[mr.karmalicious]

Quote:

No human can tell the difference between a high bitrate lossy file and a lossless. Let's say 320 VBR MP3 vs lossless or quality 6 or 7 Vorbis vs lossless. You simply cannot. There is no audible difference. You use lossless for archiving, transcoding, etc, nothing else.

From the first page... I can tell the difference between Q8 Vorbis vs. FLAC. It's nbot in the quality, but the... "flavor," I call it. It just.... /sounds/ different. FLAC sounds more open to me... I dunno, really. That's just my feeling on the subject.

 

[Loftprojection]

Personally I wish they had never invented anything that could be copied or compressed.

Copying CDs, downloading music is stealing, end of the story. There are absolutely no reasoning that stands. Now, we can and should complain that the music industry is charging too much money for music but that's it.

Compressing music for me is a plague even if it is a benefit at the same time. People are loosing sight of what it is to really listen to the beauty of music and there are now so many people doing it that the music industry has turn into a junk QUANTITY pumping machine, quality of the sound at recording is not important anymore because anyway most listeners are going to compress it! Sure, when you are in the bus, jogging or doing all sorts of activities you might not care about the quality, but bottom line music is still an art that delivers to us the beauty of what humans are capable of producing so we should try as much as we can to reproduce it with as much integrity as possible.

So bottom line, if I don't have the money to buy enough space to store my CDs in a lossless format, then I keep them as CDs and I wait, one day I have enough money, then I buy a big enough disk and I store them. I am an old fart with a collection of around 500 CDs and I've lived with CDs for years so it's not a few more months of waiting that will kill me if I decide to rip my CDs and don't have enough space to keep them in a lossless format.

Now you can all start the flaming, I've got a pretty good shell after all those years!

 

[nspindel]

No flaming from me Loftprojection, I think you and I are saying the same thing. This is why in all of my examples I was sure to include the cost of the cd collection in the math. If someone has 2000 cd's, then I assume that collection cost around $24,000 for them. If someone acquired that much music via "other means" then I really don't think that they're entitled to much of an opinion as to the right and wrong way to store it - there is only a wrong way for them. Well, I guess they're entitled to their opinion, it's just that their opinion shouldn't count for much.

I agree with you that lossless-ness is about purity. Remember though, that this purity only "counts" in circumstances where it can be differentiated. As I said, when I'm driving in my convertible with the top down, listening to tunes through my ipod in the car, I am quite sure that even the best audiophiles here wouldn't know the difference with the wind blowing through your ears at 55mph. So in circumstances like that, compression is merely a means of being able to carry more music in my car.

But when I'm at home, the flac's are the only thing that gets played.

 

[Oliver :)]

Well put, Loftprojection

Quote:

Originally Posted by nspindel I agree with you that lossless-ness is about purity. Remember though, that this purity only "counts" in circumstances where it can be differentiated. As I said, when I'm driving in my convertible with the top down, listening to tunes through my ipod in the car, I am quite sure that even the best audiophiles here wouldn't know the difference with the wind blowing through your ears at 55mph. So in circumstances like that, compression is merely a means of being able to carry more music in my car.

I assure you that there is no breaking point, even at 125mph with the top down you will still not know the difference (dang, living in Germany must be good for *something*), I once tested with MiniDisc.

Over 100mph I tend to be too busy driving anyway.

 

[breadnbutter]

Just to clear up the legal stuff about "stealing" and stuff.

I am not sure how it is in other countries, but in Germany (and probably all of Europe) where I live it is generally considered legal (i.e. all courts have so far ruled this way, the laws are not explicit about this) to make a small amount of copies for or from friends (about 3 copies) and for private use.
One reason for this is that the price you pay for CD's already contains a copy charge (which is not small...). The same is true for tape recorders and I think burners as well.

So it is not only legal to do a limited amount of copying, you are already paying for it, wether you use it or not.

And from another point of view: If there was a law against stupidity and greed the music industry would get the death penalty. CD's are the worst conceivable way of digital storage (no error correction...), so I wait for the day when we can buy our lossless flacs online and legal. Hoppefully the record companies will be bancrupt by then and make room for new companies that appreciate the artistic nature of music.

