CD is about dead
Posted by: ejl on 04 September 2003
This from today's New York Times.
Universal is hoping that the price cut on CDs will spur massive increases in sales, but that seems to me very unlikely. I bet on an even more rapid erosion of sales, and the death of a few major labels in the near future.
The real question is, will CDs go the way of the cassette tape [extinct] or the LP [sufficient specialty market support to survive]?
Comments?
Eric
Universal is hoping that the price cut on CDs will spur massive increases in sales, but that seems to me very unlikely. I bet on an even more rapid erosion of sales, and the death of a few major labels in the near future.
The real question is, will CDs go the way of the cassette tape [extinct] or the LP [sufficient specialty market support to survive]?
Comments?
Eric
Posted on: 05 September 2003 by KiwiRob
All I have to say is it will be a long time before everyone has a PC let alone a PC connected to the internet via broadband. Downloaded media will only overtake CD when everyone is hooked up to the net. As it is at the moment the PC market has stagnated, most people are happy with their current PC's and not too many are trading up to the latest and greatest. CD will be around for at least another 10 years as the principle music media.
Posted on: 06 September 2003 by prowla
I don't think the physical format of the future need be a disk.
More like a solid state memory.
At the moment I've got a Palm handheld, with a 256 MB SD card roughly the size of a postage stamp. It's got a few MP3 files on it. It cost about £40.
In 10 years time, the capacity of such devices will have grown enormously, and the price will have dived.
Just think - a Hi-Fi system (and computers) with no moving parts!
Paul Rowlands
More like a solid state memory.
At the moment I've got a Palm handheld, with a 256 MB SD card roughly the size of a postage stamp. It's got a few MP3 files on it. It cost about £40.
In 10 years time, the capacity of such devices will have grown enormously, and the price will have dived.
Just think - a Hi-Fi system (and computers) with no moving parts!
Paul Rowlands
Posted on: 06 September 2003 by Derek Wright
quote:
it will be a long time before everyone has a PC let alone a PC connected to the internet via broadband.
There is not a pre requisite to have a PC to enjoy the functions that are mentioned earlier in this thread. The home entertainment device will be a custom box or boxes that use dedicated computer services.
For example we now have various set top boxes to handle Sat TV, Digital terrestrial and the hard disk recording devices eg SKY+, Pace Twin and Tivo that are very customised variants of PCs. Other PCs in disguise in the house include mobile phones, burglar alarms, CD players, white goods eg dish washers, washing machines.
When you get in the modern car you are deploying more computer power than was in the original space shots.
All of the above devices execute programs to process data, some of which is stored in transient memory and some on more permanent storage.
Do not get distratcted into thinking that all these wonderful entertainment services are dependant on boxes being bought at "PC World"
You will buy the customised boxes next door from Currys in the TV department. <g>
Derek
<<Have you checked your PTs today>>
Posted on: 06 September 2003 by Rasher
quote:
Originally posted by hi fi fo fum:
I hope CD's do die, and a new medium comes out,
Then I go out buy a CDS3 and order two extra transports, and run down to the used CD store and do what I did when CD first came out ....buy a whole lot of cheap music, can't wait
Was that your thinking when you moved to Canada then?
Posted on: 06 September 2003 by Rico
quote:
-- On the news I notice former Svengali and music impressario Simon Cowell has been arrested for vagrancy again a fact which brightens my day no end.
Brilliant post, Matthew.
Jonathan - it's not merely "teenagers" downloading music - there's a whole generation of post-teens with no CD collection, their sole angst is whether to convert** their 30GB MP3 collection into the latest audio codec or not, and how much extra disk space they'll need for an expanding DIVX collection.
Rico
**loss of detail in this conversion process doesn't enter into it - "but how can it be lossy - it's all digital data!".
Rico - SM/Mullet Audio
Posted on: 07 September 2003 by prowla
Rico
That was a joke, right?
Paul Rowlands
quote:
**loss of detail in this conversion process doesn't enter into it - "but how can it be lossy - it's all digital data!".
That was a joke, right?
Paul Rowlands
Posted on: 07 September 2003 by graphoman
“I think many people rather miss the point in this debate” you’ve started.
