hoody!

Discuss!