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Cloud DRM Music Entertainment

Young Listeners Opt For Streaming Over Owning 390

Posted by timothy from the maybe-more-of-them-should-get-the-bills dept.
An anonymous reader writes "CNN reports that younger listeners are increasingly opting to stream music rather than own it. If their music is constantly available anywhere on any device, then 'what's the difference?,' ponders the article. The distinction between streaming music and owning music is starting to blur. From the article: 'But Van Buskirk also suggests another reason for streaming, not acquiring music. It's liberating. "There is a certain relief with not having to own music. It is a lot of work," he said. ... Porter says the way people own music is transforming. He believes the cloud model is where the state of music is heading, and for many people ownership is not essential. "I think ownership is access, you don't have to have music on your local hard drive to own it," he said.' Will the concept of ownership of music and software fade as cloud based services become the way people expect to access media and software?"
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Young Listeners Opt For Streaming Over Owning More

Young Listeners Opt For Streaming Over Owning

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  • Young listeners? (Score:3, Informative)

    by aztrailerpunk ( 1971174 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:37AM (#40370669)
    I wouldn't consider myself young anymore and I certainly prefer streaming over owning.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cayenne8 ( 626475 )
      Well, for the most part...the music being produced today, just isn't worth keeping, and owning to replay over and over again in the coming years.

      That's not just my "get off my lawn" mentality either...I hear it from younger people today. They go through tons of music, but it is quite often disposable, I've heard them say.

      "Oh, yeah, I'll get this, listen to it for a few months, but doubt I'll throw it on again."

      Me? Geez...well, I own most of my music in CD form. I've yet to buy a mp3 off the internet....I

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by Eponymous Hero ( 2090636 )
        when? when recording takes became disposable. recording used to be an expensive process that required skilled techs to splice tape and operate mixing and mastering equipment. the tape itself for high quality recordings was very expensive. this gave record labels an incentive to only sign talented acts, and then to support those acts. when recording went digital and everyone and their mother including good artists like trent reznor and shitty 'artists' like justin bieber decided to produce music in their gar

      • I'm trying to figure out...when did music become disposable?

        There has always been garbage music, since long before recordings. It's just technology has allowed us to consume the fast foods of music without purchasing it. Prior to streaming you had to listen to the radio or purchase. Now you have the option of streaming it for the duration of your interest.

        I tend to do this with dubstep. I stream a playlist of dubstep and similar music that I don't really have any intention of ever owning (as I'll tire of a song in a month). I find it good to work to (believe it or

      • >>>the music being produced today, just isn't worth keeping, and owning to replay over and over again in the coming years.

        Really? Every year I download Billboard's Top 100 of the year. From time-to-time I'll listen to the older charts from the 80s or 90s or 2000s (previous decade) purely for nostalgia. Or because I genuinely like the sound.

        As for YOUR music... I'm sure you think "The Wall" or "Dark Side" is fantastic but I've never liked it. Thought it was boring. You (and others) please don't

      • Re:Young listeners? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by darjen ( 879890 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @12:11PM (#40372225)

        the music being produced today, just isn't worth keeping

        I don't understand this. You have an incredibly narrow taste in music. Not that there's anything wrong with that. For me, there is TONS of music being produced today that is worth listening to. My problem is that there's too much out there and I'll never get around to even half of it. That is why I use a streaming service. I try to listen to at least 2 or 3 new albums a month. My horizon is always expanding in every genre. I gravitate towards Jazz and Classical, but there is tons of other stuff as well, from pop to blues to electronic, etc. I use Amazon.com to keep track of the top new releases in every genre each week. I pick a few that might seem interesting and see if they are on my streaming service. There is always something to keep me busy.

        • Re:Young listeners? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @12:26PM (#40372425) Homepage Journal

          the music being produced today, just isn't worth keeping

          I don't understand this. You have an incredibly narrow taste in music.

          Actually, it's probably the reverse. The people producing music have an incredibly narrow taste, and people tend to burn out quickly when each new song sounds only subtly different from the song that came before it. There are times when it has been so bad that I've sung one song while listening to another just for the entertainment value of poking fun at the awful rehash.