I think many people rather miss the point in this debate, namely, that there are less and less serious music listener worldwide. In my age (62) I don’t want to imitate Verdi’s old Falstaff saying “Tutto declina” (“everything goes blooey”) and I don’t think that way either. But we have to accept that the world keep getting more complex and there are plenty of hobbies that can be used by anybody. There allways will remain a little audiofil fraternity, of course. Only they count less and less. And it does have some consequence.
graphoman
I think many people rather miss the point in this debate, namely, that there are less and less serious music listener worldwide. In my age (62) I don’t want to imitate Verdi’s old Falstaff saying “Tutto declina” (“everything goes blooey”) and I don’t think that way either. But we have to accept that the world keep getting more complex and there are plenty of hobbies that can be used by anybody. There allways will remain a little audiofil fraternity, of course. Only they count less and less. And it does have some consequence.
graphoman
Posted on: 08 September 2003 by domfjbrown
quote:
Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
domjfbrown said " I'd be up for hearing that experimental German techno"
Anything by _Mouse on Mars_ especially _"Idiology"_. See http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/m/mouse-on-mars/idiology.shtml for more.
Cool - I wander if they played VooV this year (I really want to get to that next year - missed the last two). I might well have to look into some of this when I have some more cash...
When the music's over turn out the lights
Posted on: 08 September 2003 by prowla
I wonder if the title should be is music dead?
I thought about this over the weekend as I was out shopping and bought 1 CD and 3 DVDs.
Perhaps the decline in CD sales is more attributable to the increase in DVD sales...
Paul Rowlands
I thought about this over the weekend as I was out shopping and bought 1 CD and 3 DVDs.
Perhaps the decline in CD sales is more attributable to the increase in DVD sales...
Paul Rowlands
Posted on: 08 September 2003 by syd
quote:
Originally posted by prowla:
I wonder if the title should be _is music dead_?
I thought about this over the weekend as I was out shopping and bought 1 CD and 3 DVDs.
Perhaps the decline in CD sales is more attributable to the increase in DVD sales...
Paul Rowlands
I think you have a very valid point. I would like to see a breakdown of current CD sales by age group. I suspect that the youngest age groups, upto mid twenties noew spend a lot on Games software, DVD movies etc that 15 to twenty years ago would have been spent on Cd, Vinyl and Tape. I would imagine in the older age groupings there would be much the same sales as before. Does anybody know of a Web Site where I could get this sales info?
Yours in Music
Syd
Posted on: 08 September 2003 by Geofiz
I was wondering when the topic of "music" would enter into the discussion. Paul is bang on that the decline in CD sales is attributable to other issues.
The decline in CD sales could also be attributed to the percieved decline in the quality, variation and originality of the music available at this time. I must say that I have seldom felt the urge to rush out and buy a CD as the current alternative and rock music seems to have a certain sameness to it. Musically I think we are in a low cycle, the product (with some exceptions) is not very good or involving. Throw in a perceived media format war and Joe Punter is not going to rush out and buy anything. He will be content with a substandard format, and spend the money on XBox/N64/GameCube/Playstation games instead which typically appear to have higher quality sound than MP3 anyway.
My 16 year old son can hear the difference between downloaded MP3s etc and the CD or LP version and has found it significant enough that he has all but stopped downloading (or downloads only higher resolution files)and buys the CDs instead. He can still create whatever compilations he wants and either convert to MP3 or cut his own "compilation" CD on his computer. Maybe he is the exception?
I'm not convinced that Universal Music lowering the cost of CDs will create a major upswing in sales simply because if the catalogue isn't any good then making it cheaper to obtain poor music isn't going to help. I do welcome the price lowering, as it will force the others to lower their prices as well. The heady days of a huge margin over real costs of producing a CD are finally drawing to an end. If it really is true that the record company cost is only $1-$3 for the complete CD package which they then retail for $15-$22, then great.
I agree with Hi Fi Fo Fum that if CD does quickly dissappear, buy a CDS3 (maybe a spare transport or two) and hit the used CD stores.
Maybe this thread should be moved to the Music Room?
Cheers
The decline in CD sales could also be attributed to the percieved decline in the quality, variation and originality of the music available at this time. I must say that I have seldom felt the urge to rush out and buy a CD as the current alternative and rock music seems to have a certain sameness to it. Musically I think we are in a low cycle, the product (with some exceptions) is not very good or involving. Throw in a perceived media format war and Joe Punter is not going to rush out and buy anything. He will be content with a substandard format, and spend the money on XBox/N64/GameCube/Playstation games instead which typically appear to have higher quality sound than MP3 anyway.
My 16 year old son can hear the difference between downloaded MP3s etc and the CD or LP version and has found it significant enough that he has all but stopped downloading (or downloads only higher resolution files)and buys the CDs instead. He can still create whatever compilations he wants and either convert to MP3 or cut his own "compilation" CD on his computer. Maybe he is the exception?
