new format to replace CDs?

[dongmin]

NYTimes article (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/29/technology/circuits/29RECO.html?8hpib)

Yet another media format hits the market, this one pushed by the recording industry.

Seems like a really lame attempt to me. I don't see any advantages in it, except for the recording industry. If you want to go small, why not just get an mp3 player?


Excerps:

'The newly released portable music format, called DataPlay digital media, is the latest technology joining a cornucopia of choices for consumers to play their favorite tunes through headphones connected to palm-size devices. The discs, contained in a clear plastic shell, are about the size of the ring in the center of a CD, or about one-fourth the size of a minidisc. They will be available in blank, recordable form as well as prerecorded, copy-protected albums.

Because of that last feature, DataPlay is being embraced by major record labels. So far BMG, Universal Music and EMI Group have signed on, say officials for DataPlay, which developed the technology.'

'Waves of prerecorded DataPlay discs will soon wash into record stores, starting with re-releases of top-selling albums by the likes of Britney Spears, 'N Sync, Pink, Usher, OutKast, Sarah McLachlan and Brooks & Dunn, BMG record executives say. Some musicians, including Carlos Santana, are scheduled to have new albums released simultaneously on CD and DataPlay.'

'The selling points borrow a page from the DVD playbook, the success story of the video marketplace. The prerecorded versions will also incorporate features like digital photo galleries and music videos that can be viewed when the player is connected to a PC, and even interviews, extended liner notes and music-related games. Future players may well include color L.C.D. screens to play music videos.'

'"We're excited," said Aahmek Richards, who is in charge of new media for Arista Records, which is part of BMG. "Technology should allow the business to change and grow in so many ways it never had an opportunity to do."'

'"Even though CD's have been good to it, the music industry would like CD's to go away," said Josh Bernoff, a principal analyst for Forrester Research, a technology consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. "They're too easy to rip."'

[djkut]

It requires registration...please post quotes.

Thanks

[Durandal7]

I heard from inside sources at Apple that CDs are slowly getting replaced by a newfangled thing called DVDs ;)

[ShaolinMiddleFinger]

Originally posted by asurace
I heard from inside sources at Apple that CDs are slowly getting replaced by a newfangled thing called DVDs ;)

no.....really?!?!?! :D ;) :p :cool: :)

i hope they bring back those big black cd's, though....:D

[big]

do you remember LASERDISKS? those huge record like sized cd's?

[King Cobra]

I clearly remember LaserDisks like it was yesterday. My father has a stereo store in NY, and, when I was younger, I used to watch LaserDisk movies all the time, ranging from the comedy of The Private Eyes, to the graphic violence of Predator, to the fun and emotional passion of Free Willy. [Yes, I was watching Predator before I was 10. :eek: :eek:] I was able to watch one hour of a movie before the LaserDisk had to be flipped over. It was a real pain, since it was big, heavy, and incredibly easy to ruin.

dongmin, and to anyone else with access to the NYTimes, I don't feel the need to register and send in personal information to get free news, and I am sure many others feel the same way.

So, if you don't mind, dongmin, will you post the article?

[Rajj]

Yeah it is called an iPod!!!;) :p

[rugby]

My question is regarding this quote:

'"We're excited," said Aahmek Richards, who is in charge of new media for Arista Records, which is part of BMG. "Technology should allow the business to change and grow in so many ways it never had an opportunity to do."'


How is this change going to benefit anyone but the RIAA? Sorry, I'll stick with cd's and my iPod (as long as they allow me to)

[748s]

the"industry" tried pushing those 8 track cartridge things as well. no 8 track recorders so it died.
saw a 1980's vinyl lp......had a "home taping is killing music" sticker on it...yeah right!

[clubsport]

DataPlay sucks.

I much prefer this new thing called a Mac... you can use it to store all of your music in this cool thing called iTunes and then transfer it to this other thing called an iPod...

:D :D :D :D :D :D

[gopher]

Dataplay has one distinct advantage and that is that its cartidges are hard to scratch. And if it is non-magnetic, it could be the best of floppy and the best of CD. That's what I'd like to see. So far removable media either consisted of CDs which you would have problems if you accidently scratched the underside of (even worse when double sided), and all other media which has been magnetic and easily erased by electromagnetic fields. Still I don't like the copy protection. What ever happened to fair use? I should be able to make my own archival backups of data. If I can't then it is a waste of money on media and buying upgrades from software vendors. And then that eventually forces you to buy a new computer because an update may not run on your old one.

[Gatorman]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by 748s
[B]the"industry" tried pushing those 8 track cartridge things as well.

Actually, I thought 8 Track was the predacessor to today's Audio Tapes. Maybe I'm wrong.

Hey, also....I actually heard that Audio DVD's were making their way to the market to replace CD's. Anyone else heard about this?

[FattyMembrane]

if you go on cdnow.com you can buy audio dvds that will play through your home theater system. i like the compact, scratch resistant, multimedia capabilities of this new product, and can honestly understand publishing companies concerns with piracy, but gopher is absolutely right about fair use, and i think a lot of people are fed up with the RIAA$$holes destroying software products and wanting to go so far as to hack into our computers and delete our property. i think it will take a few years for the industry to realize that copy protected media really aggrevate people, especially the ones smart enough to get around its limitations.

[mnkeybsness]

the problem with DVD Audio is that your dvd player must be specified to work with DVD Audio discs...and most people have dvd players now and would not spring to buy a new one within at least 3 years...

...and SACD...what a waste...they are just too expensive and there is such a limited selection right now they would not catch on for years and years...

...lasers can actually read depth now and at one point in time they were talking about bringing 1"x1"x1" cubes that would hold data/music...haven't heard anything for about 2 years though.

[Pepzhez]

Dataplay has one distinct advantage and that is that its cartridges are hard to scratch.

There's already a reliable, well-established - at least in Asia and Europe - format that meets this criterion. It's called MiniDisc and has existed for 10 years now. A real shame that it remains a cult/niche format in the US because it truly is a fantastic medium.

The music industry gets stupider everyday. Dataplay is the most Draconian format I've ever heard about. If you read the fine print at their website, you'll discover that the (blank) discs are write-once, expensive and immune to copying. Dataplay also will require collection of personal info in order for you to "unlock" certain features of pre-recorded discs. That is, after you pay again. This format should be avoided like the plague.

And I'm sure that it will. Is anyone really going to buy this? I doubt it. It will fail miserably. Good riddance.