          This is not to say that all new music is crap, just that nearly all new music that actually gets airplay is crap. Of course, this has always been true. What makes a song a "classic" is that it is one of the few songs that wasn't crap, and so still gets airplay today (on the right stations). Time has a way of filtering the wheat from the chaff.

      • You can always listen to dark side of the moon over and over again on spotify. Personally, as a music addict, I could not be more pleased with the new streaming paradigm. I used to buy at least 1 album just about every Tuesday. Add on a few splurges and I was spending something around $1500 a year on music. Now I can pay $120 per year (or even free) and listen to practically everything I could ever want anywhere with a connection (and in the places I do not have a connection, I probably should be turning of

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Indras ( 515472 )

      Same here. I'm married, own a house, and have two kids, a decade since I was last called a teenager. I haven't purchased music in physical form since I was 16. I bought a handful of tapes and two CDs. I saved up a lot to buy a CD, and I realized that after just a few days the music got old, so I went back to the radio. I realized that in order to have a collection big enough to *not* get sick of the same music playing over and over again, I'd have to buy hundreds of CDs. At the time, that was an insan

  • Young people don't drive. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:38AM (#40370683)

    I can stream music on my phone, and I often listen in the car. I don't stream music while driving because it cuts out due to cell hopping and things. I'd have to get satellite radio for a better solution.

    It's still much much easier to just use locally stored music - CDs or on my phone SD card or otherwise.

    • Re:Young people don't drive. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Missing.Matter ( 1845576 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:47AM (#40370825)
      The streaming service I use allows for locally downloaded copies of the tracks, so when I'm in the car I just download an entire album and let it go. When I'm done with the drive, the album gets deleted.
    • For the most part, I agree with you. I've kept my huge iPod classic for that very reason, so I can have something other than the radio to listen to in my car. Very recently, I started a trial with Spotify premium on my phone, which allows me to cache some music (up to 3,000ish songs) locally on my phone, so I don't cut into data with streaming. Tentatively, I'm kinda excited about it, mostly because it's much more fluid than my iPod, and I can change what is on my device pretty easily.

      That said, the c

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by arth1 ( 260657 )

        I love streaming, but permanent ownership isn't going anywhere, I think.

        Indeed. I think TFA draws the wrong conclusion. People prefer the convenience of streaming, but I'm sure they would have preferred ownership if the convenience was the same.

        Say there was an audio/video home server that you could buy pre-configured, where all your purchases appeared DRM-free, and you could start accessing the files as they started downloading, not wait until complete. Including a burner with a point-and-click interface for producing DVDs and CDs from your purchases for using elsewhere. T

        • Indeed. I think TFA draws the wrong conclusion. People prefer the convenience of streaming, but I'm sure they would have preferred ownership if the convenience was the same.

          You could do both and that's why I don't see this as an either/or situation. Have your own collection of mp3s/flacs/whatever on your own computer, then set up your own streaming server (like icecast). Your mobile smartphone can access this anywhere you go.

          Also, there's a part of the summary I really don't understand:

          "There is a certain relief with not having to own music. It is a lot of work,"

          Yes, copying an mp3 file to my media partition is just so incredibly labor-intensive. In fact I have to remember to drink lots of water or else I'll pass out from all the exertion. And do

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by trcooper ( 18794 )

      I use Rhapsody and Google music and have no issues with it cutting out. Both allow for storing songs locally as well.

      I'm not in the young category, unless they're rather liberal with the term... But I've been a Rhapsody user for years and love the service. I save quite a bit of money, and have access to damn near anything I want to hear. Before I would easily spend over $500 on music per year. Now... under 200.

      Am I worried about Rhapsody going away? Nah, I'd just move on to the next option.

    • I can stream music on my phone, and I often listen in the car. I don't stream music while driving because it cuts out due to cell hopping and things. I'd have to get satellite radio for a better solution.