 

[nspindel]

If you're into the Grateful Dead, they have already started selling their music online via 128mp3, 256mp3, or Flac. My problem with what they are doing has to do with their pricing. If they sell a 4-cd set for $25, I would think that they should be able to sell a downloaded flac version of that same collection for a helluva lot less than $23.50, yet that's the way they seem to be pricing. So it's a windfall for them, not the win-win that it should be for the consumer as well. But if you're interested in having a look at what they're doing, go to www.gdstore.com.

 

[spaceconvoy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nspindel If someone acquired that much music via "other means" then I really don't think that they're entitled to much of an opinion as to the right and wrong way to store it - there is only a wrong way for them. Well, I guess they're entitled to their opinion, it's just that their opinion shouldn't count for much.

Not only are you a stuck-up sob, but a sucker as well. The recording industry has tried to outlaw mp3 players, and even make it illegal to rip CDs for your own personal use, so what's with the moral crusade? Sure, I feel some obligation to the artists, but in reality, this is a battle between consumers and an industry.

And no, it doesn't hurt musicians anymore than they're already getting screwed by the RIAA. In reality, the shift from CDs to digital music is a great benefit for them once they realize that they're much better off selling their own music directly to their fans. The smart ones have already begun doing this (as mentioned in this thread - Greatful Dead). Even things like myspace have become great tools for aspiring bands - they start a page, get hits by word of mouth, have a few samples on the page, and sell their CDs themselves. It's obviously better than signing a record deal and being indebted to a company that wants to have creative control over you for the rest of your career.

The reality is that ripping CDs/swapping mp3s will not stop as long as CD-Rs and the internet exist (and I'm afraid your high-horse, better-than-you attitude probably won't either). Rather than try to marginalize this behavior, you should try to understand it, and see how it could be a benefit if propery implemented.

 

[K2Grey]

First I would like to offer my personal opinion that spaceconvoy is being unnecessarily rude by calling nspindel a stuck up SOB and a sucker. I would also like to say that nspindel is not, in fact, stuck up, a SOB, or a sucker, and that spaceconvoy's comments reflect poorly upon himself.

I don't see exactly how the recording industry's legal efforts fit into this. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement regardless of whether the company with the copyright attempts to have mp3 players outlawed or not, and the band making the CD benefits much more if the CD is purchased than if the CD's music is downloaded off the Internet. By downloading albums without purchasing the accompanying CD, you are benefitting no one but yourself, and offering absolutely nothing in exchange for music which took considerable effort by the band, studio, etc. to make and copy onto CDs.

 

[nspindel]

Hmmmmm. I seem to have struck a nerve with hula-boy. Men wearing skirts shouldn't throw stones...

Look, I'm not trying to defend the RIAA's position on digital music here. I'm most certainly opposed to it. Somewhere out there I think there has to be a way to give me the music I want to listen to in a high bitrate, lossless format, without me needing to buy the silly tin disc, with it's cover art and packaging, off of a shelf in a rent-paying store or online warehouse, which has been distributed through middlemen and shipped on trucks, etc., etc., etc. I should be able to do so at a substantially cheaper price than buying the cd, since the tremendous costs of manufacturing, distributing, warehousing, and retailing would be eliminated. And if you look at the post about the Grateful Dead, you'll notice that I'm the one who wrote it, so yeah, I get it already smart guy.

My point was not to be an RIAA loving snob sitting on a high horse. My point is that a person who has legally purchased a 2000 cd collection would have spent a great deal of money on it, and the extra $200 of disk space to store that collection losslessly is likely a marginal increase that nobody spending $24,000 on cd's would care about. And given that (sorry to upset you) downloading copyrighted material IS ILLEGAL, then if you haven't spent a large sum of money on a collection that size you have BROKEN THE LAW and therefore your opinion on whether others should spend an extra $200 on a hard drive would probably be best kept to yourself.

It's not about being a sucker. It's about following the law, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. That is like calling everyone who follows the speed limit a sucker, simply because someone is passing him going 20 mph faster. If the laws change, which I absolutely hope they do, then I will be happy to obtain my music through more sensible means. But while the RIAA are going around handing out subpoenas, some of us choose not to tempt fate and live within the rules, since some of us have more to lose than you do in your straw hut.....