I guess the music industry is getting more and more desperate. They are confusedly and half-heartedly trying to market SACD, DVD-A and now Dataplay simultaneously - and meeting only with huge public indifference. Well, I don't buy anything on RIAA-related labels anyway, so I really don't care. I am, however, enjoying sitting back and watching it all collapse.

One should always REFUSE OUTRIGHT any format/device that infringes on your fair use rights. (I guarantee you that there is no way you will ever be able to get a Dataplay track into your ipod.)

[mdman]

Originally posted by Pepzhez


There's already a reliable, well-established - at least in Asia and Europe - format that meets this criterion. It's called MiniDisc and has existed for 10 years now. A real shame that it remains a cult/niche format in the US because it truly is a fantastic medium.


I've been using MD for over 2 years now. And I can't say enough good things about it. Although MD is hugh in Asia and starting to get really big in Europe, it just hasn't caught on here, I think because of the RIAA et al. They pretty much killed DAT, and would probably love to do the same thing to MD. I am still amazed that they sell systems with tape players. I would have thought by now people who have done away with their tape collections years ago.

Although I wish I would have waited when I bought my last MD player, as shortly after the iPod was released :(

[peterjhill]

This thing is going to sink as fast as Divx, and I don't mean the divx that lets you put a movie on a single cdr. Do you remember the competitor to dvd, that you need a special player for.

This thing will not sell. If an artist releases something on this format only, it will not sell. Or if it does, it will be to crypto-hackers who will break the format. They are insane if they think this will take off. If I can't take a song from a cd and load it up onto the iPod that is on it's way from apple to me as we speak, I will not purchase it. No fricking way.

[davidc2182]

yep either the hackers are going to break the encryption or people will continue to buy CDs and then burn it to the new dataplay disks the blanks. Minidisc is an awesome format, the functionality of a CD without the hassle of scratches. I say if the world of music lovers unites and f*cks the RIAA and doesnt purchase any new music at all for umm 3 years and just pirates everything then they'll see how much we don't accept copy protection! and that we don't even have to purchase CD's to get the music we want and they cannot force us to!

[zaltar]

Cant basically any kind of copy protection be bypassed by hooking whatever playing media it is, say a CD player playing a copy-protected cd, up to the microphone input on a computer and recording it in analog? Sure there is a little loss of quality, but with high quality cables the quality loss would be less than whats lost in a conversion to MP3. Remember back in the days when people just recorded to tapes from the radio? Why all this technological encryption crap when we can bypass it that easily? Am i missing something? Please correct me if im wrong in this.

[vniow]

Yep, you can. The quality's not as good as a well-encoded MP3 but it can be done. :)

[zimv20]

Originally posted by zaltar
Cant basically any kind of copy protection be bypassed by hooking whatever playing media it is, say a CD player playing a copy-protected cd, up to the microphone input on a computer and recording it in analog? Am i missing something?

you are missing nothing.

the "benefit" of analog tape, from the viewpoint of the record industry, is that successive copies degrade.

with the growing popularity of loss-less digital to digital copying, the RI is getting more and more desperate, as they (correctly) see a threat to the way they've done business for decades.

in your scenario, you'd be making one analog pass back to a digital format that doesn't have an anti-copy scheme built in. so you're good. we're all good. as long as blank CDs are made. or minidisks. or DAT. or computers.

the record industry as we know it is dead. it's just making a lot of noise as it goes down.

[zaltar]

To add to that, I think instead of wasting their money trying to stop the copying of music through MP3s and such, the RIAA develops a new standard of media of higher quality / content that we can't copy as easily. Such as when CDs first emerged replacing cassette tapes, burners and MP3s as we know them today didn't exist. Just a thought..... Its just the American way, i guess, to try to take everything to the courts.

[BongHits]

Originally posted by Gatorman
[QUOTE]Originally posted by 748s
[B]the"industry" tried pushing those 8 track cartridge things as well.

Actually, I thought 8 Track was the predacessor to today's Audio Tapes. Maybe I'm wrong.

Hey, also....I actually heard that Audio DVD's were making their way to the market to replace CD's. Anyone else heard about this?

they're trying to push new formats...super audio cd for audiophiles (which strangely is stereo...not really an audiophiles dream...) and then DVD Audio which is like a multimeda cd with videos and options for sound (5.1, stereo, etc.). You can find them in the DVD section at most best buys...but the selection is rather slim. here's to good old audio cd's.

[BongHits]

Originally posted by Pepzhez

I guarantee you that there is no way you will ever be able to get a Dataplay track into your ipod.

i guarantee your wrong, the question is will people hack dataplay's encryption if nobody buys it?? i say don't even pay attention to it...just let the recording industry invest their money in a lost cause so their's less money in the pot when they start suing individuals...:rolleyes: i wonder how much longer the public will support them after the first lawsuit hits newstands...

o and btw, if they offered a $1.99 per month fee that allowed you to d/l any and all music on the label and burn to cd or ipod or whatever, would you go for it? I know i would. the only way the recording industry will stay afloat is if they realize $12.99 for 15 songs is ********. I could buy a quality movie for 7 more. make us a good offer and maybe we'll stop circumventing your methods.

[tjwett]

Originally posted by big
do you remember LASERDISKS? those huge record like sized cd's?

haha! sure do. i still have a Pioneer LD player and about 20 disks. they were awesome because you could make awesome quality VHS copies without the protection laws of today's DVDs. i have no idea what i'll do with it. i think i'll hang onto them for awhile. imagine how funny those big 12" CDs will look in 20 years.

[Durandal7]

The RIAA is a bunch of fools. Instead of being content with people buying CDs and downloading a few songs, they are now determined to force us to either buy only CDs or do nothing but download songs. I think that within a few months if things continue like this I will never buy another album.

[MacSlut]

Originally posted by 748s
the"industry" tried pushing those 8 track cartridge things as well. no 8 track recorders so it died.


This is not true. I even had an 8-track recorder and used it mostly for recording LPs.

I don't know why this myth is popular, or why people can't get this story or the VHS versus Beta story correct...such as, "Sony was foolish for not licensing Beta", "Beta could only record for 1 hour", or even that "Beta died".

Anyway, 8-tracks were killed off because of an industry shift to the audio cassette for a variety of reasons, none of which had to do with recordability.

