Making the change-over from Physical Media.

jhallum

jhallum

Computer guy
Nov 24, 2002
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Ann Arbor, MI
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So my new(ish, now) car doesn't have a CD player, and I've been thinking since then of cutting the physical media cord sometime in the next year. As someone who buys upwards of 40+ CDs, this is a significant change for us, though since we've been ripping to digital for the last decade. For the new bands for next year, we've already bought most of the music from Amazon mp3 as an experiment.

For those who have cut the cord, how did you do it/where do you get albums from, post switch? Spotify/Pandora isn't really an option for us, I like supporting artists, and albums from iTunes/Amazon seems a better option to us to do so than that.



Cheers.
 
Bandcamp is a great resource for buying digital music, and I believe it's the avenue that yields the biggest cut of the pie for bands. If it's not the biggest cut, it's certainly near the top. Not every band chooses to use it but for those that do, it's a great place to buy.
 
I still buy a mix of physical CDs and MP3s. If I buy physical CDs, I use a ripping tool (usually CDex) and make MP3s for my iPod.

For MP3s, I subscribe to eMusic. They tend to have music for our more underground genres.

I still can't cut the cord completely. I still like to have tangible medium for the music I really like! :)
 
You are at the same crossroads I have been standing at for quite some time. My CD collection is approaching 2300 discs. I have only ripped a small amount to MP3. I have started buying some MP3 albums, the vast majority of which come from Bandcamp. I've asked several of the artists if Bandcamp does alright by them, and they have agreed that it is a decent option for them, especially the really obscure indy bands.

I've purchased around 130 albums so far, and about 25% was MP3. That's an overall decrease of nearly 70 albums from the same time last year. I like Bandcamp because even if I buy a CD or vinyl, I still get a download, which saves me a little hassle of having to rip the CD. Typically when I receive a CD I'll spin it a few times, maybe in the car, maybe at my desk, maybe again in the man cave, but then the CD will get filed and I'll just transfer the MP3 to the thumb drive I use for my car.

So while I realize it is fairly stupid to buy CDs only to rip them then store the CD, I am having a major issue not buying physical media. One thing that doesn't help matters is that I can typically get the CD for the same, and often even lower price than a download. Many MP3 vendors offer the download at the same price as the CD. If it's a place like Amazon where I get free shipping anyway, there is no motivation to ditch the CD. If download were significantly cheaper, then that might spur me in the direction of going completely physical media free. I might then buy a CD or vinyl at a show, since I don't do the black t-shirt thing and want to put that extra coin in the touring bands' pockets so they can do extravagant things like eat that day.

Let me know how you do cutting the physical media cord!
 
Justin G said:
Don't forget us CD dinosaurs if you decide to part with your physical CDs.

The vultures are circling...
Click to expand...

Might need to take you up on that offer. There is a lot of stuff I'd like to get rid of from my collection, tho I'm still bad about buying CDs.

That being said, I'm now running into the problem that my car MP3 player is full and no way to upgrade it, so now I'm bringing CDs into the car again.
 
Justin G said:
Don't forget us CD dinosaurs if you decide to part with your physical CDs.
Click to expand...

But remember that legally, if you sell your physical CD, you should delete all copies of the MP3 (or AAC, Ogg-Vorbis, or whatever) copies.

Otherwise, it's really no different from BitTorrent-style piracy. You sold your license to listen to the music along with the physical copies...yet you now have MP3s of them.

I say this to (1) protect the artists' interests, and (2) if you ever get checked by the authorities, you'll be in legal trouble.

My $0.02...

Craig
P.S. I'm not an attorney, but I'm 99% sure that this is true. It makes sense, too. Anyone have actual legal knowledge of it?
 
Scott B said:
So while I realize it is fairly stupid to buy CDs only to rip them then store the CD, I am having a major issue not buying physical media. One thing that doesn't help matters is that I can typically get the CD for the same, and often even lower price than a download.
Click to expand...

This is why I haven't swtiched to pure digital. I often get the discs cheaper (new, even) than buying an MP3 download. With that, I also get the liner notes, and cover art.