 

[spaceconvoy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nspindel Hmmmmm. I seem to have struck a nerve with hula-boy. Men wearing skirts shouldn't throw stones...since some of us have more to lose than you do in your straw hut.....

Wow, a racist too, why am I not surprised.

And no, your point didn't have anything to do with music, flac, etc. As you've clearly shown again, your point is that you are better than other people, and that my opinion is worthless in your eyes.

 

[nspindel]

Actually, you are right. It wasn't right of me to say those things, and I apologize to the fine people of the great state of Hawaii. I guess I just got extremely angry when personally attacked by a thief.

Yes, my point was all about music, and flacs, and everything that you are trying to pull me off topic about. And if you're trying to tell me that I'm holding your opinion as worthless about how to appropriately store a collection of ILLEGAL music, then yes, you're right again - your opinion is worthless. It's rather similar to complaining to a bank that they're not paying you enough interest on money that you've stolen.

That doesn't make me a snob. It doesn't mean that I hold myself above anyone else. It just means that I'm following the law. And if you're on here trying to put down everyone who follows the law, and preaching about how your opinion is so morally correct and therefore the law should be ignored, then I think you'd better have a second thought as to who the snob here really is. You're the one thumbing your nose at the law, not me.

I'm all for bands who allow their music to be downloaded for free, or sell via download through direct channels. I think it's great, and I wish musicians would. For sure, no argument. Just as I wish that the damn 55 mph speed limit would increase to 75, because my car can easily handle that speed. But until the law changes, if I drive over 55 I am still breaking the law, whether I disagree with it or not.

But that doesn't change the fact that mainstream cd's are protected by copyright, and like it or not, downloading them off of some website or bit-torrent or whatever is still ILLEGAL.

 

[Nandro]

How about getting a copy of something you already have? Say you have a cd that has a scratch and you just download a song to replace the scratched copy?

 

[K2Grey]

I'm sure no one would criticize you for that. But I wonder if EAC would not be able to overcome the scratch

 

[nspindel]

Interesting question. One for the lawyers to take up.

It's something that I've wondered about myself, in a big way.

I think it essentially comes down to this - when you buy a cd, do you actually own that copy of the music, or has the copyright holder essentially granted you a license to listen to the music?

If you own the copy, then you should be free to do whatever you want with it, including create an archive copy, which the RIAA would say you can't. If you don't insure yourself by creating that archive copy, then I guess you would be screwed when the cd scratches - just like if your car got stolen and you failed to insure it.

If you have a license to listen to the music, however, then that license should be independent of the actual cd, so if the cd gets scratched, I would think you should be able to return it for a new cd (license). Just like when you purchase a license to use a piece of software, if you lose the license, you email the software company and they send you a new one. This is also something that I suspect the RIAA would have a problem with. By that argument, then all the vinyl I have should license me to listen to the music on cd, yet I've never seen an offer to trade your old records in for new cd's....

However, I don't think this is on point with Spaceconvoy's argument. His posts have nothing to do with buying the cd first.

 

[breadnbutter]

Now is this about being ILLEGAL (oh, now my capslock seems to be stuck as well, must be infectious...) or being morally wrong?
I guess we all agree on the need for laws, but they should reflect the moral values of society. Now the recording industry is obviously hindering competition by effectively refusing to sell music over the internet (a competition that is protected by law). The recording industry has in the past already broken the law by manipulating CD prices (and has been fined for that). By nspindels logic the recording industry is therefore just some kind of "criminal gang". Microsoft has broken the law numerous times, yet they always get away with only some minor monetary punishment (aren't there special laws for repeated offenders?).

But I don't really think this discussion is going anywhere. I just didn't want to leave skylabs statements uncommented.

P.S. I agree that spaceconvoy's post was quite rude, but that is no excuse for racist remarks. More important than respecting the "law" is respecting human dignity.

P.P.S. In Germany the law is getting completely mixed up about this private copy stuff. As I said earlier it is legal to make copies for private use. On the other hand since about a year or so it is illegal to overcome copy protection. So the copy itself is not illegal, the process of copying is - including making copies for your mp3 player. Additionally the software that allows such copies is illegal, theoretically even CD-drives that can read such CD's are. On the other hand you still have to pay the copying fee for these CD's.
I think this is an example where laws are becoming completely bogus.