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Records, CDs, or MP3s?


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2 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

Music is a bit more of a focused thing, so easiest solution may just be to give it to a friend - on condition that they take ALL of it. 

The bigger issue for many people is what to do with all the OTHER stuff. That third lawnmower you kept for parts, the collection of deck chairs under the house. Some people (let's be honest, most) just hoard. Dying and leaving a whole lot of shit for other people to deal with is poor planning and may leave a lot of stress. Aim to minimize and offload the excess while you can (can't account for freak accidents and sudden illness/death but in general there is always time).

Of course someone might not care at all since they're gone and, therefore, paying someone else to take it all to the dump without a second thought might not bother them. But that pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with the world. 

 

Oh I totally agree. I make a point to not buy a bunch of crap my family will have to deal with if I suddenly disappear. Do I have crap I need to get rid of, sure. But I do make a point to try to clean out that stuff regularly. I've been dealing with my Father-in-law's estate for the past year. We're talking 50+ years in one house worth of stuff in addition to the house. It's truly been a nightmare dealing with the legal system to even get to a point that we can liquidate. If they had planned better, the process would have been so much easier. A more specific will, downsizing when he was no longer able to maintain everything on his own, getting all of the financials in order....lots of things people just don't realize need to be done. I've been in healthcare for 25 years. I see this stuff all the time. Education on death & dying is severely lacking in the US if not all of the west. People just don't know what to do and much of it is costly which would bar many from pursuing it even if they knew. Everything is a business in the US, including death. Planning for your own death is probably one of the more important things you can do in life, and definitely the most neglected. For anyone interested in the concept of Death Cleaning (Döstädning), this is a reasonable place to start. 

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter (The Swedish Art of Living & Dying Series) - Kindle edition by Magnusson, Margareta. Crafts, Hobbies & Home Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

What I was getting at from my perspective is that I am not "attached" to my stuff. There are things I do value and plan to keep until I shed this mortal coil. They still bring me "joy", so they're staying. Afterwards, however, I'm not concerned with where they end up. If someone wants them, they can have them. If not, dispose as you see fit. My many years of moving around the world for the military taught me well to keep my "pack" as light as possible. I've no compunction about getting rid of shit that is not adding value. Same for my family. If my wife or daughter go before I do, I may keep a few things that remind me of them, but the rest goes.

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He's not wrong though...the RIAA successfully argued for the idea that when you buy a physical copy of something like a tape or a CD what you're buying is the physical media itself. The music that comes with it is only being leased. Same deal goes when you buy something from Bandcamp or iTunes...you're leasing the music. So any copies you make are technically illegal. Even the creation of personal fair-use back-ups aren't technically a right. As far as they're concerned there is no legal standing for people to make any copies...personal use or otherwise. They're just willing to allow it primarily because it would cause an absolute public relations disaster if they ever tried to enforce it

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2 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

He's not wrong though...the RIAA successfully argued for the idea that when you buy a physical copy of something like a tape or a CD what you're buying is the physical media itself. The music that comes with it is only being leased. Same deal goes when you buy something from Bandcamp or iTunes...you're leasing the music. So any copies you make are technically illegal. Even the creation of personal fair-use back-ups aren't technically a right. As far as they're concerned people don't have any legal standing to make copies...for personal use or otherwise. They're just willing to allow it primarily because it would cause an absolute public relations disaster if they ever tried to enforce it

Not disputing that this is the letter of the law. But what point is there in making a law if everyone knows there's no possible way to enforce it? 10+ years ago I used to buy CD's and rip them to the computer, and then burn CDR copies for the car that 99% of the time I'd usually be listening to alone. Didn't want to risk scratching up or losing my CD's. Since 2012 I've been buying digital, but I no longer burn copies because they don't put cd players in new cars anymore. But up until last year when Honda Motor Company stopped supporting the Galaxy S9+ rendering my phone's bluetooth unpairable, I would still copy files to my phone for mobile entertainment purposes. Someone could come along and tell me that technically I was breaking the law, and they'd technically be right. But I would tell them to go fuck themselves.