Audio cassettes were originally mono, poor quality and unreliable. They lacked things like auto-reverse, real-time, Dolby and other features, but they were recordable from the very beginning. They were intended to be used for dictation.

The 8-track was superior in quality, reliability and with some features. Originally pretty much all audio cassette decks (portable and home) had either built-in microphones or cabled microphones. I had a huge "portable" one that had a permanently attached microphone.

8-tracks on the other had pretty much only recorded on home deck systems, but from the beginning were meant for (at the time) quality music (haha).

New tape formulations were made and audio cassettes became better in terms of reliability and quality. Many 8-track drive manufactures that produced the better mechanisms quit the 8-track business and started supplying audio cassettes that were now able to match 8-tracks and eventually R&D provided such things as auto-reverse, high-bias, dolby, etc... while the only manufactures of 8-track mechanisms were only looking at ways to provide cheap units.

Cassettes became better and better while 8-tracks got worse. 8-track drives became noisy and unreliable.

Perhaps the final nail in the coffin was the Walkman.

The point of this is that there were two formats to begin with. Manufacturers followed what consumers were looking for, which resulted in one format supplanting another. This is why CDs and DVDs became so successful, why DiVX failed, why DCC failed and the MiniDisk became such a strong, yet narrow niche.

Apply the lessons learned from all the past formats, and this new format is sooooooo doomed to fail.

The only reason why I could see someone wanting to buy one of these things is for the eBay potential in like 20 years when the concept of record "companies" is kitsch.

[Steak]

Wow, the silliness and stupidity in this thread absolutely amazes me. The attempt to 'rationalize' larceny ,the support of crap, and the support of horrible sounding media is rampant.

First off, downloading music, without paying, is immoral, and is theft. There are NO exceptions. Fair-use(buy a CD, make MP3's, cassettes, or anything else you like) is your right, but differs immensely from downloading. You CAN Car-jack an old lady, does not make it right.

Mini-disc is a horrible, compressed, tinny-sounding media. Its creation and use is an abomination. It has not caught on since electronic(midi) music is not the mainstream in the US as in Asia and Europe. Its popular there, since 16 bit sampled crap is also popular. I have very little better to say about the pitiful ADAT medium as well. Crap.

Well, you don't want to pay 12.99 for a CD? good, nobody is forcing you. You do not have a right to have that artists property because you want it. You must pay for it. Since a 'Jaguar' costs about $50,000 , do I have the right to steal it because i think it is only worth $400 to me? Of course not, but that is the logic displayed here. Goods and services have a price, if you don't want to pay them, you don't get them. Is that such a hard concept to understand?

When you pay the average CD price, you are of course not paying for the actual manufacture of the CD. You are paying for recording, marketing(so that you hear it in the first place) and most of all for alternative genres of music.
LESS than 5% of recorded albums make a profit. This means 5% of albums cover the cost of 100% of all albums recorded, mastered, manufactured, shipped, marketed, and sold. when a more obscure band records at an average cost of $250,000 , gets $100,000 worth of marketing, and a touring budget, yet only ends up selling 5 thousand records, someone has to make up that difference. This is the case with roughly 95% of recorded bands.

They could sell the CD's for $3, but then you would have maybe 20 top-selling artists recorded or released. That would mean you have a choice between britney spears, N'sync, linkin park, and Mariah Carey. Would you not complain if thats all the music the RIAA offered you? Their big names, selling at high prices, covers the cost of the little guys. The Aimee Mann's, Wilco's, and Pixies' of the world. Thank Justin Timberlake for paying out of his pocket for these bands to even exist.

This new media will obviously fail, but labels arent sold on it anyway. They are just looking for a way to save themselves before the true new medium comes out. As mentioned before in this thread, tis a small sube (crystal) , no moving parts, and stores mass amounts of data. Problem is, its still digital info. When you convert to 1's and 0's, there is ALWAYS a way to crack it, and steal it. This medium just might give a few years before they must upgrade the medium again. Did you ever think the high CD prices are also their to help cover costs of R & D to make new medias that cannot be stolen right away? If half the people at the grocery store stole their food, the rest of the honest people would be paying double, to cover the cost of the theives. YOU (downloading frenzy fools) are the cause of inflated prices, anti-piracy software, and that whole crowd. Not the labels, bands, or RIAA. Just the average teen with Kazaa.
Therefore, if you continue to steal, the music you like will become harder to find, and more expensive if you do find it.
The only way around this would be a return to Vinyl Records. Copies could be made, but with low quality. So, maybe thats the direction we should go?(oh, records today cost about $8 a piece to manufacture)

As for 'Bong hits' comment, about a $1.99 a month service to download all songs off a label, thats ridiculous. If Adobe software only charged $1.99 a month for all the software in their entire catalog, for full use and sharing, would they be in business very long? I think not, and their overhead costs are far lower than any major recording label.

Get over trying to justify the theft of other people's property. It is not your right to have whatever you want. These people have to eat, and pay their rents as well. If you steal music, you are the downfall of recorded music.


-Chris

[MacSlut]

Originally posted by Steak


“First off, downloading music, without paying, is immoral, and is theft. There are NO exceptions.”

Yes there is! When an indie artist decides to allow people to download samples from an album (sometimes entire songs) for promotion purposes, they can and often do so without any intent of charging. In fact the overwhelming majority of music that I download is like this. The rest of the music I download is either stuff I want to try before buying or stuff that is not available for purchase (out of print).

“Fair-use(buy a CD, make MP3's, cassettes, or anything else you like) is your right, but differs immensely from downloading. You CAN Car-jack an old lady, does not make it right.”

Actually, I think in many instances it does make it right. The recording industry is totally screwing artists. The contracts for the vast majority are such that artists lose money from making albums. Stealing the albums and using the money to pay for concert tickets is one way of making right against the record companies who themselves have a history of illegal practices and control over the market.

The companies should be in the position of promoting artists. Bringing their music to the people and providing this as a service. This is why they are going to die. They stopped having this be their mission and instead focused on buying out the work of artists and building libraries of music they now owned.


“Mini-disc is a horrible, compressed, tinny-sounding media. Its creation and use is an abomination.”

Early MiniDisc was, but the latter codecs sounded pretty good. Now I agree that CD (44.1 KHz 16-bit) isn’t good enough for processing purposes, MiniDisc meets or exceeds the quality level for the vast majority of consumers in situations like Walkmans, car stereos, etc… where size and convenience matter more than quality. In other words MiniDisc is a fine output format, but not a source format. This is why MiniDisc blanks sold a lot, while pre-recorded MDs did not.

