Why is 65% of all music sold in the U.S. via compact disc?

[spydez]

Personally, CDs are infinitely better than iTunes, et al.

I get my music absolutely DRM-free. I can rip a CD to as high a quality mp3 as I want. I can rip to lossless FLAC for backup/future lossy format reencoding. And I get a physical backup.

[AlisdairO]

The CDs I buy are a lot cheaper than digital downloads. I imagine this is due to the fact that CDs are subject to overproduction, and shops or publishers will reduce prices to get rid of excess stock. Digital downloads are not subject to this issue, and seem to remain expensive.

There's a few other reasons: CDs have no DRM, and offer very high quality. Fuzzy reasons include a certain enjoyment of the physical artifact, and the fact that it encourages me, every so often, to listen to an album straight through, something I rarely do with digital media.

Mainly, though, I resent paying the same or more for digital downloads - CDs are a physical artifact, so digital stuff ought to be cheaper. I buy singles via download, as they work out cheap, but albums do not.

[jobu]

Because 90% of digital downloads are not "legal", and thus do not count as part of the 35% of music sales. That and I can trade CDs with friends and still get the MP3s from both CDs.

Yo! Ho! a pirate's life for me... ;)

[krschultz]

Because there is not much advantage to digital music.

I can play a CD natively in my car, or any car. I can play it on my iPod, I can play it in Linux. I can back it up for later, but I still have the artwork.

With digital downloads, I have to burn them onto a CD, label the CD, and probably rip some DRM off it to work with non-iTunes players.

For CDs the only hard part is buying them. Sometimes I can't find the bands I like at my local store, but it is a decent independent record shop so it has a good selection and I like supporting them. If I go to a show, I make sure I buy the CD there. If I can't find it at either place Amazon is cheap enough and it gets delivered to my mailbox.

I guess the only advantage is being able to buy songs a la carte, but thats not how I personally listen to music. Sometimes I buy a CD and had a bunch of the tracks and first, and a month later those are the ones I love. How can you tell that from a sample? So I just buy the whole thing anyway.

Not everything new is better.

[minsight]

The grammar of this submission's title hurts my brain.

[jrockway]

Seriously. Because of your comment, it is playing over and over again in my head... and I can't make it stop. I hit the "flag" button with the hopes that an editor will fix it. Otherwise I may not be able to sleep tonight.

[maukdaddy]

That title begs to be made into a techno-remix.

[TheElder]

How would you reword it?

[mquander]

I find this article weird. Why isn't 95% of all music sold in the U.S. via compact disc?

All my music purchases are CDs (and I do purchase quite a few), because if I only wanted a digital copy, I would probably obtain it online outside of a paid download service; P2P is free, usually more convenient, and usually higher quality.

I don't think I need to enumerate lengthily the virtues of CDs; physical artifact, nice art, cultural signifier, (more or less) perfect fidelity, can play in car, etc.

Anyway, I just don't see why this writer is confused that more people aren't buying something they can get better for free. I understand that there are some people who consider it unethical to download pirated music, but I don't think that they are a majority of music consumers.

[pavel_lishin]

I download 99% of my music. While I'm not admitting to anything illegal or unethical, let's just say that my downloads don't exactly add anything to the statistics. The only time I actually buy CDs is at concerts, so I know the money stands a better chance of going straight to the artist, and so I can on occasion get a signature.

I wonder if perhaps that's skewing the statistics.

[mooism2]

CDs are cheaper. I do tend to buy CDs second hand though.

[uhgibuig]

I thought buying CDs secondhand funded terrorism? I'm sure I saw that on a RIAA a somewhere

[lurkinggrue]

Every time you buy a used CD the RIAA kills a kitten.

[jlannan]

i think we are witnessing a growing dichotomy in the purchase and use of digital media. one group has invested in high-quality sound system(s) and CDs are the highest quality form of music you can purchase (other than SA-CD and DVD-audio of course, and vinyl some would argue.) on the other hand, you have the group that wants to purchase tracks one at a time and listens to them on their ipod/laptop/docking station and the sound quality of downloads is 'good enough'.

[mquander]

I don't think I agree that "audiophiles" are sticking to CDs for this reason. Losslessly compressed audio isn't really constrained by space anymore, now that we have 2 TB consumer hard drives, and it retains perfect fidelity. (And there are multiple P2P communities specifically focused on providing high-quality lossless downloads.)

[vaksel]

Because it is a portable format. MP3s you gotta waste time burning, cds are good to go right away

[zandorg]

I buy CDs because: They're cheap, they have proper inlay art, not all music is on iTunes, and they have the best sound quality - and I note that even P2P rippers won't be ripping a rare single from 1994 I bought off Discogs.com.

[dbrush]

Perhaps to play in vehicles?

[littleboy]

Having a physical, tangible CD in my possession feels more real than downloading mp3s. And if I want to, I can always rip the mp3 off the CD myself.

[codepope]

I do it because I get a free CD backup of my music.

[joubert]

And yet the Virgin Megastore in Times Square closed down.

[pbhjpbhj]

What's the rental like in Times Square? Must be millions?

25% of music sales in the US (according to another headline on HN) are on iTunes. Perhaps most people that used to use the Virgin store there now use iTunes?

[dkersten]

Because people buy it.