I think this is the beginning a new stage in the move of the music world to the Internet:
Thomas Sanders pointed out a feature of the new U2 album on iTunes that makes the download a little more like a real record album or CD:Just purchased the new U2 "Album" and with it came what looks like the liner notes. It downloads straight into iTunes under the album, and when you click on it, Preview opens and you get all the pages. If they roll this out on all albums that would address one issue people have with downloading music.[Macintouch]
Many times, I hear people say that they still buy CD's because they "like to hold them in their hands." I think that effect will diminish a lot when we can reliably get the liner notes and graphics online.
I'm still going to buy CD's for the time being however: I don't want to be locked into any particular DRM, but more importantly, CD's simply have better sound quality due to having more bits. When it is practical for me to have enough storage in an iPod that I can copy my CD's there without loss of bits, I'll do it.
If Apple would guarantee that I could re-download any CD I buy from them, in lossless form, when storage densities are 10 times greater, I would buy fewer, and possibly no more CD's, despite the DRM issue. So that's a suggestion I am making here to Apple. That simple step would make them a lot more money from people like me.
(Note, whenever I comment that CD's sound better, somebody posts a comment denying that that is true, and challenging me to do a side-by-side comparison. So this time I'll answer in advance that I have indeed taken the time to do such a comparison, and I not only notice the loss in quality, but find it painful, even it relatively high encoding rates. I assume most people who challenge me to make such a comparison either haven't actually done so themselves, or have poor hearing. Or, perhaps, very poor headphones/speakers.)
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