      Really. After reading the article cited by the OP (I know, right?) I think the real title of the CNN story should have been "College Age Listeners Living in Atlanta, Georgia, USA Who Have Excellent Bandwidth And Who Probably Don't Pay The Data Charges For Their Devices Opt for Streaming Over Owning"

    • I was going to make the same point. I have an FM transmitter for my iPhone, and I put it in airplane mode for two reasons: 1) safety--I don't have to deal with the urge to check that new text/e-mail/phone call that's coming in and 2) the cell signal interferes with the stereo, so I get a lot of "Morse code" over the speakers if I don't put it in airplane mode. I listen to music far too often while driving to rely on streaming.

    • Re:Young people don't drive. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @11:39AM (#40371751)

      The apparently also don't travel in airliners, or to foreign countries where data access is expensive, or to remote locations without any data. If you spend your life in a big modern city, its easy to get the impression that the internet is always accessible.

      If I could really be connected all the time, I wouldn't mind cloud-based / streaming services, but in reality I spend a significant fraction of my time in locations where I do not and can not (for any reasonable price) have internet access.

      Services that let you download and then play while disconnected could work, but that starts to sound suspiciously like "ownership" to me.

      I think there are 3 different issues here. One is whether you pay one-time for the content, or pay each time you use it. One is where the content is stored and whether it will be available when you are not connected. The third is whether you will always have access to the content or if it will be removed at some point.

      For me, I don't care much about the payment model as long as the total cost works out to the same. I do want my content available when I am not connected, and I really don't want content to disappear.

  • It's extremely easy and available, there are so many ways and places to stream it, so it doesn't surprise me that it's popular...

    • Re:Probably just because it's so easy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by heypete ( 60671 ) <pete@heypete.com> on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:45AM (#40370785) Homepage

      Indeed. Pandora, for example, is free and has less ads than a radio station. One can even up/downvote various songs so that it plays more music that you're interested in.

      Even their paid service is only $36/year, has better quality, and no ads. Why would I bother to buy a small amount music (particularly on physical CD) when I could pay less (either $0 or $36/year) in exchange for essentially unlimited amounts of music any time I want it?

      Then again, I have a 5-minute commute on the train and am in the lab all day working on an internet-connected computer, so my needs may be different from people with longer commutes and spotty internet service.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Volanin ( 935080 )

        This.
        I am losing a couple moderation points already spent in this discution, but I had to post.

        I am not quite young anymore, but personally never had any inclination for owning music, but I always liked radio and streaming services. After discovering Pandora, I fell in love imediatelly. I listen to Pandora almost exclusively nowadays during my commutes and free time, but due to licening issues, Pandora's streaming was blocked for listeners outside the US a few years ago.

        Since I am not american, I have to su

      • Why would I bother to buy a small amount music (particularly on physical CD) when I could pay less (either $0 or $36/year) in exchange for essentially unlimited amounts of music any time I want it?

        Because I'd first need a data plan, and that costs a lot more than $36 per year.

  • Circles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SJHillman ( 1966756 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:39AM (#40370703)

    We seem to be going in circles with music. Own a phonograph, stream from radio, own an 8 track/cassette/CD, stream from TV (MTV or countless other music channels), own mp3's, stream from the Net

    • Re:Circles (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @11:02AM (#40371045)

      Own phonograph.
      Oh, it's too much work to manage my collection.
      Stream from radio.
      Oh, I can't decide what I want to hear.
      Own a tape/casette/CD.
      Oh, it's too much work to manage my collection.
      Stream from TV.
      Oh, I can't decide what I want to hear.
      Own MP3s.
      Oh, it's too much work to manage my collection.
      Stream from the net.
      Oh great, I can decide what to hear and don't have to manage my own collection!
      (Some time in the future)
      Oh wait, there was this song I particularly liked. Where has it gone? Maybe I should have my own collection again.
      Damn, the RIAA no longer allows me to own!

      • That's what I can't wait for - the jumping the shark moment in digital rights. The point at which they say that ownership of music format of any kind is illegal, and that we have to either stream it or pay a leasing fee per month.

