I think this subject does actually tie in to the main subject of this thread... and that tie is is through the very basic question of whether, when you "buy" an album, or a CD, or a download, it seems somewhat vague exactly what you are in fact buying. Back in the vinyl days, before tapes were even very good, it was clear that you were buying a piece of plastic with music on it... and the two were inextricably linked. That all changed once tape recorders became good enough that you could actually make a listenable copy of an album. (And all of this has remained pretty much the same, but simply become more relevant, as copying has become more perfect and so much easier.)
First, let's get one thing out of the way: The actual
physical cost of a download is a few cents (by which I mean - what it costs when you divide the cost of the server space holding the file by the number of people that download it, then add the cost of the bandwidth each download costs), and I can easily have CDs mass produced, with labels and jewel cases, for about $1. So this is the actual physical cost of music distribution.
So, let's try and figure out where the "value" of that album lies.... Let's assume that I bought my favorite album in vinyl - which probably cost me somewhere around $15. Now, I decide I really want it on CD; so I pop down to the store and buy a CD. Oddly, even though I've already paid for both a plastic disc, and for the music recorded on it, they expect me to pay exactly the same price for that CD as some other guy who hasn't already paid for either one. I don't seem to be getting any sort of discount "because I already own the music, so all I'm paying for is the plastic". And, if I buy it as a download, for yet a third round, again they expect me to pay full price. It sort of seems like I'm paying over and over again for the right to listen to the same piece of music, doesn't it. (Or like they're saying that the right to listen to the music is worth pretty much nothing. After all, if the right to listen cost $13 and the plastic disc was $2 then, if I broke the CD, I could sweep the plastic shards into an envelope, send it in to prove that I already owned the right to listen, and have them send me a new piece of plastic to store it on for some reasonable price - say $2.) However, if the plastic breaks, now they're telling me the license to listen to that music was worth nothing - because they don't let me "transfer" that license to a new piece of plastic.
What's really funny is that, even though - for all of that paragraph - they seemed to be telling me that it was the plastic that "held all the value", if I buy a download, they seem to expect me to pay for it all over again; and if I were to "steal" a copy by copying the data, or give a copy to a friend, they act like the right to listen to the music, which they seemed to value at nothing a few seconds ago, is now the biggest part of the value. Wouldn't it make more sense if, once I paid for the right to listen to that particular music, that was considered to be a separate item... in which case, if I already owned the CD, or even the vinyl album, I should be able to trade in that particular piece of plastic for a different one for only the difference in cost, or trade it in for the download for nothing....
It really seems like the
FAIR way to do this would be to simply count the two items involved separately. If I buy a download for $12, I should get a certificate (or my name should be entered into a database somewhere) that says I paid $10 for the "music album" itself, and $2 for the download service. And, if I buy a CD, I get a certificate for the $10 "music album", and a receipt for the $5 piece of plastic. But, and here's the difference, if I already own the "music album" because I bought it as a download, then I should be able to present my proof of ownership, and get a new copy on CD for that $5 "service charge", and, if I break the CD, I should be able to replace only the plastic, again for a reasonable service charge.
Now, to bring all this "home" to this thread, if music was treated like this, then the cost of "upgrading" to a high-res version of an album you already own would be much more reasonable, which would make a huge difference in terms of "whether it was worth it". For example, assuming that I paid $15 for my CD, and $10 of that was for the actual license for the "music album", then $5 would be a reasonable service charge for selling me a different copy of the music I already own. And, if the music was remastered, considering that the same master tapes were used, and the artist presumably got royalties or payments at the point where I originally bought it, it would also be only reasonably to charge me
only for the service of remastering the album. (So, maybe, if the original album actually cost "$5 for the music; $5 for the mixing and mastering, and $5 for the piece of plastic", then it would be fair to pay an additional $5 for the
NEW mixing and mastering, and another $5 for the
SERVICE of packaging and delivering that music in a new high-res format.) If the industry followed this idea, then buying a "simple high-res reissue" of a CD or download you already own might cost a very reasonable $5, and buying a "remastered version - in high-res" - might cost $10... and I think that, if the prices were that reasonable, most of us here wouldn't even be arguing about whether the extra cost was justified.
(And, of course, another benefit would be that you would always have that upgrade path - you could always decide later to pay the "extra bump charge" to "upgrade" your CD-quality download file to a high-res version later if you decided to. Personally, I suspect that doing it this way could in fact be very profitable to the music industry overall - just imagine how many more people would be willing to pay a reasonable upgrade fee than are now willing to buy a lot of music over again... and imagine "five packs of upgrade coupons" for "stocking stuffers", and special promo deals where you get "1 free album upgrade to high-res when you buy five regular albums".)
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-I don't agree, actually. I've bought it, and should be expected to look after it - after all, if I'd lost the actual CD, very few people would expect the record company to give me a new one (though that is exactly what GD Music does, or at least did - I once lost a Dick's Picks CD and got a new one for a token fee.)
Arguably, the download deal leaves me better off (if I wasn't such a sucker for shelves full of music, that is!) - I can lose the file four times, and still the seller will give me a new copy, even several years after original purchase!
(Note that the files in question are DRM-free, so I can have a gazillion backup copies if I like.)
Anyway, I've managed to derail this thread from its most recent derailment; perhaps we should start a new one titled "DRM: Spawn of Satan" or something like it...