Wes Phillips

This is a tough issue. We have a bunch of twenty-somethings at work and NONE of them own anything other than CDR's of their favorite music artists. However, they do seem to have the cash to buy 150 dollar Nikes and 400 dollar purses. I guess total age group spending is the same, but copying material allows them to spend elsewhere. Are we just protecting Fendi when we rail against copyright protection schemes? We also had family come visit over the holidays, including a 13 year old and a 15 year old. Again, not one production disc of the 40 or so CDR's that they brought. Not to make excuses for the big corporations, but I have seen the things they fear. I don't have an answer, though.

>Again, not one production disc of the 40 or so CDR's that they brought. I must be a bit out of the ordinary in this respect, as I do see so many more people willing to simply live with CDR copies of music, but I hate the asymmetry and disjointedness (I'm talking about looks, here) of CDRs, and absolutely love the wholeness and beauty of actual albums with their liner notes and album art and everything else. Wouldn't trade it for anything. I want the real thing; Like with art: I'd of course rather own an original Van Gogh than hang a cheesy print - at least with music, this is more realistic. I guess others don't see it this way.

I agree," CDR's don't seem ""real"" to me. I wouldn't value them as highly as I do an authentic disc - CDR's seem to make music seem more dispensable/disposable"," for sure. Which is probably the most ominous sign of all for the recording industry. I'm hoping the movement toward artists handling their own distribution and internet sales will help music lovers preserve that feeling of bonding to an artist people used to get when buying music. Part of the ""investment"" in buying 45's", LP's, or whatever was emotional, as well. CDR's seem to lessen that feeling. Then, all we have to do is kill Infinity Broadcasting and Clear Channel and free up the airwaves...

I think Buddha has it precisely right when he speaks of CDRs as indicative of teh commodization of music. Some of us grew up at a time when your first interaction with a recording might well be strooling down the new release wall of a record shop and examing each cover for clues about the music it contained. Then there was the fetishistic unwrapping of the shrinkwrap, placing the disc on the turntable, and settling back to listen to the music while poring over the lyrics and liner notes. A recording of any kind was like a 40-minute journey to another realm.(Running out of space -- continued in the next rant)

You don't get thatwhen music is just what dorwns out the noise that other people consider music -- and I don't mean that as a put-down of anyone else's musical preferences. It just seems that these days a lot of listeners use music as self-defense against everybody else's music playing inteh offie, dorm, cubicle farm," or subway (my wife carries a Nono specifically to avoid the ""leakage"" of other commuters -- I know I've programmed it well when she also notices that she's enjoying her psyops counterstrike).