        Then the riots start.

        • Then the riots start.

          Either that or making music becomes a common public thing again. You know, bards and such from yesteryear.

          Already happens to some extent.

        • > Then the riots start.

          Then the virtual riots start. But nothing will actually happen.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by mjr167 ( 2477430 )

          Or we realize that it just isn't that important.

          People seem to forget that music/movies/games are all a luxury. If having it costs too much, we will go without. No one is going to riot because they can't listen to Stairway to Heaven anymore. Instead we will go get that guy we know who can play the piano/sing/whatever and ask him to come over.

  • Ownership may fade in the short term (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:40AM (#40370711)

    Without ownership, you're giving someone else the ability to take away your access. Once that happens a couple times, I think people will start moving back to an ownership model.

    I think the cloud is great as long as it works. The problem is these services sometimes go away. I was personally bitten by the Google Video shutdown. They refunded the money I paid at the end, but I lost the shows I bought. Now I don't buy videos unless they're on DVD or Blu-Ray. At least I have the physical media and player in hand.

    • Re:Ownership may fade in the short term (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:49AM (#40370845) Homepage

      Certain people also seem to have an interest in grossly overstating the "burden" of ownership. Wasn't the whole point of iTunes in the early days was that it eliminated this "burden of ownership". Wasn't it supposed to make adding a physical copy of music to your electronic library easy and painless?

      It seems the marketing propaganda changes to suit whatever the current product is.

      Ignore all of those old ads, we have a new gospel for you today.

      I don't "maintain" squat. Something gets ripped when I buy it and just sits around. If a device can accommodate my entire music collection, then there is nothing to "manage".

    • Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat (Score:5, Insightful)

      by j-stroy ( 640921 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:53AM (#40370911)
      Bandwidth and power used by internet infrastructure is a waste of money and energy compared to playing locally off a low power digital device. Streaming only serves to commodify usage similar to how industries have eked their way into every "payable" crevasse of our existence. Its vampiric how our little time here has been turned into being wage slaves for ideas such as this. Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat.
      • Agreed. And as wireless providers are already starting to phase out unlimited data plans, the party for streaming is about to end, I do believe.

    • This isn't about owning or renting online... this is about streaming, (i.e. pandora, slackware,etc). Think radio, your issue is mute. If one provider dies just select another. You're not purchasing anything.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Petron ( 1771156 )

        This isn't about owning or renting online... this is about streaming, (i.e. pandora, slackware,etc). Think radio, your issue is mute. If one provider dies just select another. You're not purchasing anything.

        Moot. Your issue is moot [reference.com] moot.

        If one provider dies, hope there is another. If there isn't, your SOL. If RIAA decides that a song violates a copyright and pulls it from all streaming... tough.
        vs
        I have a local copy, it will never die unless I choose.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by alen ( 225700 )

      the streaming costs are low enough that if the service goes away you won't care. and there are lots to choose from which makes it a non-issue

      the problem with owning is that there is too much music from the last 50 years worth owning and it takes up too much space in the house

    • Formats sometimes become obsolete. I have VHS tapes with no way to play them anymore, anyone with old 8-tracks probably can't play them. With streaming if the service goes under I no longer pay them and switch to a different provider. With 'owning' (direct licensing really, you don't own the music) if the format becomes obsolete you need to pay the full price to replace all the content you still care about. So you can either pay a lot every now and then when your last player for your obsolete format bre

  • TCO (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jeffy210 ( 214759 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:41AM (#40370725)

    I guess it all comes down to how often do you want to pay for it? One time up front, or every single time you want to listen to it. For me it's the former. Also, the biggest fallacy in the article is "If their music is constantly available anywhere on any device, then 'what's the difference?" What happens when the service you're streaming from is no longer available or the RIAA revokes the licenses. What happens then? I guess people will just move on to the next hit and not care.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by afidel ( 530433 )
      RIAA revokes the licenses

      Can't happen without a change of law, the US has compulsory licensing for audio recordings with rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board.

