Bandcamp was bought by Epic Games, who fired half the staff and sold off the remainder to some kind of nebulous music licencing platform. I wouldn’t cheer them on much longer, I see dark days ahead.
You don’t own the music you buy on a CD either. You are buying a license to the music and physical storage of it. If you want you can burn your iTunes songs on a CD and you’re in the same situation.
You completely missed the point of what you are replying to. The point isn’t that you SHOULD buy music from online sources instead of CDs. The point is that CDs aren’t “the only way to buy a digital popular music in most countries.” They are directly contradicting a point someone else made by saying CDs are not the only way to buy digital popular music in most countries. They even specifically said popular music, not whatever niche music some random person is into. They also mentioned iTunes because it services 119 markets, which directly counterpoints the statement about being available in most countries. They never advocated for iTunes like you imply.
It’s almost like you lack reading comprehension. “Soms people here on Lemmy are even more insufferable than any other social media.”
I think you can use iTunes as a catch all for sales of digital files, including bandcamp. As opposed to a physical disc or a subscription. FWIW I was just looking this up on the RIAA website and you can run reports by year or year over year comparing media options. It’s really interesting to see which year each format peaked. Eg 8track 1978, cassette 1989, CD 2000, digital file 2012. It doesn’t include limewire /napster (non-revenue) so the unit counts are a bit depressed. I wish it included pre-iPod mp3 players and blank CD sales.
Yes, but this is about what is available in most countries, not what is available in all countries. That still leaves 119 markets and 80% of the world’s population being available. Pretty sure that counts as “most.”
Also, the point isn’t about iTunes, it’s about alternatives to CDs for digital music. China likely has some online store to buy music, but I have no idea.
Even a human with very good hearing and knowledge of how a song is supposed to sound cannot tell the difference between CD quality audio and 256k AAC like iTunes uses.
Don’t believe all the nonsense audiophiles keep spewing out. Human ears suck. If we hadn’t had our giant brains to compensate, we’d be practically deaf.
I would guess that the fact that people aren’t all using some kind of standard-response reference headphones is probably going to have a considerably-larger impact on the human-perceivable fidelity of the audio reproduction than any other factor.
This. People assume that because it’s “compressed” it must sound flatter, less dynamic, or just vaguely worse than uncompressed audio, despite the fact that audio compression specifically uses psychoacoustic models to remove the bits of data that our human ears and brains cannot hear to begin with.
I don’t agree. It depends how the song was ripped and how the original was mastered. I did so much A/B testing at the time and found I couldn’t tell the difference between VBR 256 AAC and the CD. 128k mp3 sounded worse, 320k mp3 is pretty safe, but there were a lot of improvements to LAME over the years so newer files sound better. The biggest difference is the mastering. Generally 1980s reissues of 1970s analog masters sound worst, 1990s is best, 2000s everything got remastered to make it loud and crush dynamic range. The only real innovation since is Dolby Atmos on Apple Music which really brings alive the promise of 1970s quadraphonic.
I’m glad I saved my CDs, as I was able to rerip them to FLAC and undo the mistake my juvenile self made of ripping to WMA. I still keep the CDs to play in my car from time to time
CDs are just digital files plus waste. Vinyl is a musical ritual.
CD is still the only way to buy a digital popular music in most countries.
Don’t forget digital music stores like Qobuz and www.bandcamp.com.
Artists get more money when you buy their music outright instead of stream it.
Bandcamp was bought by Epic Games, who fired half the staff and sold off the remainder to some kind of nebulous music licencing platform. I wouldn’t cheer them on much longer, I see dark days ahead.
It isn’t owned by epic games anymore, it was bought by Songtradr. https://www.songtradr.com/blog/posts/songtradr-bandcamp-acquisition/
Yup that’s the “nebulous music licencing platform” I was referring to
Seriously? Fucking hell, that’s depressing.
No it’s not. The iTunes Music Store is available in the majority of countries in the world. Plus there are other services that cover some of the other countries. Vanishingly few people can choose only a CD.
You don’t own the music you license through iTunes though.
Pretty sure it’s DRM-free.
Only since 2007…
EMI was the first domino to fall after Job’s famous Thoughts on Music open letter.
The other labels followed suit shortly after.
That open letter will be old enough to vote in less than ten months.
No, I’m certain 2007 was just six or seven years ago, right? Right?
You don’t own the music you buy on a CD either. You are buying a license to the music and physical storage of it. If you want you can burn your iTunes songs on a CD and you’re in the same situation.
You own a copy of a copyrighted material. The copy is yours. No DRM, no remotely removing your ability to use it.
How is that different from iTunes?
