I agree. That is in fact exactly the reason why I decided to leave the thread.

Oh. I thought you'd realized you'd raised a pointless argument, and wanted to save face...I mean, that explanation would work, too...I mean...only sayin'...not that I'm...ACCUSING you of anything, or anything... (:D)

edit: nevermind, nothing good can possibly come out of this thread.

Seriously, if I cared about my face, I wouldn't have written those posts.

I buy and download vgm. It's what I do.

Downloading hurts the industry is no more or less bullshit than Downloading helps the industry.

I've bought at least 20 game music albums in my life, which is infinity more than 99% of people who listen to game music have bought.  That said, I'm also poor, and so I've downloaded many hundreds of albums.  I can't import them all, but I refuse to ban myself from listening to only the game music I can afford.

Importing is too expensive, so while this is the case, people pirate.  This is the process, in the "regular music" industry, that has driven CD prices down, and has let the Amazon MP3 store flourish.  I now get all my regular music from there, and don't have to pirate anything.

Once game music can hit a similar point here, then the tension between piracy and purchasing can diminish to a livable point for all parties.  In the meantime, we all have to suffer our own moral crises while game music follows the rest of the music industry into the digital age.

And until then, #gamemp3s will continue on as a net positive for the game music industry, exposing lots of people like me to great music we could never risk $35 on importing.

I've always wondered:

why is this topic even in the "Game Music Discussion" forum, when it's not even talk about specific soundtracks, or even soundtracks in general?

We're talking about whether the download of soundtracks is ethical or not.

The thread has a focus on the downloading of soundtracks so why not?

More than that I'm wondering what was up with all those line breaks in your last post.  I've removed them.

Arguments like Klondike's are often presented, but I've never been convinced by them. Illegal downloading probably has a net positive effect on increasing appreciation for game music. However, this does not correlate to helping the industry as it generates fewer sales overall and that matters far more than a pile of fanboys on FFShrine saying <3 <3 <3. Until I see statistics to back up claims that downloading helps the industry -- when I have a pile of statistics to show CD sales have decreased massively over the last five years -- I'll keep on declaring these arguments as fallacies.

Just wondering, does those figures make distinction with general crappy mtv-shit and good music?

Don't entirely understand your post, but I'm referring exclusively to game music here, not mainstream music. I'm not so fussed about the mainstream debate given downloading doesn't generally threaten the possibility of album releases unless you have some weird angsty artist making a stance.

I'm not going to weigh in on the original topic for now, but I wanted to present a few statistics that may provide some insight into the health of the industry.

Release statistics from VGMdb

Between 2005 and 2007, the number of official releases increased by 50%. This includes soundtracks, arrange & vocal albums, and drama albums that were sold commercially. In 2008, the number of releases will exceed the total of 2007.

We don't have any sales statistics, but I'm not so sure that an industry that's unhealthy would increase the number of products on the market, if only for fear of diluting its customer base. Of course, i'm not an economist, so I don't know if this is just an artifact of the bubble economy of the last few years. I'm also not sure to what extent the adult pc-game music explosion is a factor in this (or the endless stream of releases from some franchises like iDOLM@ster.)

There was a decline in the early 2000s, but yeah it's surged back up again now.

Too bad JGML's data stops at year 2000, since they had some interesting breakdowns of the sales data  http://kosiro.hp.infoseek.co.jp/db/gmdb.htm

I think this one is even a comparison between Types of vgm albums:
OSTs x Arranged x Vocals x Dramas

Ah, my bad then, somehow didn't realise that you where just talking about game music.

Personally, I'd attribute this more to lack of "must-have", high profile releases, oversaturation (see: Sakuraba,  Basicscape and recent Final Fantasy...and yes, Touhou!) and lower consumer confidence than in the past, as well as the fact that many games that get OST's are niche in the US/Europe and don't garner much of an audience to begin with, much less VGM fans with money to burn on the music. A lot of recent releases that I've downloaded...if you put a gun to my head and said, "You've listened to it...Buy it or delete it", I'd shrug and I'd probably delete without thinking.