“It has not caught on since electronic(midi) music is not the mainstream in the US as in Asia and Europe.”

What the heck does MiniDisc have to do with with Midi? Also, MD did catch on in Asia and to a lesser degree Europe. Personally, I think they would’ve got on here in the US if MP3 players hadn’t come out.

“Well, you don't want to pay 12.99 for a CD? good, nobody is forcing you. You do not have a right to have that artists property because you want it.”

You make it sound like as if the artists don’t want us to steal the music. With the exception of record company puppets like Britney Spearz and The Back sTreat N-Sink BoyZZ most artists benefit from their music being distributed over the Net.

If the record companies weren’t both so corrupt and retarded they would realizes that in many situations they are making more money from this or could change their business models easily to make more money.

“You must pay for it. Since a 'Jaguar' costs about $50,000 , do I have the right to steal it because i think it is only worth $400 to me?”

No, but if Ford had illegal control over distribution of cars and were selling Jaguars for $10 million dollars and then charging employees to actually make the cars, and the auto industry was an oligopoly so all car manufacturers did this. And if the auto industry bribed congress to allow this to happen, then while illegal, I don’t think it would be wrong to revolt by stealing Jaguars.

Of course, you could say, buy a cheaper car, but this is where the whole analogy fails anyway. We aren’t talking about products. We’re talking about works of art. We’re talking about artists who see record companies as a barrier to allowing them to distribute their work and be compensated fairly for it. It is their illegal control over the market which allows this.


“Of course not, but that is the logic displayed here. Goods and services have a price, if you don't want to pay them, you don't get them. Is that such a hard concept to understand?”

If illegally controlling the market and overcharging consumers while depriving artists of fair compensation ultimately results in slightly less than totally obscene profits then, perhaps remodeling your business should be a concept worth understanding.

“When you pay the average CD price, you are of course not paying for the actual manufacture of the CD. You are paying for recording, marketing(so that you hear it in the first place) and most of all for alternative genres of music.”

Yes, but the profit margin on CDs account for this, and is totally unreasonable. Note that you neglected to mention the cost for the artist who created the work.

“LESS than 5% of recorded albums make a profit.”

This is primarily because most companies focus only on creating the next Briteny SpearZ. As a result there are artists who they spend millions of dollars on who sound all the same…boring.

“This means 5% of albums cover the cost of 100% of all albums recorded, mastered, manufactured, shipped, marketed, and sold.”

This is still a totally obscene profit.

“They could sell the CD's for $3, but then you would have maybe 20 top-selling artists recorded or released.”

Your logic is just the opposite of what it should be. If they didn’t spend gazillions of dollars on trying to find the next Brittany SpearS, then they could become record factories. Producing and distributing CDs for fractions of what it costs them today, but making profits with volume and lower costs. This would result in many more artists being available. There would be incentive to sign anyone, not just someone you think may become Britterny Spaers.

“Did you ever think the high CD prices are also their to help cover costs of R & D to make new medias that cannot be stolen right away?”

No, I never thought that… Maybe because CD prices are totally cheap. Pre-recorded CDs are what are totally expensive. In other words Record companies spend $0 a year developing new recording technologies. They leave that to technology companies.

Also, it’s a pointless effort. Nobody will ever be able to produce a recording format that I can’t record digitally onto a CD, MD, DAT, etc… It simply can’t ever be done. Again the record companies are retarded for not realizing this.

[Moxiemike]

Well said MacSlut! You managed to smack down the under done steak in every way possible. I was reading his "post" and thinking of ways to retort and blamo! you did it for me.

all i have to say is that emusic.com is a FINE model for music distribution!

i think Apple's card is the iPod--- if the industry shifts to something like eMusic, I think apple is headed to golden land!

Heh

thanks again MacSlut.

[Steak]

Moxie,, I'm glad that Macslut made you feel OK about theft, but all his/her points were wrong. My Favorite is:
"You make it sound like as if the artists don’t want us to steal the music."

No, they really don't want you to rip them off. Really, they don't want to spend 6 months writing, buying gear, 3 months in the studio at $125 an hour, and $300 an hour mastering the album. They truly DONT want you to steal it. If they sell no albums, the Record company does NOT give them funding to record again, and they are back to their day jobs at Starbucks.

Do you understand, that bands WANT record contracts. They WANT someone else to foot the bill to record a good, quality album. Is there a huge group of bands out there, trying their hardest to not get a contract?> no way, they are trying to get one. There is a reason. Labels don't steal the bands, lock them in a whole, and make them record for ransom, these bands beg for the chance.

'If illegally controlling the market and overcharging consumers while depriving artists of fair compensation ultimately results in slightly less than totally obscene profits then, perhaps remodeling your business should be a concept worth understanding.'----well then, fair compensation. how about, all the artists who don't sell enough albums, have to pay back the money they spent recording, mastering, marketing , and touring. So, some small band is stuck with a 1/2 million dollar bill to the label, that when they get back to minimum wage jobs, they must pay back. This way, labels would recoup the losses, and successful CD's would be more affordable. (thats a lot of starbucks frappuccinos to swing, 1/2 million worth)
Small artists get fair compensation. The pop bands do not. The only ones losing in this deal are the Britney Spears types. The ones who actually SELL records. They should sue all the small bands, for stealing their profits, because thats what is happening.
-----
Yes, but the profit margin on CDs account for this, and is totally unreasonable. Note that you neglected to mention the cost for the artist who created the work.---ok, time for some math,, most, nearly all albums run over $250,000 from start to finish(no marketing, no video, just recording, mastering, printing). Label picks up about $9-11 per CD. So the band sells 10,000 copies (less than 10% even sell THIS many),,, so
10,000 copies at an average of $10 per piece=$100,000,,, well then, that means the label lost $150,000 by signing and releasing that band. If you want new, or alternative music, someone has to sign that act. Should they pay you $150,000 to hear it? thats bad business.
--------
“This means 5% of albums cover the cost of 100% of all albums recorded, mastered, manufactured, shipped, marketed, and sold.”