    • You move onto the next provider, (i.e. change radio stations).

  • "Liberating" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by giltwist ( 1313107 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:42AM (#40370737)
    Two thoughts come to mind here.

    1) It's "liberating" in the same sense that being chemically castrated and color-blinded is "liberating" in Lois Lowry's The Giver. You are "liberated" from the onerous chore of responsibility for your own actions.

    2) Oh, you know what, even though you've spent $100 bucks on every album by Blah Artist, he's now a bad influence on society. We, the corporations, will benevolently "liberate" you from such unwholesome thoughts. *287 files deleted*
    • Freedom IS slavery, citizen.

      Seriously though, on one hand, I agree with you.

      On the other hand, being "liberated" from the chore of keeping backups of your music is nice when you're young and a spare 80 GB harddrive just for redundant music was quite a bit of extra cash, which is, interestingly, the demographic being referenced in the Story.

  • Bandwidth costs, offline access ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:43AM (#40370751) Homepage

    For me, streaming is the opposite of what I want. Between ISPs wanting apply bandwidth caps and additional costs, or being able to play music in my car or wherever I want it, I definitely prefer to own.

    Granted, I'm not covered under the definition of "young" here, so it's probably a generational thing.

    I still pretty much exclusively get my music on CD, and transfer it to MP3 so I can play it on whatever device I want to.

    I'm definitely in the "own not rent" camp.

    • Precisely. If the average computer user understood what repeatedly streaming (especially without caching) did to their bandwidth, they'd run away in horror. If you explained to them that they could watch a movie in pristine quality by waiting 5 minutes, rather than an instant start with degraded quality, it would probably blow their minds.

      But poor impulse control is considered the typical vice of the younger generation.

    • I'm not young, but I stream music regularly. I use a service called FM radio. ;)

      But other than checking out some newer stuff on YouTube, I buy all my music because I don't have 24/7, unlimited broadband internet access, and even if I did, wireless is not, and never will be as reliable as local storage, so it wouldn't actually be 24/7 access. And that's without addressing the time I spend driving in mountains, or in tunnels, or other places where wireless (radio or internet) doesn't work (or works so poorly

    • Yep. I'm young, but I'm also from North America. I don't get unlimited data on my phone unless I pay out of my ass for it (And actually my current carrier doesn't offer it I think), and I'm not going to bust my bandwidth bill when I can just spend 5 minutes to copy hours and hours worth of songs on the internal storage, or spend the same time to burn a CD that I can pop in my car without paying a dime for the bandwidth.

  • Doesn't it get absurdly expensive to "own" the music?

    Oh wait, you meant own a copy of the music. Or is it own a license (non-transferable) to a single physical copy...well, there's fair use of course.

    I am so glad no one has gotten to the point of trying to build business models around breathing.

    -- MarkusQ

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by TheCarp ( 96830 )

      Or own the (non-revokable) media upon which the bits of information, which can be translated into the music, reside. Own all the licenses you want, no license or lack thereof will stop me from reading the bits on my media.

      Personally, I am torn. I like owning the media, because then I know it can't be revoked. I know, within my ability to keep drives spinning and backups working, the only way I am going to lose my ability to hear what i want to hear (read what i want to read, see what i want to see) is if I

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bwintx ( 813768 )

      I am so glad no one has gotten to the point of trying to build business models around breathing.

      Actually, in at least one way, they have [wikipedia.org].

  • A wise man once said (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mccrew ( 62494 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:44AM (#40370775)
    One of my favorite sayings is, "The more you own, the more you are owned." It's definitely a liberating feeling to not have to own and manage stuff, physical and virtual.
    • "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

    • One of my favorite sayings is, "The more you own, the more you are owned." It's definitely a liberating feeling to not have to own and manage stuff, physical and virtual.

      I always thought it was...

      "He who dies with the most stuff.....WINS!!"