I believe there are pure leeches out there that download everything indiscriminately and have no intention of buying anything, but there always will be. Klondike's situation shouldn't be foreign to anyone here...In fact, burning hard-earned money on a soundtrack you hate is probably the fastest way to lose interest in a niche hobby like this (especially if it becomes a repeated occurance). Imagine someone blindly buying the soundtrack for "The World Ends With You", giving up on VGM and missing all the good stuff out there.

Not sure exactly whether the number of major increases have increased. I think statistics about numbers are skewed by drama CDs, promo CDs, the doujin explosion, lots more singles, endless Bemani, endless iDOLM@ster, and all those visual novel and hentai albums. The output from most of the major publishers seems to have stayed about consistent for original scores, though there are few cases where output has decreased and Scitron seems to have failed completely. Arranged albums are down across the board though.

VGMdb's stats already filter those out, so those aren't skewing any of the major releases's numbers.

Touhou doujins are separate from official releases, and promo/enclosures are their own separate category too, so that already eliminates any the confusion about cross-contamination.

http://vgmdb.net/db/statistics.php?do=release_year

It would be nice to see things like originals vs arranged vs vocals/drama, but since the data is already all there, it's merely a matter of configuration to get at it.

Suppose I should also clarify myself a little.

The fact is that I personally would have never bought a single album if I hadn't downloaded it first. Like many others, I don't have the money to spare on blind purchases. And I guess it's fair to say that downloading sparked my interest in the official soundtracks and re-sparked my interest in vgm in general.

I have to confess though that I used to have a lot of downloaded vgm that I never even listened, had it only to collect it. Lately I've been filtering through all the shit that has piled up and been wondering why the hell did I even think that shit like Lara Croft Female Icon was worth the space it took.

Hooray?!

So, if you want some effective, thought-provoking discussion...

...then let me state, in opposition to earlier statements made by Daniel K...

WHY CDs WILL NEVER DIE

Digital Music Requires a Computer and an MP3 Player

Not everyone's like us; not everyone has an MP3 player, a computer, or in some cases, a computer that would be compatible with a modern MP3 player (like my old man, for example, who's not getting rid of his Windows '98 machine until it finally sparks and dies).

Unwillingness to Learn

Some people aren't technologically inclined enough to figure out even the simple controls of some MP3 players, or just won't; they don't want to, and they're feeling like they're being forced to do something they don't want to. You can make the cases for greater portability and such, but they DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT. Just trying to wean my parents on the new MP3 player I got them some time ago has been like trying to swim against the current. Or trying to convince my uncle the superiority of MP3 players, or generally anyone from the Baby Boomer generation. Or my older brother? Fuhgetabout it, and he used to fix computers...so he was pretty technologically inclined.

My parents are having trouble getting the concept of an internal battery: You have to plug it into the wall to charge it. "What's wrong with just using triple A batteries?!"

Some People Can't Afford Computers or MP3 Players

CD players may still be $70 brand new, but MP3 players are still more expensive; some people don't even have the money just to get the CD player, let alone the CDs they want, let alone for a computer they'd to transfer the music to the player; for some people, they have to go to the library or a computer cafe to get access to one; think they'll let you use their computers so you can transfer music to your MP3 player? I THINK NOT! I actually saw one guy trying to do just that before, and the librarian, some old cranky lady, was like, "Just what do you think you're doing?!"

...

For THE ENTIRE MARKET to adopt digital music, MP3 players would have to become cheaper, and CD players would have to be phased off of the market. For that matter, even if we didn't have discs anymore, there'd still have to be a new physical storage medium, like putting albums on miniature USB drives...which you could then plug into your MP3 player to upload the album to it, as opposed to having to use a computer; because, let's face it: The advantage of a CD: Slip it into a CD drive, and it plays immediately. Digitizing music to your computer can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, and for some people, that's too long. Oh, yeah, you'd also have to make people give up their CD players, and if you're parents, you're still pissed about how you had to give up your cassette tapes; they still have the tapes, but no working tape player left.

For the most part, though, CDs will never die on account of the Baby Boomer generation; they can't learn, they don't want to learn, if you're going to make them use an MP3 player, you're the one who's going to get stuck programming it for them.