This is still a totally obscene profit. ---i dont understand your comment, macslut. How is it obscene profit?
-------------
If you paid $10 a piece for Wingnuts, and sold 5% of them for $40, how would you possibly have any profit. Its obscene how much they lose on these deals. 1000 wingnuts at $10 a piece=$100,000
sell 5%(50) at $40 a piece, you brought back in $2000 on a $100,000 investment. Which leaves you $98,000 in the hole. This is about the average return labels collect on most bands (besides the pop bands, who sell millions)


I could go on for miles about every comment you made, but you obviously know nothing about the recording industry, bands, making albums, or anything related to it. You are so wrong it is frightful, and if you like, I can throw a pole in the spokes of any wheel you wish to roll at me. I know how it works, very well. The price of manufacturing a CD is low, thats obvious. Well, the price of manufacturing an Apple operating system CD installer, is about 12 cents. Should we only pay 15 cents to buy the CD installer? of course not. The true cost of that CD is R & D, programming, testing, legal, and countless other costs.


Moxie Mike has no mind of his own. He just says 'yeah!, thats what i was going to say! I know i have no point, but macslut attempted to lie in big words, so I'll believe him that larceny is ok."

Stealing is NOT OK, no matter how much you try to justify it.

You have no RIGHT to recorded music. You can buy a guitar and play, listen to the radio, whatever. Owning someone elses personal property without compensating them is stealing, in every way. Unless of course they give it to you.. They dont give it to you, its stolen from them. This is in no way different from shoplifting, carjacking, or being a cat-burglar. You can try to justify however you like, but you are still stealing someone elses property without paying, and without permission. Thief! You belong in Jail, truly. You are a cancer on society, a sponge upon the earnings of decent hard-working people, and should get a life, and after that get yourself a job. Of course, with your logic, why should your job pay you? You owe it to them to work for free!

-chris

[MacSlut]

“No, they really don't want you to rip them off. Really, they don't want to spend 6 months writing, buying gear, 3 months in the studio at $125 an hour, and $300 an hour mastering the album. They truly DONT want you to steal it. If they sell no albums, the Record company does NOT give them funding to record again, and they are back to their day jobs at Starbucks.”

Some 90-99% of artists don’t care if you steal their CDs other than it affects their contract…not their wallet. They spend far more money on producing their albums than they want, because they don’t have control over it. The record companies over spend the artist’s money on useless crap…what was the name of that Briatiny Speers wannabe who they spent $2 million on and only sold a few thousand? They put her in a $10K a month apartment and after about a year she had massive debt….all of HER money they spent on HER.

Any way, ask artists like George Michael, Courtney Love, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Chumbawamba, what they think of how stealing their music affects them. They’ll tell you, “it’s already been stolen”.

“Do you understand, that bands WANT record contracts. They WANT someone else to foot the bill to record a good, quality album.”

No, don’t you understand they NEED to have contracts. Just like in old mafia controlled New York, you NEEDED to have “protection” for your store.

Someone else isn’t footing the bill. They charge the bands for all the crap they can. This is why most bands don’t make money from album sales.

“Is there a huge group of bands out there, trying their hardest to not get a contract?”

Yes. There are many lawsuits from people trying to get out of contracts where they realize that they are getting paid less than minimum wage for their work. Go read Courtney Love. She really hit the nail on the head with her article.


“no way, they are trying to get one. There is a reason. Labels don't steal the bands, lock them in a whole, and make them record for ransom, these bands beg for the chance.”

This is what you aren’t getting. It’s not like the record companies are record factories. It doesn’t cost that much money to buy the equipment necessary to produce and album today. Most albums cost more to produce than the equipment required to produce them. I know this…I’m a producer. I could easily buy the equipment and produce an album for $10K, some even less than that.

Same thing with marketing and distribution. Record companies spend way to much money because it isn’t their money.

Bands don’t want record companies because they’re providing any real legal benefit. They need record companies because they control airplay and distribution. Hence they sign deals which force them to give up their music and control.

You could be a great artist and easily buy the equipment and produce a killer album. Now try and get airplay and distribution. You can’t because of the illegal control the record companies have over the market.

This is changing with the Net, because the same tech that allows for stealing music also allows for promotion by indies. Like I originally said, this has been the bulk of my MP3 use.

“well then, fair compensation. how about, all the artists who don't sell enough albums, have to pay back the money they spent recording, mastering, marketing , and touring. So, some small band is stuck with a 1/2 million dollar bill to the label, that when they get back to minimum wage jobs, they must pay back.”

According to their contracts, they DO have to pay the money back. The problem is the artists don’t control how much money is spent. If the record companies are going to spend the money, they should be liable for the loss.

“Small artists get fair compensation. The pop bands do not. The only ones losing in this deal are the Britney Spears types. The ones who actually SELL records. They should sue all the small bands, for stealing their profits, because thats what is happening.”

Do some fact checking. You’re very wrong on this point. Only a handful of very large artists make money on album sales. The vast majority lose money on records.

Sometimes small bands get lucky and sell a lot with their freshman album. However as soon as their label sees this, they then spend lots of money promoting it. And why not? It’s not their money. Look at it this way:

BandX struggles for years, but can’t get airplay or distribution without a major record company. Their small shows produce a following and soon they get approached by a label. They then go to a studio and produce a low budget album.

They get airplay and start selling lots of records. OMG it looks like they’re going to be profitable! It looks like they might make say $1 million profit on the record sales. So the record company then starts bilking the artist for every $ spent. They do things like spend even more money on marketing such that it appears that there is no profit. The artists get nothing, but an obligation to produce an expensive sophomore album, with the budget coming from the proceeds of the first album. Successful first album and already they’re in debt!

“ok, time for some math,, most, nearly all albums run over $250,000 from start to finish(no marketing, no video, just recording, mastering, printing). Label picks up about $9-11 per CD. So the band sells 10,000 copies (less than 10% even sell THIS many),,, so
10,000 copies at an average of $10 per piece=$100,000,,, well then, that means the label lost $150,000 by signing and releasing that band. If you want new, or alternative music, someone has to sign that act. Should they pay you $150,000 to hear it? thats bad business.”

This is part of the problem. They should not be spending so much money on producing an album. Some albums require lots of production…very understandable to a degree (not Michael Jackson’s $1 million budget though).

However, many albums with today’s technology could be produced for fractions of what they are today. This falls more into the “record companies are retarded” category.

They should become record factories, opening up their studios to as many artists as possible. They should sign contracts which are fair to artists and allow for Net distribution.

The labels would make small profits on producing the albums, but then by selling them directly on the Net they could make huge profits.

There would no longer be such a thing as over producing an album and then dealing with disappointing sales and cut-outs.