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24 minutes ago, MVMn said:

Does it? I see this:

"The debt holders subsequently started a new company, Yours.co, to sell M-DISCs and related services"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC

Or am I missing something?

Minidisc was a thing (a very brief one) in the US years ago. I had one before the widespread availability of quality MP3 players like the iPod. Like video which killed the radio star, mp3 killed the minidisc. At least in the US. The only place I know of that ever saw any sort of widespread adoption was Japan. You can still get quality MD players and the physical media, but it's more than likely going to be coming out of Japan and be pricey.

Minidisc was a hybrid of cassette and early MP3 players. A relatively convenient way to transport digital files before the iPod took over. They really offer no advantage over your mobile phone/DAP these days, unless you like spending money on having physical stuff to store and tote around. Even then, I'd recommend a cd which you can have and transfer to your portable electronic device of choice. New music is still released on MD formats, but it's typically more expensive than CD and again offers no sonic advantage.

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1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Not disputing that this is the letter of the law. But what point is there in making a law if everyone knows there's no possible way to enforce it? 10+ years ago I used to buy CD's and rip them to the computer, and then burn CDR copies for the car that 99% of the time I'd usually be listening to alone. Didn't want to risk scratching up or losing my CD's. Since 2012 I've been buying digital, but I no longer burn copies because they don't put cd players in new cars anymore. But up until last year when Honda Motor Company stopped supporting the Galaxy S9+ rendering my phone's bluetooth unpairable, I would still copy files to my phone for mobile entertainment purposes. Someone could come along and tell me that technically I was breaking the law, and they'd technically be right. But I would tell them to go fuck themselves.

I think the thing is, we keep saying it's unenforceable because logically we know they couldn't get even close to everyone who does it, but we also have to remember, based on how they went after pirating in the early days of the internet, that's not how they would go about it. If, for some gods-unforeseen reason, they decided they were really going to try and put the screws to people about it, they'd find some poor dumb schmuck and drop 10-tons of shit on his head in an effort to scare everyone else off of doing it. The whole thing is just a cost evaluation...would we lose more pursuing legal action than we would if we did nothing?

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But think about it. By now even the recording industry folks surely have to realize that the way people listen to music has changed over the last 15 - 20 years. Why do you think they started giving vinyl purchasers a free download key? Because they know they can only play that vinyl LP at home or wherever their turntable lives, and they will still be in need a digital file to be able to listen to their music on the go. I don't think anyone really sees people copying files for the purpose of listening to purchased music in their cars or on phones or DAP's through iep's as the real problem that's killing the music industry. It's all the people who never buy anything at all they'd like to find a way to put a stop to. 

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14 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

But think about it. By now even the recording industry folks surely have to realize that the way people listen to music has changed over the last 15 - 20 years. Why do you think they started giving vinyl purchasers a free download key? Because they know they can only play that vinyl LP at home or wherever their turntable lives, and they will still be in need a digital file to be able to listen to their music on the go. I don't think anyone really sees people copying files for the purpose of listening to purchased music in their cars or on phones or DAP's through iep's as the real problem that's killing the music industry. It's all the people who never buy anything at all they'd like to find a way to put a stop to. 

I wasn't arguing otherwise by any means. Like I initially said, the PR fallout alone is enough to keep them from actually doing anything about it, but the original point was about whether it's actually illegal. It is as far as the RIAA is concerned, and enforcing it really comes down to whether it would be cost effective (both in the short and long term) to sue a few randos into oblivion to scare everyone else straight.

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1 hour ago, navybsn said:

Minidisc was a thing (a very brief one) in the US years ago. I had one before the widespread availability of quality MP3 players like the iPod. Like video which killed the radio star, mp3 killed the minidisc. At least in the US. The only place I know of that ever saw any sort of widespread adoption was Japan. You can still get quality MD players and the physical media, but it's more than likely going to be coming out of Japan and be pricey.