I've said most of what I wanted to say on this subject (not always in the most diplomatic fashion, I know), so I'm mostly trying to stay out of the thread. But since you specifically mentioned me, and since I think you bring up many valid points, I'm jumping in again temporarily.

Bernhardt: Do you remember how fast the CD-medium overtook the LP-medium? CDs were first introduced in the late 1970s, but they weren't around in huge commerical numbers until the middle/late
1980s. By 1991, the CD had begun to massively outsell the LP. I remember many people back then (I was a kid, but I still remember some of it) that argued on the behalf of LPs in the same way that you argue for CDs, using many similar arguments. Who today argues for the superiority or eternal supremacy of the LP over the CD? There are some, mostly older people who fall in the same "it works perfectly fine for me, and I ain't gonna change anything"-category you mention.

Now, I'm definitely not claiming the situations are entirely analogous, because they aren't. But I think that, in the long run, the CD is doomed as a mass produced, commonly used medium. Just as there are still a considerable amount of LPs being pressed up to satisfy the small group that still prefers that medium over the CD, CDs will probably continue to be pressed up for a long time. But they will increasingly become niche commodities, pressed up only for a shrinking circle of die-hard fanatics. They are already heading that way. VGM CDs are certainly already there and have always been, since they have no appeal for a greater audience.

10 or 20 years ago, if you walked into most homes with at least one teenager or young adult, you could bet on finding a collection of CDs or LPs. This is no longer invariably so. My younger brother (age 21), for example, sees CDs as bothersome hassles, he strongly prefers mp3s. This attitude is getting more common, and its only going to become more common with each coming generation. You said "For the most part, though, CDs will never die on account of the Baby Boomer generation". Very good point for now. But not for the future. Have you not considered the fact that one day the Baby Boomer generation will die...? As for the CD-medium in the really long run... Can you really envision, in whatever view you have of 30 or 50 or 100 years into the future, people actually still using this clumsy old medium that is even today seen as outdated by many...? How many people still listen to gramophone records today? CDs will die, probably a lot faster than their predecessors did, since the development of technology moves faster all the time, not slower.

Sure, in the short term, a computer and mp3-player is more expensive than a CD-player. But as a long-term investment, its a much better deal. First of all, with a computer you get so many more functions than a CD-player will give you (this hardly needs mentioning, right?). With the option of downloading stuff you're unsure whether you should spend money on or not, you're gonna quickly recuperate the losses of that bigger investment. Not to mention the fact that, through such online communities as last.fm, the various DC++ hubs, and places like this forum, you're going to be exposed to much more new and interesting music than if you only go to your local CD-store for your music needs. A lot of people in the diehard VGM community decry the file-sharing aspects of the Internet, but they forget that, without the Internet, they probably would never have heard of commercially produced game soundtracks in the first place. Or do you suppose your local CD-store would somehow magically start to stock them? I think the positive aspects of the Internet far outweigh the negative, and this is just one aspect of it.

You're right when you say that not everyone can afford a computer, but don't you think computers will become increasingly more common and cheaper just about all over the world in the future? The trend so far certainly suggests so. And if we're talking about people who are really poor... Well, let's just say that those people probably have entirely different priorities than buying CDs in the first place.

Your "unwillingness to learn"-point is very good, and I think much of the rub lies here. We humans are usually slow on the uptake and conservative when it comes to technical innovations, and one might say that that's a very healthy attitude. But, on the other hand, things do move. Attitudes, dispositions, habits, etc., might move very slowly, maybe too slow to be noticeable to the observer, but they do move. Don't you think people were unaccustomed and suspicious of stuff like the telephone, tractor, light bulb, etc., when they were first introduced? Yet these are now things that you and I hardly give a second thought, we take these things as being for granted in our society. MP3 technology is not nuclear physics, we are already seeing a generation grow up that takes mp3s and downloading for granted. How many more generations do you think will grow up seeing CDs and CD-purchases as a routine part of everyday life? However, I definitely think that, for now, your point is very valid. If the only thing that mattered to people was the purely technical aspect and they adapted quickly to that, the CD-medium would have been stone cold dead in the early 2000s, because the mp3-technology was wide-spread even back then. As we have seen in this and so many other threads and discussions, there is much more to it than that.

