Get your hard drives ready

[styxfanNH]

Gigs & Bytes:
Universal Goes Deep
Updated 23:56 PST Thu, Jan 19 2006
Some things are no-brainers. There are only so many hours in a day, so many days in a week and so many weeks in a year.
And no matter how hard your local record store tries to stock every recording ever made, the shop has only so much available floor space.
This is why online music services can be so exciting, for you can have that song recorded way back when by clicking your mouse now. In theory, music download stores have an infinite amount of floor space, limited only by the size of the hard drives on the servers. And if the drives fill up, they can always add more infinity, er, hard drives.
Universal Music understands the concept. The world's biggest record label says it will reach into its vaults and digitize 100,000 out of print European recordings by such stars as Marianne Faithfull, Chris DeBurgh, Fairport Convention, and Brian Auger, according to Reuters.
Of course, there are complications, for nothing is easy in mankind's quest for a perfect digital world.
Contracts, for example: Recording contracts reflecting the digital age are a recent invention, and the absence of such rights in older contracts can cause more than a few speed bumps when it comes to digitizing older recordings. Then there's the source material, which can be anything from analog tapes, master disks or vinyl.
But Universal is confident that it can overcome such hurdles. It expects to sell the recordings via online stores such as Apple's iTunes.
"Over the next three to four years, we aim to reissue perhaps as many as 10,000 albums for downloading, which amounts to more than 100,000 tracks," said Barney Wragg, senior VP of Universal Music Group International's eLabs division. "This program will offer material that, in some cases, goes back to the early days of recorded music."

[SuiteMadameBlue]

Oh, I thought this about something else


Seriously though, very interesting post. I wonder what it's going to be like in 10 years with music and the industry with all this new technology. Thanks for posting

[Abitaman]

About time they did this-ERIC

[gr8dane]

Think of the lost treasures resurfing?.Though there are a lot of of good oldies coming out cheap on cd, from the old masters that are available cheap also.They just have not been remastered.I got a few goodies where I got 2 cds for 9.99 and thats Canadian.That is ofcourse just a drop in the pond.I sure do look forward to this.It just means I have to learn the downloading bit.Ack.

[SuiteMadameBlue]

Gr8dane wrote:

I sure do look forward to this.It just means I have to learn the downloading bit.Ack.

I totally agree with you Gr8dane! I'm still learning. I like your ACK!!

[bugsymalone]

Anyone else see CD's eventually disappearing altogether? I think so.

It is cool to see that some long forgotten song/artist may get a new life as a downloadable music file. (Maybe I can finally find Tarney Spencer "No Time to Lose" , LOL!)

I absolutely love the option of not having to buy an entire album of music to get one song.

Interesting article, NH, and thanks for posting it.

Bugsy

[Abitaman]

Anyone else see CD's eventually disappearing altogether? I think so.



Bugsy

Not me, I can see it happening over seas, but us American's, we love to hang onto stuff, and say "hey look at what I got". At least I use too -ERIC

[Angiekay]

(Maybe I can finally find Tarney Spencer "No Time to Lose" , LOL!)

Bugs, would you believe we play that song on our radio station?! GREAT TUNE!!

[Angiekay]

Not me, I can see it happening over seas, but us American's, we love to hang onto stuff, and say "hey look at what I got". At least I use too -ERIC

My albums I may hang on too(I have a turn table that is only ten years old), but I was just looking over my 300 cassettes the other day wondering whether I should get rid of them or not. I'm not sure where my 8-tracks are right now....

[bugsymalone]

bugsymalone wrote:
(Maybe I can finally find Tarney Spencer "No Time to Lose" , LOL!)


Bugs, would you believe we play that song on our radio station?! GREAT TUNE!!

I love this song. I have a copy but it is not so great sounding.

Abitaman wrote:
Not me, I can see it happening over seas, but us American's, we love to hang onto stuff, and say "hey look at what I got". At least I use too Laughing -ERIC


My albums I may hang on too(I have a turn table that is only ten years old), but I was just looking over my 300 cassettes the other day wondering whether I should get rid of them or not. I'm not sure where my 8-tracks are right now....

SEE, Eric!!! I bet no one thought cassettes would go away, too. I just think in maybe 10 or 20 years, the CD will disappear as well. Doesn't mean collectors won't still hang on to old formats.

I'm tellin' ya, in the brave new world of the future, there will be a chip, implanted in the brain, and it will have movies, music, whatever, downloaded directly to the old gray matter. I guess then it will be called Intel Matter.

Bugsy

[styxfanNH]

Anyone else see CD's eventually disappearing altogether? I think so.



Bugsy

Not me, I can see it happening over seas, but us American's, we love to hang onto stuff, and say "hey look at what I got". At least I use too -ERIC

In 10-15 years, CD's will be gone, as will DVD's. Everything is moving to the web as downloadable. That doesn't mean you won't have to buy the whole album, companies could still make that a requirement of the download.

A similar situation is happening with cash and Debit Cards. A higher percentage of 30 somethings and below are using more transferable plastic (opposed to credit cards) than any other generation. And we are seeing the first generaton that only knows the purchasing of music through downloads.

The true passing of old technologies is generational. The only reason vhs is still around is because the grey hairs still have them. Ten years max and they are history.

The Brave New World is changing fast. The lines are drawn in the sand across the caress of time.

Oh, the article was on pollstar.

[bugsymalone]

The true passing of old technologies is generational. The only reason vhs is still around is because the grey hairs still have them. Ten years max and they are history

You know what may be interesting? That the price of VCR's will go back up again, as consumer demand decreases. Some people will still want one to look at their old, oh, say "Caught in the Act" videos 20 years from now. But they may have to pay $500 for a "dinosaur" VCR to play it on.

What is interesting to me is that I have VHS videotapes from the 80's and they still play perfectly on my VCR.

Bugsy

[Abitaman]

Saw the article, pretty good, refuse to believe it will come to computer having everything -ERIC