You own your own hard drive. That copy of an iTunes song is yours. No DRM, no remotely removing your ability to use it.
You do know that the content in the iTunes Store isn’t the same in each country?
I am aware, but unless you’re saying iTunes doesn’t sell pop music in most markets, it’s not really relevant.
Many people don’t listen to local music or pop music. It’s very relevant if you can only get real music on a physical medium.
And out of everything available iTunes is your first choice too?
Soms people here on Lemmy are even more insufferable than any other social media.
Don’t you dare buy a cd with the music you like. BUY FROM ITUNES, while in the next thread they say FUCK APPLE.
You completely missed the point of what you are replying to. The point isn’t that you SHOULD buy music from online sources instead of CDs. The point is that CDs aren’t “the only way to buy a digital popular music in most countries.” They are directly contradicting a point someone else made by saying CDs are not the only way to buy digital popular music in most countries. They even specifically said popular music, not whatever niche music some random person is into. They also mentioned iTunes because it services 119 markets, which directly counterpoints the statement about being available in most countries. They never advocated for iTunes like you imply.
It’s almost like you lack reading comprehension. “Soms people here on Lemmy are even more insufferable than any other social media.”
I was responded to a comment about the availability of pop music.
Yes, the largest digital music store is, naturally, the first one I searched for availability numbers for (119 markets).
I don’t really understand the rest of your rant.
I think you can use iTunes as a catch all for sales of digital files, including bandcamp. As opposed to a physical disc or a subscription. FWIW I was just looking this up on the RIAA website and you can run reports by year or year over year comparing media options. It’s really interesting to see which year each format peaked. Eg 8track 1978, cassette 1989, CD 2000, digital file 2012. It doesn’t include limewire /napster (non-revenue) so the unit counts are a bit depressed. I wish it included pre-iPod mp3 players and blank CD sales.
https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/
Internet access and existing devices would also play a role, but I don’t know a region like that to comment further
iTunes music store is not available in mainland China, which is 1/5 of the world’s population
Yes, but this is about what is available in most countries, not what is available in all countries. That still leaves 119 markets and 80% of the world’s population being available. Pretty sure that counts as “most.”
Also, the point isn’t about iTunes, it’s about alternatives to CDs for digital music. China likely has some online store to buy music, but I have no idea.
The music on iTunes is compressed and doesn’t sound as good as a CD does.
Not to mention they can revoke your access to your music on iTunes. No one can take away your CD unless they break into your house!
iTunes got rid of DRM a decade and a half ago.
Sure but if you don’t have the song downloaded on your PC and they remove it from your library you can’t redownload it.
Most people aren’t backing up the songs they buy on iTunes.
Thank goodness they’ll let you redownload your CD if it gets damaged…
Even a human with very good hearing and knowledge of how a song is supposed to sound cannot tell the difference between CD quality audio and 256k AAC like iTunes uses.
Don’t believe all the nonsense audiophiles keep spewing out. Human ears suck. If we hadn’t had our giant brains to compensate, we’d be practically deaf.
I would guess that the fact that people aren’t all using some kind of standard-response reference headphones is probably going to have a considerably-larger impact on the human-perceivable fidelity of the audio reproduction than any other factor.
This. People assume that because it’s “compressed” it must sound flatter, less dynamic, or just vaguely worse than uncompressed audio, despite the fact that audio compression specifically uses psychoacoustic models to remove the bits of data that our human ears and brains cannot hear to begin with.
Expectation bias is a helluva drug.
Even FLAC is compressed. Which is how I procure my music because I have the storage space.
Yup, although that doesn’t stop some weirdos out there claiming that CDs sound better than FLAC.
I don’t agree. It depends how the song was ripped and how the original was mastered. I did so much A/B testing at the time and found I couldn’t tell the difference between VBR 256 AAC and the CD. 128k mp3 sounded worse, 320k mp3 is pretty safe, but there were a lot of improvements to LAME over the years so newer files sound better. The biggest difference is the mastering. Generally 1980s reissues of 1970s analog masters sound worst, 1990s is best, 2000s everything got remastered to make it loud and crush dynamic range. The only real innovation since is Dolby Atmos on Apple Music which really brings alive the promise of 1970s quadraphonic.
While I agree with you, I still want to be able to buy CDs.
I do miss caring about my CD collection. I still have them but I have nothing to play them on.
I’m glad I saved my CDs, as I was able to rerip them to FLAC and undo the mistake my juvenile self made of ripping to WMA. I still keep the CDs to play in my car from time to time
No one can take the music on your CD’s from you. I bought loads if sings and albums from Google Music and they are all gone now
No one can take my flacs either. 🐷🧇