Minidisc was a hybrid of cassette and early MP3 players. A relatively convenient way to transport digital files before the iPod took over. They really offer no advantage over your mobile phone/DAP these days, unless you like spending money on having physical stuff to store and tote around. Even then, I'd recommend a cd which you can have and transfer to your portable electronic device of choice. New music is still released on MD formats, but it's typically more expensive than CD and again offers no sonic advantage.

Yeah, minidisc is dead. M-DISC is a different thing though.

Minidisc had a fatal flaw - lossy compression due to small storage size.

So yeah, we're all on streaming services now, iTunes stores etc, owning nothing essentially. Best case - buying FLAC from Bandcamp.

But again, this means we're no longer owners of anything. All the rights we have are non-transferable, there will be nothing left after us. So some people still buy CDs, Vynil records or even cassette tapes instead. Just to have that physical copy which you actually own.

With CDs I do that and then rip them into FLAC and use that in my laptop and smartphone. So yeah, no significant downsides. I have to do the rip (once) and maintain copies, but for the latter you can still upload files to the cloud if you wish. But it's not complicated.

However, CDs don't last that long. Unlike Vynil records - given proper maintenance of course (ideally, don't play and don't touch). But Vynil are analog! Also I think they wear out during usage - that needle still takes out some material from the grooves on each pass.

So to have that one perfect physical medium: M-DISC, which lasts basically forever, in MiniDisk form factor with cartridge casing = ideal physical medium for music IMO. It lasts forever, it's protected from scratches and wear, and it's digital.

Unfortunately, something like this doesn't exist now.

M-DISC at the moment exists in a CD-like format (well, blue-ray DVD is probably closer to it than a CD, but whatever - form-factor wise it's the same thing). Though even for this form factor, I remember magneto-optical drives which had those discs in casings, 5.25 inch. These were widely used for data archival.

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8 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

I probably have at least three hard drives with bandcamp collection in various stages of back up.

I have two. And included are copies of all the CDs I uploaded years ago. I do not want to do that again.

This reminds me that it's time to refresh my backups.

7 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

Of course someone might not care at all since they're gone and, therefore, paying someone else to take it all to the dump without a second thought might not bother them. But that pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with the world. 

 

So fucking true. 

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8 hours ago, navybsn said:

I have thousands of vinyl and CDs. Tons of digital files. I buy stuff that makes me happy or provides me with some level of entertainment. All crap that my poor family will have to deal with when I go on to my reward. Most will no doubt get chucked in a bin. My daughter might pick through some of the more "normal" stuff, but that's not guaranteed. Personally, I don't care what they do with them. I won't be here to worry about it. Same way I feel about funeral planning. My wife asked me years ago what I wanted as it was fairly certain my time was due. I told her to do what made her happy. It's not like I was going to be around to complain. That's how I feel about my "stuff". Makes no difference to me. If I go soon, give it all to one of my buddies who's into the sick demented music I listen to or at least give them the opportunity to pick through the collection before it goes in the bin. If I outlast them, then donate it to the library or whatever. Certainly their collection of Archgoat and Satanic Warmaster vinyl is lacking.

 

If anyone does want to plan my thoughts are to catalogue the collection on Discogs and pass on the login details. Then a family member can see what each item is worth and get some cash back out of it. 

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Gotta be honest, I'm not tech savvy enough to know how to do backups automatically. I just hook up the external SSD via usb then select files and copy them over the old fashioned way. Just copied everything recently because one of these days I swear I'm gonna switch to using my new computer that's been sitting behind me here in a big box. Just have to go and grab the handful of albums I only just got in the last week or two.

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Any back up is good, automagically just means you can set and forget. There are heaps of programs that can do it ranging from free and open source to paid for options. About 15 years ago I thought I'd lost a major update to a manuscript I'd written because of a hard drive crash and a lazy attitude to back ups. Once I managed to restore that file I set up automagic back ups and now back up everything daily to three different places. It's overkill but amongst all those music and video files there is some important stuff I wouldn't want to loose.

