Downloading Music (& *Paying* for it)
I just spent 79p downloading Phat Planet by Leftfield (the music from “that” Guinness advert). The iTunes Music Store is now available in Germany, France and the UK. It’s quite good but a bit slower than the US one was although it’s fair to assume that’s due to heavy traffic on the first day. I’m not sure how I feel about buying albums from there in future but I can definitely see me buying those odd tracks - like Phat Planet - from albums I wouldn’t normally buy.
June 15th, 2004 at 8:43 pm
the problem with digital music, as a format, is that it is unstable. there is no ‘fixed’ medium. what is currently wide-spread and *ahem* “fashionable” these days may well not even be in existance in five years time. for that reason alone, i think paying to download music seems foolish.
furthermore, i’d hate to lose £x amount of music just because my hard drive packs up.
June 16th, 2004 at 12:13 am
Well you can backup your mp3s (or whatever) to CD or DVD and you could make you own compilations. It just annoys me when I buy a CD like last week for example. I bought the Murderdolls album (don’t ask) and within about 5 minutes of unwrapping the disc I had it on my laptop and iPod, the CD then went onto the shelf where it will stay until, well forever.
I’d rather keep 3 DVDs around with all of my music backed up on them than the 100+ CDs that currently gather dust in my room but each to their own.
June 16th, 2004 at 11:39 am
cds and dvds are the same though. the aluminium in the cd / dvd is not permanant - it will eventually oxidise and render it totally unlistenable. and it’s not like analogue, where the signal will simply ‘wear’ and can (in many cases) be repaired: with digital, once it’s gone there’s no way of getting it back.
June 18th, 2004 at 3:37 pm
Mmmmm laser rot indeed… some of my early CD’s are gone already :-/
June 18th, 2004 at 3:49 pm
Really? That’s mad. I never play my CDs anymore so I don’t know if they’re okay or not. :-/
June 21st, 2004 at 4:20 pm
records last forever