Small bands get the $10K production and disks are made just above “built-to-order” amount. Better yet, high quality MP3s are sold cheap and are instant downloads.


--------
“This means 5% of albums cover the cost of 100% of all albums recorded, mastered, manufactured, shipped, marketed, and sold.”

This is still a totally obscene profit. ---i dont understand your comment, macslut. How is it obscene profit?
-------------

Because the profit on those 5% grossly exceeds the cost of the 100%. Just take a look at the income statements from the parent companies.

“The price of manufacturing a CD is low, thats obvious. Well, the price of manufacturing an Apple operating system CD installer, is about 12 cents. Should we only pay 15 cents to buy the CD installer? of course not. The true cost of that CD is R & D, programming, testing, legal, and countless other costs.”

I don’t care about the price of the CD. Up until this past year, I had been averaging well over $10K a year in CD purchases for the past 10 years. I believe in the free market.

The problem I have is their illegal control over the market both from having been proved in court that they price fixed and screwed retail outlets and consumers, and that they are screwing the artists.

Just like the mafia protection, they aren’t needed other than the fact that they illegally exist to create the need.

“ Thief! You belong in Jail, truly. You are a cancer on society, a sponge upon the earnings of decent hard-working people, and should get a life, and after that get yourself a job. Of course, with your logic, why should your job pay you? You owe it to them to work for free!”

Why don’t you just call me a Nazi and be done with this thread?

[Moxiemike]

Originally posted by Steak
Moxie,, I'm glad that Macslut made you feel OK about theft, but all his/her points were wrong. My Favorite is:
"You make it sound like as if the artists don’t want us to steal the music."

No, they really don't want you to rip them off. Really, they don't want to spend 6 months writing, buying gear, 3 months in the studio at $125 an hour, and $300 an hour mastering the album. They truly DONT want you to steal it. If they sell no albums, the Record company does NOT give them funding to record again, and they are back to their day jobs at Starbucks.

Do you understand, that bands WANT record contracts. They WANT someone else to foot the bill to record a good, quality album. Is there a huge group of bands out there, trying their hardest to not get a contract?> no way, they are trying to get one. There is a reason. Labels don't steal the bands, lock them in a whole, and make them record for ransom, these bands beg for the chance.

'If illegally controlling the market and overcharging consumers while depriving artists of fair compensation ultimately results in slightly less than totally obscene profits then, perhaps remodeling your business should be a concept worth understanding.'----well then, fair compensation. how about, all the artists who don't sell enough albums, have to pay back the money they spent recording, mastering, marketing , and touring. So, some small band is stuck with a 1/2 million dollar bill to the label, that when they get back to minimum wage jobs, they must pay back. This way, labels would recoup the losses, and successful CD's would be more affordable. (thats a lot of starbucks frappuccinos to swing, 1/2 million worth)
Small artists get fair compensation. The pop bands do not. The only ones losing in this deal are the Britney Spears types. The ones who actually SELL records. They should sue all the small bands, for stealing their profits, because thats what is happening.
-----
Yes, but the profit margin on CDs account for this, and is totally unreasonable. Note that you neglected to mention the cost for the artist who created the work.---ok, time for some math,, most, nearly all albums run over $250,000 from start to finish(no marketing, no video, just recording, mastering, printing). Label picks up about $9-11 per CD. So the band sells 10,000 copies (less than 10% even sell THIS many),,, so
10,000 copies at an average of $10 per piece=$100,000,,, well then, that means the label lost $150,000 by signing and releasing that band. If you want new, or alternative music, someone has to sign that act. Should they pay you $150,000 to hear it? thats bad business.
--------
“This means 5% of albums cover the cost of 100% of all albums recorded, mastered, manufactured, shipped, marketed, and sold.”

This is still a totally obscene profit. ---i dont understand your comment, macslut. How is it obscene profit?
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If you paid $10 a piece for Wingnuts, and sold 5% of them for $40, how would you possibly have any profit. Its obscene how much they lose on these deals. 1000 wingnuts at $10 a piece=$100,000
sell 5%(50) at $40 a piece, you brought back in $2000 on a $100,000 investment. Which leaves you $98,000 in the hole. This is about the average return labels collect on most bands (besides the pop bands, who sell millions)


I could go on for miles about every comment you made, but you obviously know nothing about the recording industry, bands, making albums, or anything related to it. You are so wrong it is frightful, and if you like, I can throw a pole in the spokes of any wheel you wish to roll at me. I know how it works, very well. The price of manufacturing a CD is low, thats obvious. Well, the price of manufacturing an Apple operating system CD installer, is about 12 cents. Should we only pay 15 cents to buy the CD installer? of course not. The true cost of that CD is R & D, programming, testing, legal, and countless other costs.


Moxie Mike has no mind of his own. He just says 'yeah!, thats what i was going to say! I know i have no point, but macslut attempted to lie in big words, so I'll believe him that larceny is ok."

Stealing is NOT OK, no matter how much you try to justify it.

You have no RIGHT to recorded music. You can buy a guitar and play, listen to the radio, whatever. Owning someone elses personal property without compensating them is stealing, in every way. Unless of course they give it to you.. They dont give it to you, its stolen from them. This is in no way different from shoplifting, carjacking, or being a cat-burglar. You can try to justify however you like, but you are still stealing someone elses property without paying, and without permission. Thief! You belong in Jail, truly. You are a cancer on society, a sponge upon the earnings of decent hard-working people, and should get a life, and after that get yourself a job. Of course, with your logic, why should your job pay you? You owe it to them to work for free!

-chris

Wow. I'm glad you can spew lots of vitirol when you really have no clue what you're talking about. Hehe.

We really need cliffs notes for these novel sized posts of utter trash.

Nah. Cliff notes would be a waste of time.

First point i'll bring up:

Steak Says:
If they sell no albums, the Record company does NOT give them funding to record again, and they are back to their day jobs at Starbucks.

Mike says:
Well, FOTM is that MANY musicians still are forced to have day jobs. Some of the best I know, and they're signed to labels like Merge, who are subsidized by WB. So, yes, you're wrong once.

Steak blabbers on, untenderzied:
No, they really don't want you to rip them off. Really, they don't want to spend 6 months writing, buying gear, 3 months in the studio at $125 an hour, and $300 an hour mastering the album. They truly DONT want you to steal it. If they sell no albums, the Record company does NOT give them funding to record again, and they are back to their day jobs at Starbucks.