I'm not convinced that Universal Music lowering the cost of CDs will create a major upswing in sales simply because if the catalogue isn't any good then making it cheaper to obtain poor music isn't going to help. I do welcome the price lowering, as it will force the others to lower their prices as well. The heady days of a huge margin over real costs of producing a CD are finally drawing to an end. If it really is true that the record company cost is only $1-$3 for the complete CD package which they then retail for $15-$22, then great.
I agree with Hi Fi Fo Fum that if CD does quickly dissappear, buy a CDS3 (maybe a spare transport or two) and hit the used CD stores.
Maybe this thread should be moved to the Music Room?
Cheers
Posted on: 09 September 2003 by matthewr
Geofiz said "if CD does quickly dissappear, buy a CDS3 (maybe a spare transport or two) and hit the used CD stores"
If you don't care about the convenience and flexibility of modern formats and are willing to rely on existing music and forgo much new music -- then LP is the obvious choice not CD. You can get CDS2 quality from a secondhand LP12 at a fraction of the cost.
"Maybe this thread should be moved to the Music Room?"
The thread is about the future of CD Vs media files so the Music Room would not be the right place at all.
Matthew
If you don't care about the convenience and flexibility of modern formats and are willing to rely on existing music and forgo much new music -- then LP is the obvious choice not CD. You can get CDS2 quality from a secondhand LP12 at a fraction of the cost.
"Maybe this thread should be moved to the Music Room?"
The thread is about the future of CD Vs media files so the Music Room would not be the right place at all.
Matthew
Posted on: 09 September 2003 by Geofiz
It appears that I have been somewhat misunderstood.
I feel that the decline in CD sales and music sales in general is related to the cross the board sameness and homogenisation of current music. Where are the inovators in the music world today? How many times are we going to hear the same rock standards being recycled and passed off as new? We seem to be in the downswing of the business cycle that permeats all businesses at some time. The result is that the boundaries between the various type of music are becoming obscured and opaque. At times there is little distinction between country, alternative, rock, heavy metal,etc when one looks at what is topping the charts and/or getting air play on radio/MTV/VH-1/etc. The music companies are starting to rely on technological "edges" to generate music sales and enthusaism in place of real inovation from the artists. Hopefully some real inovators will emerge and initiate a resurgence or new direction in the music industry.
Modern formats are fine, but a plethora of formats on the market at one time with the variation in quality that accomapanies such a situation makes it very hard for one to retail music and to provide a user friendly delivery system that can make money (the bottom line for the music business).
How many people out there are currently listening to MP3s or other digital formats on their PDAs, Cellphones, Diamond Rio players, etc through headphones? Do you ever listen to this same music by playing/transfering it through your home system? Chances are if you do, you listen to it once or twice and then go back to your "low-fi" playback system because the poor playback quality is acceptable in this manner or use it solely for background music. Some of you will search out the LP/CD/DVD-A/SACD disk, but most will not.
Convienence is fine if one accepts the trade-off of quality vs convienence, which is currently in an inverse relationship (as convienence increases quality decreases). As the "must have it now" attitude of mass consumerism continues, it is inevitable that convienence will win over quality until the quality reaches such a low point that the inevitable backlash occurs and quality is once more desirable, and once more a marketable mass market commodity. The digital formats that will permit this will be desirable if they can survive the current array of multiplicity.
It appears that more and more music will be played through the computer system that the end user has and hence the quality of music playback will become governed by the inherit noise levels of the various computers available and playback speakers connected. How many of you currently have your computer connected to your audiophile systems for playback of these digital formats?
One has to ask where is the convienence if the "new" formats are going to have an even shorter shelf life than the preceeding formats? This leaves the consumer out in the cold and only those with the money and access to the latest and greatest technologies are in a position to benefit. This in turn will most likely lead to fewer music sales as fewer people will be able to access the music.
The industry appears to be undergoing a paradigm shift of monsterous proportions (as evidenced by the current launch of the Apple Music system), hopefully it will be for the better, but given the current emphasis on the corporate bottom line it may not be.