  • If that's the case, then why not just go back to listening to broadcast radio? Isn't HD Radio at least as good?
    • Especially on stations that (still) have live DJs! There's something about someone in your geographic area talking to you over the airwaves while picking out music to broadcast that still makes me happy. I like that my local LPFM that you can only hear from 5 miles away runs ads for the tire store down the street and plays requests from people who work in the building next door, regardless of how questionable their taste might be.
    • HD Radio doesn't work well in a moving car.

      Talk about an epic fail, morning and evening drive time is when stations make most of their money.

      My HD radio does switch seamlessly between SD and HD if you are on the main channel. However, the loss of quality is noticable.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by vlm ( 69642 )

      There are no broadcasting stations where I live, only narrowcasting stations all chasing each other trying to optimize $/hr ad revenue off the same set of top 40 songs, and about 5 stations in listenable range playing the same "conservative talk radio" shows.

      Even the 80s/90s sorta-hard rock stations only have 40 to 50 song playlists and they rotate songs in and out extremely slowly.

      Oh yeah, and finally broadcast "music" radio is at least 1/3 crummy local produced ads. At least the national streamers attemp

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      It's funny you should mention this because this is exactly what I do when I get bored with my 32G thumbdrive in the car. All of my music is on it but sometimes I want something else. That something could be Pandora. Although it can just as easily be the local radio stations.

      Pandora and radio are for all of those bands and one hit wonders who's music I have always listened to but never paid for directly.

      I think the communist journalist is reading too much into this situation. It's just radio and MTV all over

    • This gives a level control not available on radio. you can customize stations to the point of "almost" building your own playlist like you would with your own collection.

      Streaming = radio customized to the "playlist" level.

      To be honest, this is the evolution of radio, the same way B/W was replaced by Color.

      The same thing is happening in the TV/Cable/Dish world, its slowly going to View on Demand

  • You never did own the music (Score:3)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:45AM (#40370793)
    The distinction is less when you remember that you never did own the music itself - only a copy on a specific piece of media.

    I still collect music files on my hard drive, but I'm much more liberal about deleting things I don't like than I used to be about throwing away a CD; the collection itself largely amounts to a collection of bookmarks, reminding me of stuff I once liked and may again.

  • If you rely on a streaming service to listen to your favorite music, it will go away. Music changes in popularity, and if your favorite music isn't popular anymore, they'll drop the license. Now you can't listen to your favorite music anymore.

    Rely on streaming if you must, but when it bites you don't expect any sympathy.

  • I stream stuff because I can get something worth streaming nowadays. Pandora has a surprising collection, and sucks far less than the local radio stations do. I've found a surprising amount of relatively obscure ska there.

    That being said, I'm never going to delete my local music collection. I'd prefer my Pink Floyd NOT broken up by track or injected with ads.

    /notayounglistener

  • Anyone concerned about loss of control? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:46AM (#40370807)

    Call me cynical, but I'm concerned about loss of control without an actual copy of the music I want. Just like with radio right now, I could listen to [insert popular song of the day] just about any time I want, but come a year or two down the road, and that might not be the case. Add 10 - 20 yrs to that, and the song may be virtually impossible to find. I know that was the case with a number of some of my all-time favorite CDs - it took a lot of work to track them down. I'd rather not "hope" that someone else is making them available down the road - I can make sure I always have them by keeping my own copy.

  • Is this a video news release? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vlm ( 69642 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:46AM (#40370809)

    Is this a video news release from the cell phone providers?

    If their music is constantly available anywhere on any device, then 'what's the difference?,' ponders the article.

    The difference is my bandwidth to my phones SD flash card is free, but my cell provider wants me to pay $50 per gig.

    Hmm so I could rip a DVD that I own to my phone for free, or I could pay $ to download it over wifi, or I could pay $$$ in bandwidth charges to stream.

    Also service sucks everywhere I go, so if I actually want to listen, rather than listen to buffering and pauses, then I need to download first.