Do you understand, that bands WANT record contracts. They WANT someone else to foot the bill to record a good, quality album. Is there a huge group of bands out there, trying their hardest to not get a contract?> no way, they are trying to get one. There is a reason. Labels don't steal the bands, lock them in a whole, and make them record for ransom, these bands beg for the chance.

Mike says:

Having been in bands and knowing many bands, almost all of them are beginning to believe that internet distribution done independently is the way to go, bypassing major label corporate runarounds and the vapor-like quality of indie labels owned by corporate bohemoths.

One artist I know gives away a bunch of his tracks online, and NEVER FAILS to pack 'em in. It's a means of marketing, of promotion, of goodwill to sacrifice a few songs.

Alot of bands I know fall into the trap of spending mad cash on recordings. They generally all say the same thing:

"we could have done better on our own"

I think bands SHOULDN'T Want to be signed to a deal where their creativity is compromised, and they make a scant nickel per cd sold.

Many bands are turning to digital recording techniques to get their stuff down. It's more flexible than a 4-track cassette recorder and a cheaper investment in the long run-- they can put mp3s on their web site, on mp3.com, etc etc etc.

They can submit them to Abercrombie and Fitch's summer sounds download page.

They can get a deal with eMusic to have their album available. They can get listed as having downloadable tracks from CDNOW.

They can do this all by themselves, without the "help" of Geffen or tony mottola and their crew of merry bean counters.

It's the whole mentality of "first one's free"

Steak,. you're just rambling about nothing. Do you work for the RIAA?

Steak continues on, like grade D beef:

Small artists get fair compensation. The pop bands do not. The only ones losing in this deal are the Britney Spears types. The ones who actually SELL records. They should sue all the small bands, for stealing their profits, because thats what is happening.


Mike says:
Are you on crack? N'Sync don't make cash? Britney's getting screwed? If so, sign me up! I'll galdy take the rimming they're getting!!!

Look at artists like Red House Painters, who record PHENOMENAL music only to have it blocked by Island.

Look at the Gathering Field who, with all the "marketing:" money A&M budgeted for them couldn't get an ad pressed or a press release sent out.

Look at the scam man! You're nuts if you think small bands make it. They're the ones working in record stores here, touring when they can, simply because their labels don't push them like they push britney.

Man, if you give me unlimited funds and resources, I could make everyone like my **** too man. Geez. Moronic.

I can't believe I wasted time replying to this blowhard.... but i had too.

Free speech is one thing. being an idiot is another.

[Chomolungma]

You guys have it all wrong.

This is how I'll envision my music to be in the next five years. I'll have a .Mac like service with ~10 GB of space to store my music library and my 3G wireless device (phone/music player/pda). Listening to all my music would be like calling a friend LOL. Music anywhere, anytime and when I want. Internet radio that plays only the kind of music I prefer will kill the local radio station. Oh, I forgot it already has, at least for me.

No more CDs and no portable hard drive devices Amen!

[MacSlut]

Originally posted by Chomolungma
You guys have it all wrong.

This is how I'll envision my music to be in the next five years. I'll have a .Mac like service with ~10 GB of space to store my music library and my 3G wireless device (phone/music player/pda).

Keep in mind that in 5 years 10GB will be cheap and about the size of a CompactFlash card (smaller or actually would be a CF). With this in mind, why deal with connection issues (cost, traffic, reception) when you could carry a huge library of music with you?

Not to mention that there isn't enough capacity for everyone listening to radio to be listening to high quality music via 3G.

"Internet radio that plays only the kind of music I prefer will kill the local radio station. Oh, I forgot it already has, at least for me."

There are very few **local** radio stations left for anyone. This is without the imact of the Internet.

[macsurfer]

Originally posted by big
do you remember LASERDISKS? those huge record like sized cd's?

Please spell it correctly. The *proper* spelling is LaserDisc. LaserDis*c*. This is the proper trademarked spelling by Pioneer. I had a LaserDisc player and loved it. In fact, I still own LaserDiscs.

[evilpenguin21]

Laser discs will never die! They have the most digital form of any Starwars to date! In fact I think i'll bust out my copy and watch em now :)

[PyroTurtle]

i like minidiscs...
the remind me of tapes...i used them for personal portable recording first...then i realized they sounded better than my CD's really...i still have to realtime record to them, but it's all good...
as for the music on a 3G phone...i could see that, the T68i from sony ericsson works really well at high speeds...they were kidding about 100K/s...i think it could work...
of cource, this is all rumors and personal opinions....and everyone is entiled to both...

[MacSlut]

Originally posted by evilpenguin21
Laser discs will never die! They have the most digital form of any Starwars to date! In fact I think i'll bust out my copy and watch em now :)

Don't let the fact that the video of LaserDisc is analog get in the way, or that the audio is either analog or sent via RF...or that "digital" is not synonymous with "better".

[groovebuster]

Originally posted by MacSlut
Audio cassettes were originally mono, poor quality and unreliable. They lacked things like auto-reverse, real-time, Dolby and other features, but they were recordable from the very beginning. They were intended to be used for dictation.

Just to get some things straight about that 8-track/CompactCassette issue....

It's not true that they were just meant for dictation. From the beginning they were also used for recording music. Don't forget, that back then not a lot of people had real stereos. They had just mono radios and record players (also a lot of them mono, like my first one). I even remember records that were still mono. Stereo was something really new for the audiophile folks and in the 70's it started to spread more and more, replacing the good old tube-radios. It's just the same story as with color TV.

he 8-track was superior in quality, reliability and with some features. Originally pretty much all audio cassette decks (portable and home) had either built-in microphones or cabled microphones. I had a huge "portable" one that had a permanently attached microphone.

8-tracks on the other had pretty much only recorded on home deck systems, but from the beginning were meant for (at the time) quality music (haha).

Maybe it was superior in the beginning, but first of all it was a just american standard. I never saw an 8-track my whole life here in Europe. I remember when I was little and saw the first time in my life an 8-track in an US movie...

CompactCassettes were just smaller, easier to handle and most important: CHEAPER! There was never a market here for the 8-tracks, because the audiophile folks had their old fashioned tape decks with reels and for the normal people a CompactCassette was just enough (like MP3 is today for most music consumers)... not to forget that almost everybody had a cassette-recorder.