Several other contributors to this forum thread have mentioned the need for a "final" archive format no matter what the digital format used. This will currently fall to the realm of CD or DVD formats for the mainstream user. Memory sticks, SD memory, hard drives, bubble memory etc. are convienent and can be just as convienently overwritten, lost, or erased. Who is willing to lose their entire collection of music if and when the media used becomes corrupted. I am sure that majority of people on this forum have lost data/music at some time due to computer equipment failures, strong magnetic fields, etc. and even though one has backed up the data/music religiously, you still lose some. Often the cost and time spent in reconstructing the data/music back to the state prior to failure is high. How many users on the forum have at least one, if not more than one, "obsolete" digital format for which they may have data stored on that they can no longer retrieve because the media and requsite software and hardware no longer exists or is no longer supported/compatible with their current operating system and/or hardware yet the media was popular at the time? Do you really want that to happen to your music collection? Inevitably it will happen, maybe it will take longer for it to happen if the current choices were somewhat narrower.
Has anyone or any organisation been able to estimate the "lost sales" due to the recent format war between SACD and DVD-A? Now that the war has ended have sales increased as a result of the end of the format war?
Will Naim enter into the arena of building hi-end computer sound cards and producing software capable of playing back any and all of the digital formats available?
I am not anti technology, far from it, as it is an integral part of my livelyhood.
The future of playback systems and music is becoming more intertwined with one impacting on the other to a far greater degree than in the past. This discussion spans both the hardware and the software aspects of the industry and therefore will cross-over between the two main Naim forums. Maybe a separate forum will become necessary for discussions of this type in the future?
There is certainly a lot to ponder and reflect upon at the current time.
Cheers
[This message was edited by Geofiz on TUESDAY 09 September 2003 at 18:20.]
I feel that the decline in CD sales and music sales in general is related to the cross the board sameness and homogenisation of current music. Where are the inovators in the music world today? How many times are we going to hear the same rock standards being recycled and passed off as new? We seem to be in the downswing of the business cycle that permeats all businesses at some time. The result is that the boundaries between the various type of music are becoming obscured and opaque. At times there is little distinction between country, alternative, rock, heavy metal,etc when one looks at what is topping the charts and/or getting air play on radio/MTV/VH-1/etc. The music companies are starting to rely on technological "edges" to generate music sales and enthusaism in place of real inovation from the artists. Hopefully some real inovators will emerge and initiate a resurgence or new direction in the music industry.
Modern formats are fine, but a plethora of formats on the market at one time with the variation in quality that accomapanies such a situation makes it very hard for one to retail music and to provide a user friendly delivery system that can make money (the bottom line for the music business).
How many people out there are currently listening to MP3s or other digital formats on their PDAs, Cellphones, Diamond Rio players, etc through headphones? Do you ever listen to this same music by playing/transfering it through your home system? Chances are if you do, you listen to it once or twice and then go back to your "low-fi" playback system because the poor playback quality is acceptable in this manner or use it solely for background music. Some of you will search out the LP/CD/DVD-A/SACD disk, but most will not.
Convienence is fine if one accepts the trade-off of quality vs convienence, which is currently in an inverse relationship (as convienence increases quality decreases). As the "must have it now" attitude of mass consumerism continues, it is inevitable that convienence will win over quality until the quality reaches such a low point that the inevitable backlash occurs and quality is once more desirable, and once more a marketable mass market commodity. The digital formats that will permit this will be desirable if they can survive the current array of multiplicity.
It appears that more and more music will be played through the computer system that the end user has and hence the quality of music playback will become governed by the inherit noise levels of the various computers available and playback speakers connected. How many of you currently have your computer connected to your audiophile systems for playback of these digital formats?
One has to ask where is the convienence if the "new" formats are going to have an even shorter shelf life than the preceeding formats? This leaves the consumer out in the cold and only those with the money and access to the latest and greatest technologies are in a position to benefit. This in turn will most likely lead to fewer music sales as fewer people will be able to access the music.
The industry appears to be undergoing a paradigm shift of monsterous proportions (as evidenced by the current launch of the Apple Music system), hopefully it will be for the better, but given the current emphasis on the corporate bottom line it may not be.
Several other contributors to this forum thread have mentioned the need for a "final" archive format no matter what the digital format used. This will currently fall to the realm of CD or DVD formats for the mainstream user. Memory sticks, SD memory, hard drives, bubble memory etc. are convienent and can be just as convienently overwritten, lost, or erased. Who is willing to lose their entire collection of music if and when the media used becomes corrupted. I am sure that majority of people on this forum have lost data/music at some time due to computer equipment failures, strong magnetic fields, etc. and even though one has backed up the data/music religiously, you still lose some. Often the cost and time spent in reconstructing the data/music back to the state prior to failure is high. How many users on the forum have at least one, if not more than one, "obsolete" digital format for which they may have data stored on that they can no longer retrieve because the media and requsite software and hardware no longer exists or is no longer supported/compatible with their current operating system and/or hardware yet the media was popular at the time? Do you really want that to happen to your music collection? Inevitably it will happen, maybe it will take longer for it to happen if the current choices were somewhat narrower.
