Tom,
there is something with vinyl that deserves further thinking, of why is it
popular - someone cannot copy 1:1 vinyl records, and vinyl is the subject of
constant degradation, from one listen to another, so... it can be profitable
to record companies.
Regards
Milan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] "All hail the analogue revolution..."
>I love the little bit at the end about people who buy LPs "to use like a
>poster ... especially if they don't have a record player." Vinyl posers!!
>
> One comment -- a millions LPs sold in the UK does not a trend make. How
> many million iPods were sold in the UK? No, vinyl is not "making a
> comeback" but it was never killed off and is now a profitable niche for
> some. Unlike the CD, I could see the vinyl niche surviving into the
> all-download era around the corner. The economics of that niche are such
> that you can be (mildly) profitable with short runs and
> inventory/warehouses. CD's are essentially an overpriced commodity right
> now, which is why the economics don't work. The music companies would love
> to do away with manufacturing and warehousing and having to rely on the
> likes of Wal-Mart and Amazon to sell physical products. If they could
> figure out some way to get Joe Public to pay the same net
> profit-per-artist in a completely "virtual" online transaction, they'd be
> there tomorrow. The problems are that first of all Joe Public first of all
> doesn't want to pay for all the junk songs on most albums, so the net
> recoverable per artist goes down and second of all there are all the
> piracy fears (which may or may not be overblown). And then there are those
> of us who think 99 cents for a crappy-sounding MP4 file with semi-onerous
> copy protection is the biggest ripoff going. But the key thing is, the
> prime music-buying agegroup is inexorably moving away from physical CD's
> and to the iPod/download world, so that's where the business will
> inevitably go. LPs will be there as a niche, no doubt. And I think
> high-resolution digital may survive as a download model, but the pricing
> will be such that it won't be mainstream. I can't for the life of me
> understand why Apple doesn't nip the quality issue in the bud and put a
> security wrapper around their Apple Lossless Format and offer high-rez (CD
> quality) downloads for maybe $1.25 or $12 per album. Apparently, quality
> isn't an issue to the vast fat middle of their market.
>
> BTW, the trend away from physical libraries of music is also big in the
> upper crust. I know a guy who gets $5 per CD to rip it into iTunes and
> turn over a loaded hard drive to his clients. They send him their whole CD
> library. He loads up a hard drive with MP3 or AAC or ALF or WAV or
> whatever they ask for (to his credit, he advocates ALF or WAV but you'd be
> surprised how many clients get all tight-wallet about a 400gig drive vs. a
> 200gig drive). He then installs the hard drive in their system and reads
> it all into their iTunes. Sometimes they pay him another $150 to load up
> their iPod so they can be the coolest player in business class on their
> next flight without having to actually know or do anything "technical."
> This guy has all the business he can do, just from advertising in a few
> Upper East Side society-type publications. In fact last I heard, he had
> farmed out the ripping jobs to his kid brother and the brother's college
> buddies. Oh, and some of his clients don't want the CD's back, so he does
> a booming trade in used CD's (that's how I got to know him).
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Milan P. Milovanovic" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 5:23 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] "All hail the analogue revolution..."
>
>
>> Well,
>>
>> our subject is even at Yahoo, today:
>>
>> http://www.yahoo.com/s/397244
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