As for the necessity of music having a physical medium, well of course, that is a given. Music doesn't appear magically out of thin air. But why would a computer hard-drive or a mp3-player be any less a physical medium than a CD or LP? Its only because we're so used to CDs, we've grown up using them, we have learned them. I, for one, am trying to unlearn them. Its not an easy task, but then changing your habits and preferences never is.

You forgot to mention: order the CD, wait for it to arrive, pick up the package, unwrap it, make room for it on your shelf. You think a CD is more "handy" just because you prefer that medium. I rarely order CDs nowadays, and part of that is that mp3s are so much more handy (for me). You download it - you have it. Saves a lot of money, time, effort, paper, and plastic. And, like Klondike, I refuse to limit myself only to the music I purchase myself. There's too much interesting stuff out there to be discovered.

For the record, I still buy VGM CDs now and then (6 so far this year, compared to 100+ per year a few years ago), and I do derive enjoyment from originals to some extent. But I've increasingly come to the realization that it is a vain and fleeting materialistic pleasure that I honestly can do fine without. There was a time when I wouldn't have believed it, but my low VGM-diet the last three years have convinced me that I can. When you add to that the fact that collecting VGM is a very costly hobby, that there are many other (and dare I say it: more important) things in life to spend money on, and the fact that very little (let's be perfectly honest: most probably none) of the money I shell out for a physical copy reaches the artists I admire... Well, then its time to prioritize. And when I prioritize, the last things I want to have clouding my vision are old conventions, ingrained habits, or outdated moral clichés.

Looking back at this thread, I'm sorry if I offended people through my earlier posts. But you can rest assured that the reason I'm being so verbose on this subject is simply because I've grappled so much with it the last few years (as I'm sure all of us who buy VGM have). And sorry for another long-winded novel.

Well, Bernie has a point, CDs will not never die, nor LPs. Some people still publish stuff on vinyls. But pretty sure that digitalized music will replace CDs in the nearish future. Will be sucky for people like me who like to smell the fresh booklets and read those darn buggers, and keep cds by almost alphabetically order in shelfs. :P

And other thing, when we will see mp3 replaced by better (maybe even lossless) format, along with the support that mp3 has? Thought, modern day loudness war pretty much defeats the usage of better formats.

Still, this thread has gotten pretty good, from the hiccuppy start.

There are two reasons that I will always prefer physical a CD over Digitial Distribution: DRM and Lossless. Until that is addressed I can handle the *hassle* of dealing with a disc.

Razakin, Zorbfish: Definitely agree on the lossless bit. When I wrote "mp3", I was using it as a shorthand for all digitally distributed music, I wasn't defending the mp3-format per se. Personally, I rip all my music in FLAC (one of the few reasons I still buy those CDs that I like the very most). Some of the same aspects that keep CDs alive are at work in keeping the sub par mp3-format alive and well: mp3-players have become part of a lucrative business, most portable players only support mp3s, and most people are so used to that format or have no idea there are alternatives, so the lossy format survives. I'm not sure how this is going to develop. I think (and hope) that lossless formats like FLAC will replace mp3s permanently eventually (as hard-drives grow more spacious and Internet-connections grow faster, this is more likely to happen).

As for DRM, I read this on Wikipedia, so it might be true or not, but... In January 2007, EMI stopped publishing audio CDs with DRM, stating that "the costs of DRM do not measure up to the results." EMI was the last publisher to do so, and audio CDs containing DRM are no longer released by any major publishers. DRM technology will probably always be easy to circumvent, I don't think its going to be around for long.

The problem with your argument is that it's terribly short-sighted. CDs will surely be superceded by something, either another physical medium or something digital (or both). There are two main points I've distilled from your post: older people tend to reject new technology, and that technology is too expensive for some who would otherwise embrace it. The answers to these points are simple: the stubborn older generation will eventually pass as all things do, and the technology will become more affordable, as consumer technologies always do. When you say "never", you are thinking within a very restricted time span. Is that as far in the future as you can envision?