Has anyone or any organisation been able to estimate the "lost sales" due to the recent format war between SACD and DVD-A? Now that the war has ended have sales increased as a result of the end of the format war?
Will Naim enter into the arena of building hi-end computer sound cards and producing software capable of playing back any and all of the digital formats available?
I am not anti technology, far from it, as it is an integral part of my livelyhood.
The future of playback systems and music is becoming more intertwined with one impacting on the other to a far greater degree than in the past. This discussion spans both the hardware and the software aspects of the industry and therefore will cross-over between the two main Naim forums. Maybe a separate forum will become necessary for discussions of this type in the future?
There is certainly a lot to ponder and reflect upon at the current time.
Cheers
[This message was edited by Geofiz on TUESDAY 09 September 2003 at 18:20.]
Posted on: 09 September 2003 by matthewr
Geofix,
I would disagree that is a lack of good music at the moment. It seems to me that:
a) Whatever the era eople have always claimed "music is no good these days".
b) Most music has always been average at best with only a small percentage being good or great.
Possibly you could argue that in the "golden era" of rock and and pop (mid to late 60s, early 70s) that unlike today the good music was popular and was so easier to find.
With respect to the plethora of formats I agree its bad news but this issue rather goes away with digital music as format changes mean software fixes not new hardware. As I posted earlier the possiblitiy of multiple formats has potential to be an advatnage rather than a weakness by allowing different formats for different applications from the same hardware. And as you point out much of the CSACD/DVD-A saga indicates that the punters are basically fed up with new physical formats that require new hardware and re-purchase of music one already owns.
On the quality issue there is no concievable reason why media servers cannot be at least as good as CD (given time). I have no boubt that the likes of Naim will make a suitably effective (and expensive) audiophile media player.
Finally I think the backup issue is a bit of a red herring. I've lost more music by leaving CDs are people's houses than be having audio files deleted or corrupted. Also a sensibly designed backup system would probably backup your DRM info rather than teh music itself so if your house floods and you didn't store your backups in a firesafe beneath the Rockies you can retireve your right of ownership and re-download the music.
Matthew
I would disagree that is a lack of good music at the moment. It seems to me that:
a) Whatever the era eople have always claimed "music is no good these days".
b) Most music has always been average at best with only a small percentage being good or great.
Possibly you could argue that in the "golden era" of rock and and pop (mid to late 60s, early 70s) that unlike today the good music was popular and was so easier to find.
With respect to the plethora of formats I agree its bad news but this issue rather goes away with digital music as format changes mean software fixes not new hardware. As I posted earlier the possiblitiy of multiple formats has potential to be an advatnage rather than a weakness by allowing different formats for different applications from the same hardware. And as you point out much of the CSACD/DVD-A saga indicates that the punters are basically fed up with new physical formats that require new hardware and re-purchase of music one already owns.
On the quality issue there is no concievable reason why media servers cannot be at least as good as CD (given time). I have no boubt that the likes of Naim will make a suitably effective (and expensive) audiophile media player.
Finally I think the backup issue is a bit of a red herring. I've lost more music by leaving CDs are people's houses than be having audio files deleted or corrupted. Also a sensibly designed backup system would probably backup your DRM info rather than teh music itself so if your house floods and you didn't store your backups in a firesafe beneath the Rockies you can retireve your right of ownership and re-download the music.
Matthew
Posted on: 09 September 2003 by Geofiz
A few further remarks:
Point taken. Compared to just a few years ago, things seem to have stagnated somewhat, hopefully it will pick up again. Some said the same thing about the 80's music (which at the time, I disagreed with).
Again, no dispute here, we just seem to be in a "less than normal" period for good or great music.
Probably a factor of fewer format choices (really only LP and Cassette as the EL-cassette, 8-track and 4-channel quad LP were all format war casualties at some point; reel-to-reel tape was always a restricted market for die-hards only)
We are essentially in agreement here.
Again, essentially in agreement, but quality will drop further before it is improved again. Hopefully when this happens the improvement will surpass the current highest fidelity available now.