I also like having the physical CD as a backup. Sure, I backup my computer, and have an additional copy on our media server up in the man-cave (which is also backed up), but I still like having the physical backup copy, so unless the digital version is substantially less expensive (it sometimes is), I get the CD, rip it, and file it away. I've bought well over 1300 CDs, maybe 50-75 digital-only albums.

Craig
 
sccaldwell said:
if you ever get checked by the authorities, you'll be in legal trouble.
Click to expand...
If a federal law enforcement agency is in possession of your computer, you probably have much, much bigger problems than mp3s that you ripped from CDs you no longer own.

I agree with you in principle, but in practice, the odds of anyone catching on are virtually nil.

P.S. I'm not an attorney, but I'm 99% sure that this is true. It makes sense, too. Anyone have actual legal knowledge of it?
Click to expand...
Not an attorney either, but that is correct. The precedent for this dates back to litigation in the VHS days when it was determined that ti's a consumer's right to make copies of physical media for their personal use and/or archival purposes. However, once you sell the original media, you're no longer permitted to maintain copies.

Edit: The rules for certain types of physical media - eg, DVDs - have become murkier as newer legislation has been passed that makes it illegal to bypass copy protection for any reason. That branch of discussion mostly goes down a highly tangential path though, so the short answer for CDs is that as long as you own the physical media, you're entitled to make copies for personal use.
 
I stopped buying CDs a few years ago and have never looked back. The only thing that has prevented me from selling off my CDs is the thought of the hassle of unloading 2200+ of them. If someone would just come and pay me a bundle to take them all away I'd be a happy man. :) I've got some rare stuff too... Carisma, Mystere de Notre Dame, Dividing Horizons, Sunblaze, Gone... if it was an obscure 90s Prog Metal album I probably have it.
 
Justin G said:
Don't forget us CD dinosaurs if you decide to part with your physical CDs.

The vultures are circling...
Click to expand...

Ditto. Even if I cannot even walk in one of my rooms because of too many CDs, I am never giving up the quality and sheer excitement of holding an album cover in my hand and listening to music in a Stereo as opposed to an MP3 BS machine, except in my car of course where my IPod comes in handy, but where I only transfer physical CDs. Spending money on MP3s for me is like taking my money and putting it in the trash (my family says this about CDs anyway, LOL).
 
Bandcamp if you want maximum support of the artist. For maximum convenience (I realize you excluded this from consideration), Google Play Music or Spotify on your phone with $10/mo subscription. Both allow you to save albums and playlists on the device for e.g. car play without incurring data charges (if you are on T-mobile, music streaming is free.) Combine with a bluetooth adapter for your car stereo if it doesn't have one already.

Google Play Music has the advantage of seamlessly merging uploads of your own rips (even if they are not available in their own cloud catalog) alongside the cloud catalog on all devices.
 
If you are planning on getting rid of your discs, rip them to FLAC and back them up twice. Do not rip your discs directly to mp3.
 
Agree 100% with Bandcamp, alternately, I try the bands websites to see what they recommend too, when I absolutely must buy an album. Otherwise, I've switched almost exclusively to Spotify, and if I find I listen to an album a ton, I pick it up in FLAC. I cut the physical cord a while ago and it's great.
 
Bandcamp is awful. They separate me from my money entirely too readily.

As for me, I'm in hybrid mode. As previously intimated I buy a lot from Bandcamp, but it's kind of a threshold deal. If I'm super into someone I'll have the disc no matter what, but if I'm sort of on the fence I'll just go digital (Bandcamp being choice #1). If it's only digital then the choice is made for me. Like some others I would like to go purely digital but that OCD collector side of me has to have physical discs and booklets for that stuff I really want.
 
I'd like to say that I don't buy physical media anymore, but that's not 100% true. Sometimes, it's the only way I can find something. It would be great if more bands were up on Bandcamp. I really like getting music there, but the selection is pretty limited. Keldian, Theocracy, Sinbreed, etc, but it's not like you're going to find the latest Iron Maiden there. In those cases, rather than buying in lossy formats, I'll go ahead and get a disc, rip it to FLAC, and then chuck it in a box. My garage has piles of them, and I haven't listened to one in many, many years.
 
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