the week the music (biz ) died

I totally agree. I only own a laptop, and I use one of those headphone-RC cable jacks into the aux.

Thought of that, but that's not why people byt bottled water.

buy. sorry, busy.

Srsly if I were in the hardware business, I'd create a specially-designed and marketed hard drive just for music, or maybe for music and video - one that's designed to last a long time and rarely fails and also maybe looks cool and has some built-in features beyond just being storage. Sort of a bigger, more permanent iPod.

A jukebox lockbox, if you will.

I don't feel like I'm getting "user value" or whatever if I don't have a CD with a sleeve. Call me old fashioned. Also, I have a fucking great big hi-fi on a rack and stands with expensive cables and it sounds better than any computer I ever heard.

While there's a few good points here, the whole basis for this discussion is completely pointless.

Overall Music Sales: 2004 - 817,000,000, 2005 - 1,003,000,000, 2006 - 1,198,000,000

That's a 19.4 % increase from 2005, and 46.6% from 2004. And that's just according to Nielson Soundscan, which I don't think does a great job in covering all the boutique stores and sites.

So how about we tell the RIAA and all the other chickn' littles to shut the fuck up and get on with it?

First step is to provide deep catalog titles in high bandwidth formats. Music Giants is getting the idea. However, the prices are just stupid. While it's taking the right step in offering uncompressed downloads, I'm still not getting printed album art and a disc, which still happens to be very reliable, convenient backup storage. There are also no manufacturing and distribution costs. So rather than $14 to $20, shouldn't they be priced at around $5? Wake me up when they are.

if you read what you'd just linked to, you'd see nothing that really contradicts this thread's point (which specifically covers first quarter 2007 sales). that statistic converges album and single sales -- album sales are down, so net gross is plummeting. though it's definitely a good point that overall sales are up.

OVERALL MUSIC SALES (01/02/06 - 12/31/06)
(ALBUMS, SINGLES, MUSIC VIDEO, DIGITAL TRACKS - IN MILLIONS)
UNITS SOLD 2006 2005 % Chg.
1,198 1,003 19.4%

TOTAL ALBUM SALES (01/02/06 - 12/31/06)
(INCLUDES CD, CS, LP, DIGITAL ALBUMS - IN MILLIONS)
UNITS SOLD 2006 2005 % Chg.
588.2 618.9 -4.9%

Thought of that, but that's not why people byt bottled water.

i don't think it matters why people buy bottled water. i think it only matters that they do, even though they don't have to.

Total units moved does not give you a financial picture. Even a 20% increase comprised mainly of digital single songs does not offset a mere 5% drop in album sales. And that's just one year.

People buy bottled water for:
1) oft-imaginary safety reasons
2) ease of portability
3) impulse needs
4) ease of access

Sound familar?

and 5) good packaging and marketing.

which is exactly what a certain four multinational distribution companies have always said they're especially good at.