Thanks to Quad Linda's tip off (Thank You QL!)
I just bought the Aretha Quadio, which is on special offer from Rhino Handmade's website until tomorrow, ($8.00 off! Pretty cool ah!).
Anyway, seeing the way they had preview clips on their site (for independent Front and Back channel clips of each song) together with a little speech bubble atop the previews about downloading digitally on iTunes.. it got me thinking....
Why don't Quadio just sell downloads of future Quad(io) releases?
What are your thoughts?
Would you buy transfers of quad albums in the form of downloads direct from Rhino?
I know I would! Over to you..
I would much, much rather have physical replicated media.
Hard Drives fail, downloads get corrupted, files get lost and download sellers go out of business - and what happens to my content if my drive fails, and they will notrenew the download link?
Physical media will last for a lifetime, properly looked after - written discs will fail within 5-10 years at best (I have so-called "100 year" CD-R here that are already unreadable because they were burned on a drive that is no longer here), and newer drives will simply not read the content. Likewise, even if I have all my audio on HDD, can I be sure the HDD will survive, and that future systems can access it - how many Mac users can still use FireWire or USB these days, for one and various interfaces have come & gone over the last 12 years to make it a very unsafe way to store my precious music collection.
Rhino need to stop being so cheap & paranoid - flat transfers cost them fuck all to author (or should do) to the point where a run of only 2,000 should make a profit - even if a small one, but a profit is a profit surely and isn't that what they are in business to do? Sell Records?
I have bought 2 downloads so far. One of which I can no longer get access to if I need to re-download it, and I have lost count of the download only software I have bought and regretted buying as the company either no longer exists or my link has "expired" after a pitiful 90 days. The labels are trying to make more money out of you without actually giving you pressed physical content that will survive - do not let them get away with this. Sure, backup to digital is good but here's a few thoughts.
I have here - and I am not even 20% of theway through - backups totalling 7 Terabytes of DVD, CD, DVDA etc. That's on 3 large drives. I need another 10 at least to complete the job, and should really do it all again to have double backups. Raid arrays also fail - I have seen these expensive NAS drives also fail, taking out 5 Tb of content at a stroke. Gone.
Then you need to spin them up every 6 months, ideally writing to & from to make sure the spindles do not freeze up (this also happens) and simply maintaining a large digital backup suddenly becomes a full time job. One that is not needed with pressed silver discs.
Rhino also need to stop being so paranopid about illegal downloads, and keep an eye open for them & take them down as they get put up. They also need to stop treating every download as a lost sale - this is unrealistic and has been discussed to death, so I will not reiterate here.
The labels are being lazy here, and because they keep sacking people who know their job & replacing them with accountants (who know nothing about selling music, treating every artist like a line in a supermarket instead of an investment) and dropping artists who do not make "sufficient profit to justify inventory" - translation:
They are making a profit, but we want more so are dropping them as we told our shareholders we would make more money this year, and we did not make as much as we hoped so it turns into a loss on paper. This is a true story too - from a real label. I will not name the names, but it is 100%true - heard at first hand by my own ears.
Will I buy a downloadable only version again?
I do not know - it is unlikely, to be honest.