I would agree with this if I did not have as many negative experiences in trying to retrieve and/or obtain redress for paid for software licences that were available by download that were either (a)corrupted during the download process, (b) where the online purchase records (and DRM info) were not accepted as proof of ownership when the hard disk etc. was lost due to failure/theft or corruption of the back-up(s) and (c) I am referring to the unfortunate soul who will not have backed up their system (probably your average punter), has not kept record of the purchases, and has obtained hundreds, if not thousands of songs and lost the device/media they were stored on. Losing an individual CD or LP (and probably the 2 or 3 songs that you bought the disc for), although inconvienent, can hopefully be replaced through a trip to the local CD shop or used record store, but the loss, in general, is small. Heaven forbid if one was to loose a 256MB flash disk, laptop computer or other media with hundreds of songs on it that was your only copy of that music. Much more difficult to replace if you do not have a back-up somewhere.
Somehow, I think that an insurance company would much more readily pay out replacement value on the loss of an LP/CD collection then for the loss of a memory stick, SD disk, etc. containing paid for music, the digital media replacement cost falling within most people's deductible limit (if they have house and contents insurance). So I have to disagree with the backup as a red herring issue. Maybe it will become a non-issue and is a non-issue for the average punter and will reamin so until one actually has to try and retrieve something already paid for.
I'm signing off on this one as I think we have debated it to death and are in agreement on most, if not all issues raised.
Cheers,
quote:
a) Whatever the era eople have always claimed "music is no good these days".
Point taken. Compared to just a few years ago, things seem to have stagnated somewhat, hopefully it will pick up again. Some said the same thing about the 80's music (which at the time, I disagreed with).
quote:
b) Most music has always been average at best with only a small percentage being good or great.
Again, no dispute here, we just seem to be in a "less than normal" period for good or great music.
quote:
Possibly you could argue that in the "golden era" of rock and and pop (mid to late 60s, early 70s) that unlike today the good music was popular and was so easier to find.
Probably a factor of fewer format choices (really only LP and Cassette as the EL-cassette, 8-track and 4-channel quad LP were all format war casualties at some point; reel-to-reel tape was always a restricted market for die-hards only)
quote:
With respect to the plethora of formats I agree its bad news but this issue rather goes away with digital music as format changes mean software fixes not new hardware. As I posted earlier the possiblitiy of multiple formats has potential to be an advatnage rather than a weakness by allowing different formats for different applications from the same hardware. And as you point out much of the CSACD/DVD-A saga indicates that the punters are basically fed up with new physical formats that require new hardware and re-purchase of music one already owns.
We are essentially in agreement here.
quote:
On the quality issue there is no concievable reason why media servers cannot be at least as good as CD (given time). I have no boubt that the likes of Naim will make a suitably effective (and expensive) audiophile media player.
Again, essentially in agreement, but quality will drop further before it is improved again. Hopefully when this happens the improvement will surpass the current highest fidelity available now.
quote:
Finally I think the backup issue is a bit of a red herring. I've lost more music by leaving CDs are people's houses than be having audio files deleted or corrupted. Also a sensibly designed backup system would probably backup your DRM info rather than teh music itself so if your house floods and you didn't store your backups in a firesafe beneath the Rockies you can retireve your right of ownership and re-download the music.
I would agree with this if I did not have as many negative experiences in trying to retrieve and/or obtain redress for paid for software licences that were available by download that were either (a)corrupted during the download process, (b) where the online purchase records (and DRM info) were not accepted as proof of ownership when the hard disk etc. was lost due to failure/theft or corruption of the back-up(s) and (c) I am referring to the unfortunate soul who will not have backed up their system (probably your average punter), has not kept record of the purchases, and has obtained hundreds, if not thousands of songs and lost the device/media they were stored on. Losing an individual CD or LP (and probably the 2 or 3 songs that you bought the disc for), although inconvienent, can hopefully be replaced through a trip to the local CD shop or used record store, but the loss, in general, is small. Heaven forbid if one was to loose a 256MB flash disk, laptop computer or other media with hundreds of songs on it that was your only copy of that music. Much more difficult to replace if you do not have a back-up somewhere.
Somehow, I think that an insurance company would much more readily pay out replacement value on the loss of an LP/CD collection then for the loss of a memory stick, SD disk, etc. containing paid for music, the digital media replacement cost falling within most people's deductible limit (if they have house and contents insurance). So I have to disagree with the backup as a red herring issue. Maybe it will become a non-issue and is a non-issue for the average punter and will reamin so until one actually has to try and retrieve something already paid for.
I'm signing off on this one as I think we have debated it to death and are in agreement on most, if not all issues raised.
Cheers,