Yep it has gotten better, but they [being publishers] still have a ways to go. I agree about wanting FLAC to succeed MP3, because it's an open-standard that works across all platforms. I'd also like to see us get past all the file-format wars, such as Apple (AAC) and Microsoft (WMA) are trying to enforce, so we can get to a point that no matter where a file was downloaded from, it would work on any player and without special software.

(This post is me largely responding to everyone's comments, but my main points are highlighted at the bottom in bold; for those who want to see my responses to you, read on)

Well, yes, that is one of my points; it's going to take a DAMN LONG TIME before CDs are entirely phased-out; when I say "CDs Are Never Going to Die," I'm only being figurative, and probably far too passionate.

Aye, 'tis true, but I can imagine that many offspring inherited their habits from their Baby-Boomer parents.

Yes, but truth be to told, as it is, only 10% of the world's population own computers; that's 1 in every 100. I'll have to go and find that statistic somewhere; there was a recent study on this. For that matter, only 1 in every 100 persons in the world has received any semblance of formal education, be it primary or secondary. As for MP3 players, probably even less than people who own computers. My point is, I still think that people who can't get access to the technology one way, should still have it another, in the case, CDs Vs. MP3 technology.

The switch-over they're doing with TV in the next year or so? Can you imagine how many people that's going to hurt, and how many people are going to be clamoring just to get their TV service updated, possibly protesting? They're still plenty of people who don't know about it, and it's like going to be getting hit in the head with a brick! Point-in-Case: Switching over to new technology takes time!

Ehh, I wouldn't say I PREFER to medium; I mean, I use an MP3 player like most people here; but having the hard copy to back it up just in case either my MP3 player or my computer hard drive dies IS handy; besides, backing everything up on CD-Rs and CD-RWs is cumbersome. But, I will agree that trying to change CDs when you want to listen to music in the car has always been cumbersome, even before digital music.

I just got Mega Man 9 Wiiware via the Wii Shopping Channel a week or two ago; if my Wii decides it wants to die on me, that's $10-15 for every game I downloaded lost. The digital download distribution part is convenient, but not having a backup isn't; if paying my $10-15 allows to DOWNLOAD IT AGAIN, or as many times as I want to, in case of a system failure, than THAT would be a good solution.

If digital distribution provided high-resolution scans/photos of album artwork and liner notes, along with the music, that you could print for yourself, that would be a solution.

Lossless formats would be nice...it's kind of like, what bitrate do I have to rip at so I don't end up with static anymore? (I currently rip @ 192kbps).

Even if we didn't have discs anymore, there'd still have to be a new physical storage medium, like putting albums on miniature USB drives...which you could then plug into your MP3 player to upload the album to it, as opposed to having to use a computer.

When I say “CDs will never die, I only mean that from a figurative standpoint, like Daniel K pointed out, LPs still exist, but they’re only made for a niche market diehard fans, which is probably where CDs will end up.

In my opinion for digitally distributed music to REALLY take off, I think that

01) You’d have to have unlimited access to whatever you paid to download, so you can download it again if your computer, MP3 player, or other storage media crashes.

02) It’d have to be provided in a better bitrate, a better format, preferably lossless, once there are players that can accommodate lossless digital music.

03) Provide high-resolution scans/photos of the album artwork, along with the digital music, so we can print that good stuff out for ourselves if we want to.

All great points, man. That's what's good about the Wii Virtual Console - you can download games again once you pay for them. Unfortunately, though, it's tied to the Wii, so if you got a new Wii you couldn't download them on that for free.

What really pisses me off about iTunes's Music Store is that you can pay $10 for an album and get all the songs in 128kbps .aac (which sounds noticeably lossy), but for a few bucks more you can get the actual disc and rip to your heart's content. For digital music to be a solid way to purchase music, especially for a CD hound such as myself, that shit better be lossless so I can re-rip however I want to save space or listen as-is, and I would prefer to have high res pics of the album artwork so it's up to the purchaser if they want to print out full album artwork or even just browse through it.