New tape formulations were made and audio cassettes became better in terms of reliability and quality. Many 8-track drive manufactures that produced the better mechanisms quit the 8-track business and started supplying audio cassettes that were now able to match 8-tracks and eventually R&D provided such things as auto-reverse, high-bias, dolby, etc... while the only manufactures of 8-track mechanisms were only looking at ways to provide cheap units.

Cassettes became better and better while 8-tracks got worse. 8-track drives became noisy and unreliable.

As I said before... the 8-tracks were never a subject outside North America. I just see at as normal "following the market" by manufacturers. And there was already a huge market overseas in Europe and Asia, that swapped over to North America. And for the consumers a CC just had a lot advantages compared to the 8-tracks.


Perhaps the final nail in the coffin was the Walkman.

Not here, since we always used CC ...

The point of this is that there were two formats to begin with. Manufacturers followed what consumers were looking for, which resulted in one format supplanting another. This is why CDs and DVDs became so successful, why DiVX failed, why DCC failed and the MiniDisk became such a strong, yet narrow niche. .

Not 100% correct...

The problem of the 8-tracks was, that it was a "local" North American standard (like so many other things, in most cases just to "protect the market"), which wasn't accepted in the other parts of the world, due to the advantages of the CC over the 8-tracks for the consumer: size and price.

But which standard is accepted on the market is much more complicated than just reducing it to the will of the consumers. It is also about alliances of big players in the industry field.

To stress the VHS example again, it was just so succesful because it was the system of choice for the (cheap) VCR manufactureres, even though it was providing the worst quality. I remember times when video stores had movies in beta and VHS in stock (some even the video200 format). But the VHS-VCRs were cheaper (no licensing from Sony), resulting in more people having VHS than beta, resulting that a lot of video-stores didn't have beta copies anymore, resulting in even more people buying VHS-VCRs... and so on...

In this case it wasn't exactly a consumer decison, but a wrong marketing move by sony that started the whole mess.

Also sometimes the industry tries to destroy a standard on purpose... because they want to get rid of it.

Especially as a mac user all this should sound familiar! ;-)

groovebuster

[MacSlut]

Originally posted by groovebuster


"Just to get some things straight about that 8-track/CompactCassette issue....

It's not true that they were just meant for dictation."

Yes it is. I didn't say this about 8-track, but CC. The original units were marketed as dictation machines. It wasn't until advances in tape formulation, heads, etc... that they were then marketed at something that could be used for music and built-in or attached to home stereo units. It wasn't until much later than that when they started gaining traction for pre-recorded music media. In any case the CC was originally developed and marketed as a dictation machine, not music. If you ever used one of these original CC machines, you would realize how woefully inadequate they were for music.

"From the beginning they were also used for recording music. Don't forget, that back then not a lot of people had real stereos"

As dictation machines, the original CC recorders had no input jacks. To record 'music' one would've had to hold the attached microphone or built-in microphone next to a speaker. Sure people may have done this, but again, the original CC dictation machine didn't really record what most people would consider music.

"CompactCassettes were just smaller, easier to handle and most important: CHEAPER! There was never a market here for the 8-tracks, because the audiophile folks had their old fashioned tape decks with reels and for the normal people a CompactCassette was just enough (like MP3 is today for most music consumers)... not to forget that almost everybody had a cassette-recorder."

You're comparing the CC as we know it today to the 8-track. Back when 8-tracks were hitting their peak, CC decks were more expensive, rarer, and the decks were considerably larger. It wasn't until manufacters pre-empted consumer demand and went with CCs, with the result being that CCs became better, cheaper, etc... while 8-tracks became worse, more expensive etc... and then consumers migrated.

"As I said before... the 8-tracks were never a subject outside North America. I just see at as normal "following the market" by manufacturers. And there was already a huge market overseas in Europe and Asia, that swapped over to North America. And for the consumers a CC just had a lot advantages compared to the 8-tracks."

I'm only talking about America. Manufactures didn't follow the market. That's my whole point. 8-tracks were far more popular that CC when the major manufactures stopped developing them. At the time CC were not seen as having advantages, because at the time they did not have any. They were more expensive, larger decks, poorer quality, etc... This quickly changed due to the R&D of manufacturers. Don't get me wrong...this was a good thing.

"Not here, since we always used CC ..."

Yes, but North America is pretty well known for allowing a standard to continue only in North America.

"But which standard is accepted on the market is much more complicated than just reducing it to the will of the consumers. It is also about alliances of big players in the industry field."

That's my point exactly, as the death of the 8-track was an example of this.

"To stress the VHS example again, it was just so succesful because it was the system of choice for the (cheap) VCR manufactureres, even though it was providing the worst quality."

Here come the VHS/Beta myths!

VHS had slightly less quality than Beta depending on what moment in time you're looking at. Also the quality of VHS was still much better than anything a consumer had ever seen. Originally, it was much better than what the TVs at the time were capable of.

"But the VHS-VCRs were cheaper (no licensing from Sony), resulting in more people having VHS than beta"

Sony *did* license Beta (our family had one). There was overlap in pricing between VHS and Beta. Pricing may have had some impact, but not significant.

"resulting that a lot of video-stores didn't have beta copies anymore, resulting in even more people buying VHS-VCRs... and so on..."

*Initially* it was more of a case of many studios refusing to release videos on Beta rather than the number of VHS versus Beta owners. This then resulted in more VHS owners, and then the snowball.

"In this case it wasn't exactly a consumer decison, but a wrong marketing move by sony that started the whole mess."

Nope. Sony tried to license Beta before it even hit the market. Unfortunately they were unable to intially get deals signed, especially with the pending lawsuit.

Sony's problems were mostly due to being first to market. Had they not been first to market, the backers of VHS would've been on the receiving end of a retarded lawsuit. Sony would've also gotten more consumer feedback from seeing what happened with VHS. As a result, they would have done what they ended up doing too late, increase record times at the expense of quality. Content of course was a problem, but this falls more under the first to market resulting in lawsuit issue.

"Also sometimes the industry tries to destroy a standard on purpose... because they want to get rid of it. Especially as a mac user all this should sound familiar!"

Yes, it's even more funny because many, many years ago I bet someone that Beta would be around longer than VHS. After decades now of him thinking I was nuts for not backing down on this, it looks like I may when that bet, as Beta is still used quite a lot in video production and is still being updated, but VHS is on its death bed. I already won a bet with him on DVD versus LaserDisc and I'm holding on to the Mac versus PC.