 

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I've got an automatic backup in the redundant drives on my recording computer, but what with one thing and another I only ever use it for recording, so I've got everything duplicated on an external drive that I can update more easily. Most of what I listen to regularly is on my phone and laptop, too. Losing music sucks... losing my own recordings sucks worse. I lost a good chunk of my own stuff about 18 years ago and I've been more paranoid about backing it up since then. I guess the silver lining is, it was mostly terrible.

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3 hours ago, MVMn said:

Yeah, minidisc is dead. M-DISC is a different thing though.

Minidisc had a fatal flaw - lossy compression due to small storage size.

So yeah, we're all on streaming services now, iTunes stores etc, owning nothing essentially. Best case - buying FLAC from Bandcamp.

But again, this means we're no longer owners of anything. All the rights we have are non-transferable, there will be nothing left after us. So some people still buy CDs, Vynil records or even cassette tapes instead. Just to have that physical copy which you actually own.

With CDs I do that and then rip them into FLAC and use that in my laptop and smartphone. So yeah, no significant downsides. I have to do the rip (once) and maintain copies, but for the latter you can still upload files to the cloud if you wish. But it's not complicated.

However, CDs don't last that long. Unlike Vynil records - given proper maintenance of course (ideally, don't play and don't touch). But Vynil are analog! Also I think they wear out during usage - that needle still takes out some material from the grooves on each pass.

So to have that one perfect physical medium: M-DISC, which lasts basically forever, in MiniDisk form factor with cartridge casing = ideal physical medium for music IMO. It lasts forever, it's protected from scratches and wear, and it's digital.

Unfortunately, something like this doesn't exist now.

M-DISC at the moment exists in a CD-like format (well, blue-ray DVD is probably closer to it than a CD, but whatever - form-factor wise it's the same thing). Though even for this form factor, I remember magneto-optical drives which had those discs in casings, 5.25 inch. These were widely used for data archival.

Huh. Learn something new every day. Guess I didn't really know that M-Disc wasn't short for minidisc and was a separate thing altogether. Reading over the quick and dirty details, I'm struck by the "Makers of the M-Disc call it a “permanent storage solution.” that I see cited. Makes me think of when cds rolled out in the late 80's. I remember hearing the same sorta line. I sincerely doubt anyone 100 years from now, much less 1000 will have the technology or desire to listen to any of our current musical formats. I suspect all current digital music protocols will even be outdated by that point.

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3 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

It's time? Why isn't it automatically done?

I have an automatic backup running on one external drive, but I manually backup important things like the music I am writing, and my music collection, photos etc on my two other external drives. I guess I am paranoid, but it's not hard to do this. I have lost work in the past.

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On 9/8/2022 at 3:37 AM, navybsn said:

Huh. Learn something new every day. Guess I didn't really know that M-Disc wasn't short for minidisc and was a separate thing altogether. Reading over the quick and dirty details, I'm struck by the "Makers of the M-Disc call it a “permanent storage solution.” that I see cited. Makes me think of when cds rolled out in the late 80's. I remember hearing the same sorta line. I sincerely doubt anyone 100 years from now, much less 1000 will have the technology or desire to listen to any of our current musical formats. I suspect all current digital music protocols will even be outdated by that point.

Well, people still listen to tapes and vynil - so who's to say.

Phonograph cylinders aren't exactly all the rage anymore, but there is still a company that makes and sells new ones - https://www.vulcanrecords.com/shop/

So yeah, future is unpredictable.

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I'm less surprised that there's a company who makes phonograph cylinders, and more surprised that there was actually a market to begin with. Who the hell is sitting around anxiously waiting to play their copy of Onward to Golgotha on phonograph cylinder...and what's the sound quality on that kind of thing anyway?

Dammit...I've got a pimp-slap in my pocket for the first black metal band that tries to "cylinder release only" their shit

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