Last weekend I was looking around in a couple of stores for some CD storage. The first store I went to I actually had to ask an employee where they were because it took me so long to find where they were. “Are CDs on the way out already?” I asked only half-jokingly. The next store, same thing: There was only a very small assortment of CD folders.
I'm probably already old-school because I like actually owning physical CDs and DVDs. I can buy a CD or DVD (used, for cheap) and then resell it for about the same price if I want, or possibly more. No monthly fees. It's mine for my personal listening and viewing until the thing breaks.
The trend, though, is pointing toward getting rid of physical media delivery. DVD sales are down 20% from last year, while NetFlix subscriptions are up 33%. People are ditching the DVDs and heading for video streaming. When viewers stop paying the subscription fees, the video stops coming in, and there's nothing to show for it except a bunch of credit card transactions.
It's the same with books and Amazon's Kindle. There's no physical book to resell when you're done with it, and there are no “used electrons” that you can buy more cheaply than “new electrons.”
But here's the really strange thing: More and more people are choosing this way of consuming media. As a whole, we seem to like it better this way.
To be sure, these new technologies are incredibly fast and convenient; there's no doubt about that. No books to mold, no CDs or DVDs to scratch up, no players to eat them. Kindles are just neat devices. So much less clutter. (No need to buy CD cases like I did!) The electronic delivery mechanisms (Internet, wireless network) are ultimately far cheaper than the physical ones (books, digital media), so it does allow for far more viewing variety for the price. For people who watch a lot of movies, and like to watch a lot of relatively new movies, the subscription plan may be a better deal than buying the DVDs.
But the people for whom the streaming model would be killer is the content producers. Authors would prefer that used book stores didn't exist. Why? In the US, authors make a royalty on only the first sale of the book. They make nothing when the book is sold in a used book store, on eBay, or elsewhere. It's the same with CDs and DVDs. They would far prefer to sell one copy to one person — or even better, one view or one listen to one person — and then prohibit that person from reselling when they're done. In fact, this is already being done to some extent. We're moving toward that situation as we move away from physical media and away from ownership of said media.
What do you think? Is resale rights of your books, music, and movies important, or not?
I don’t care much about resale value, but I do like having the option to share that owning physical media gives me. I also find there are certain conveniences when everything is its own physical object—when I’m doing research, I sometimes have four, five, six open books laid out around me while my screen is in use for the thing I’m writing.
Still, my own views are becoming more nuanced. My apartment is full. I have stacks of books that I don’t want to get rid of, but that aren’t going to get read any time soon. I’ve recently begun to think that it would be kind of nice if all the books that I haven’t been able to find a place for on a bookcase were suddenly available on a Kindle instead.
Also, I’ve begun to worry less than I did for a while about digital books going missing through some digital mishap. Enough physical books have gone missing through some physical mishap, that I now see the risks as being roughly balanced.
@Philip: Yes, the clutter aspect is a big consideration. There’s little way to solve that, though, without buying everything again, at more or less retail price.
But as we’re both writers, I can see the other side as well: more options = more sales, sometimes to the same people!
For me I do like having the physical media, but that has quickly become trumped by the fact that I don’t have the room to keep all the books/cds/movies/etc that I’d like. Now that I think about it I don’t remember actually buying a movie in the last few years, and all the CDs I’ve bought in the last few years weren’t actually CDs – but MP3. Plus, I just got my Kindle today from Amazon, so no more physical books. I guess I just value not having the clutter more than I do actually having the physical item – and the tactile experience of that.
While I do like the author or musician to receive their $ for creating something the public is interested in buying I have on numerous occasions loaned a CD or Book to individuals who may have not purchased an new title/ CD that came out from that author or musician had they not “borrowed” an existing copy of mine.
They were merely introduced as a result of something previously created. There began yet another spawn in purchasing that writer’s/ musician’s work.
I have to have hard copies of everything, movies and books especially. I have seen technology of so many individuals who do not back up anything get lost through digital mishaps. I have also heard of exhausting trials, which result in nothing, when someone attempts to recoup their lost music or digital download that they paid for.
I need my hard copies! I could not imagine walking into the Library of Congress (ex) and seeing a lonely Kindle uploaded with nearly 32+ million books positioned on a table for ALL to marvel at or the “reading room” positioned around a Nook. There is something simply bizarre/ disappointing about that imagery.
I think we do want to own media, it just have to be Internet related