Industry finally abandoning CDs ?

http://www.side-line.com/news_comments.php?id=46980_0_2_0_C

You read it well. The major labels plan to abandon the CD-format by the end of 2012 (or even earlier) and replace it with download/stream only releases via iTunes and related music services.

We were approached by several people working with major labels, who indeed re-confirm that plans do exist to give up the CD.

Fuck
 


Edited by Kingcrimsonprog - 04 Nov 2011 at 7:15am

^The physical media will not end, but, like happens with the vinyl albums, will appeal only to few people. This means less (and more expensive) CD's in the market.

I think eliminating CD's entirely would REALLY hurt the music industry... I buy CD's all the time and never purchase MP3's. If the only option is to either download MP3's for free or pay money for them, I have a bad feeling that most people would skip the process of 'buying' music entirely. 

If they think music sales are bad now, phasing out the physical media forms will only make things worse.  More and more stores near where I live that sold CDs are dissapearing already.  I know you can order online from Amazon or other sites, but I've always been a fan of browsing selections at stores even if the selection isn't up to my standards .  

I am reasonably sure they are only going to do this for current, mainstream artist's releases. CDs will stick around for sales to people who are unable/unwilling to go the download route, and for musical subcultures which highly prize the album format - like metal and so on.

Im sure I could chalk up a year of my life to haunting the myriad Tower Records, Wherehouse's, Sam Goody's, Virgin Megastores, and countless hole-in-the-wall Mom & Pop record stores over the years.

Certainly flies in the face of conventional basic journalism. Although, given how news works in the blogosphere information age, not at all out of the question that it happens.

I do like physical CDs, because I'm old school and like having the collection, but I am also progressive  and accept that yeah, the future will generally be the end of the CD and honestly I'm ok with it. If I was bored enough I'd see if I still have a short paper I wrote for an econ class  about why file sharing is good and the future of the industry.

Part of what I said is kind of along the lines of others here, maybe for major labels the CD will come to an end but they WILL continue to be made...maybe by the bands themselves or smaller labels, which is cool since there is more opportunity for bands to not try and "make" it. They can play what they want and it'll be easier to get their shit out there!