Hasn't Apple converted the bulk of the store to iTunes Plus by now?  I know that nearly every new album released at this point uses the Plus-encoded standard.  $10 for a full album at 256kbps AAC ain't bad at all.

Well, some digital releases do come with pdf-file with liner notes, along with album cover, atleast Saul William's The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! did come with those, and I do remember seeing stuff like that along with NIN's newer digital stuff.

Well, if you know stuff about LAME and it's command lines, V2 or V0 should be enough (if ya don't know, I can give some pointers).

I'm fully aware that as it is now, a majority of people in the world can't afford those expensive gadgets. But most of those people can't afford CDs, either. I think its safe to say that for most people in the world, "owning" music is a luxury (be it CDs or mp3-players). How big do you think the average CD-collection is in places like Uganda, Bhutan, or North Korea?

A valid point. Most people feel that digital music is more "vulnerable" and likely to get lost. But if you take care to back it up, there really shouldn't be any worries. Personally, the stuff I really love, I usually buy on CD, but even if I were to sell the CD, I can still have it backed-up on my hard-drive, DVD-RWs (4.7 GB can hold a lot of mp3s), an external hard-drive, mp3-players, etc., etc. (most music can also be found in various DC-hubs or torrents if you lose the files). Sure, your house could burn down, but in that case, you also lose all your CDs, so that's a moot point. And additionally, CDs are not indestructible, either. What long-time music fan hasn't gotten at least one CD scratched at one point or another? My point being: No physical medium will last forever, so CDs aren't really that superior as physical carriers of music.

All these point are very easily addressed. The retardation of digital music distribution we've seen so far is mainly because of companies like Apple and Microsoft wasting more time fighting each other than perfecting the product/options, as well as the fact that many digital-music customers aren't too picky about the quality of their product, thus companies haven't felt much pressure to start performing better. Its easily remedied, and there are people out there that understand this and get it right. Example: last year I bought the new Saul Williams album. I bought it straight from the artist's homepage for $5, and I got a download link from which I could download the album as many times as I wanted. The files were totally DRM-free, and you could choose between mp3s of different bitrates or lossless FLAC-files (I heard that with the latest Nine Inch Nails album, you can even download the original WAV-files if you want). You could also download all the booklet artwork. It was a very easy purchase, and it was made better by the fact that you knew a greater part of the money would end up at the artist's end. If a small-time artist like Saul Williams can set up such a deal, there should really be nothing preventing the major record companies to do the same.

One might ask: doesn't this method mean that the music will easily leak out and be leeched/pirated? Yes, it undoubtedly does. But (as I've wasted a lot of words in trying to explain, not always very successfully) at the rate things are going, this might in the end prove to be the only realistic solution. Only time will tell if it works or not.

Also, Smeg: great post! You said basically all I said in my previous post, but using far fewer words. I really have to work on keeping my word-count down. >_<

Haha, what a coincidence. Within 2 minutes of each other.

I think #1 and #2 will become practical. I expect that the timescale for these things will probably depend less on technological advances than on corporate bureaucracy. The recording industry has already shown us how reluctant they are to abandon old models or try new ones, even when the old ones become less lucrative.

#3 is already practical, although (and I'm well aware that I'm probably in a minority among consumers) it doesn't interest me. I appreciate good visual art, but I hope for a system where packaging of any sort for media content is essentially meaningless.

Ha ha, thanks. It's scary how similarly we often think.

Well, for me, it's a REALLY big thing; I like to attach the cover graphics to my MP3s using ID3 tag programs, that way the cover graphics show up in album cover view, and I can select a desired album according to its cover graphic, as opposed to having to read the sometimes difficult-to-read text on my MP3 player's small screen.

Also, I like having high-resolution cover graphics (1400 x 1400 pixels); I like to print them out and make 8.5 x 11" "posters!" (Anyone who walks into my room can easily tell which music, movies, and video-games I'm currently obsessed with, just by seeing what I have hanging up on my walls! As for me, it reminds me about what games I should be playing about then, or what music I ought to feel like listening to).