How important is the packaging (liner notes, album art, etc.) that comes with physical formats?

Speaking of old formats, one major appeal that is lost with downloads is packaging. Or are those packages just waste? How important is the packaging (liner notes, album art, etc.) that comes with physical formats?

How important is the packaging (liner notes, album art, etc.) that comes with physical formats?
Very important
61% (105 votes)
Pretty important
22% (38 votes)
Somewhat important
9% (15 votes)
Not important
6% (11 votes)
A complete waste
1% (2 votes)
Total votes: 171

COMMENTS
Daniele - Italy's picture

As usual audio magazines are failing their main mission: organizing customers so that we all can submit a REQUEST to audio industry for new formats ... Why don't we conceive a new file format so that audio, lyrics, high-res artwork ... is contained? We could purchase and download a file, and we'd have music + information, the information that is needed to complete music itself .... Don't misunderstand me, I know there's plenty of file formats for audio ... but we need an OFFICIAL ONE, used by everybody in the industry. Imagine if each company delivered LPs with different sizes ...

B.  Majewski's picture

liner notes and whatnot are useful to know when & where a recording was made, the personel and so forth. this information is important for _collectors_, like me.

Anonymous's picture

Packaging can make or break a purchase.

Don in Amarillo's picture

Complete liner notes & recording data should be required with all CDs. Printed materials increase production costs but considering the price labels demand for premium recordings they are just giving us the finger.

Glenn Bennett's picture

I have hundreds of CD's and LP's (started collecting in the 60's) and have never downloaded one song. Physical format is my only interest.

OvenMaster's picture

Pretty important. How else are you supposed to protect a physical carrier from damage?

Dougy in Missouri's picture

The packaging can be a very big part of the total value of the product. I like nice pics, liner notes, lyrics, credits -the whole thing. The more info I can get, the better. The packagibg is one reason physical product will never go away completely. There will always be a market, because many music lovers are also collectors by nature, collecting things that are important to them, and music is just that -important!

marco's picture

Buying a dumb file without anything physical in your hand is like having virtual sex

Tian's picture

the key reason i dont buy downloaded classical music is that i need the touch and feel of a physical product. the packaging is as crucial as the music and artits themselves. i totally believe that the packaging is a key part of the total package, which gives consumers plenty of pleasure both visually and physiologically.

Skeemo's picture

It's the primary reason I still buy physical rather than download

Klen's picture

It is comparable to the experience of a book vs digital and despite the fact one has almost all books digitised and can read them online, nothing really beats the experience of reading a book. I admit that I have bought couple of albums because of the artwork alone.

Xanthe.'s picture

A complete waste - I'm buying music, not art or other rubbish.

COnradN's picture

Comcast and NBC Universal are on the merge of a titanic merging that would give Comcast room to establish a monopolistic choke hold over the flow of televised and online media. In theory, Julius Genachowski and the Federal Communications Commission support open opposition, where no one company controls the flow of info. The FCC will plead with Comcast, and perhaps Comcast will listen - or not.

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