    • I was listening to the radio as a newscaster discussed the availability of mobile apps for the new scions. Until the "brought to you by toyota" at the end, it wasn't clear I was listening to an advertisement. The lines between news and advertising/opinion pushing are the lines that I see blurring. So when an article like this comes out, I think, well, do I trust it? How many students did they interview? How did they select who they interviewed? Who paid to have the interviews conducted? Maybe I'm over think

  • who do you trust? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tuffy ( 10202 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:49AM (#40370847) Homepage Journal

    If you own your own fileserver, like files in particular format and tagged in just the right way, owning is the right option. You're trading the work of doing that yourself for the benefit of having your data the way you like it.

    For a lot of people who either aren't capable of managing files or just not interested in doing that work, offloading music to "the cloud" or some streaming service makes sense - trading control for convenience.

    I prefer the former option, but can understand the appeal of the latter.

  • Streaming is the new radio (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DragonWriter ( 970822 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:54AM (#40370927)

    As long as I can remember, most people listened to music on the radio -- people who dominantly listened to purchased music have always been the exception.

  • Our primary source of music was the radio - it seems to me that was somewhat analogous to streaming. But we still bought our favorite records (look that term up on Wikipedia, young'uns) so we could hear them whenever we wanted.

    Thing is, that's pretty much the same behavior I see with my daughter and her friends. They still buy music from artists they really like. I realize that's a small sample set; but the linked article doesn't really offer any evidence to support its main tenet other than interviews (whi

  • I keep a few favorites on my phone for when I'm driving and stream when I'm looking for something new to listen to. I have enough 3G dead spots around where I drive it's difficult to stream when I'm in my car. I mainly stream from LastFM and Pandora.

    What surprises me is how little I miss my collection from my Ipod. I have 1 or 2 gigabytes of music stored on my phone, nowhere near the collection I kept on my 5th gen Ipod (which I have given to a friend)

    One advantage of streaming is no more specter of th

  • I was told, once... (Score:5, Funny)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @11:01AM (#40371031) Journal
    I once spoke to an elder, with a beard of white and an onion on his belt, who spoke of a certain 'amplitude modulation' by means of which he had 'streamed' music rather than owning it on one of the 78rpm vinyl-platter rotational media of the day....

  • Vinyl (Score:2)

    by PCM2 ( 4486 )

    A lot of my friends have gone back to vinyl records for their music.

    Admittedly, most of them are collector types to begin with. But I think they also like the whole physical/tactile engagement with the record. Also, I think playing your music from records tends to imply you've gone out and bought a record player, an amplifier, and a decent pair of speakers, rather than just playing it through whatever your PC came with.

    I've thought about going that route myself. I find I don't have much connection with the

    • The drawback is "Edison" (flat or round) records immediately deteriorate.

      That's why we used to rip them to tape on the second play (the first was to look for defects). If you must, at least record in a lossless format and play the recordings.

  • Being young means not having been around a long time, so you necessarily won't have memories of failures. And it's a harder to see risks of failures, when your life isn't full of repeated experiences over the decades, of shit breaking all the time, to your disappointment.

    "I think ownership is access, you don't have to have music on your local hard drive to own it,"

    This is a person who hasn't had access problems yet, or who hasn't yet noticed existing access problems (limited music selection, limited client

  • Digital Collections (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @11:08AM (#40371167) Homepage

    I think a lot of people try to explain these things too rationally. I could be wrong, but in my mind it all comes down to the idea of "collecting".

    See, when people used to collect records and VHS tapes and even DVDs, they didn't just want to listen to the music and watch the movies; they were amassing a collection. However you want to explain the psychology of it, it was pleasing to see your collection on a shelf. It was comforting to know that you were happy with your collection. You could say, "I have every Rolling Stones album ever," or whatever, and it was pleasing beyond the sum of the enjoyment you get from listening to each song individually. You even bought that one album you didn't like very much because otherwise, there was a hole in your collection. You'd think, "I have every Rolling Stones album... except that one. Well, I may as well get that one."

    And that was part of where the music industry made its money. There were big hits that made a lot of money, but there were also a bunch of collectors amassing very expensive collections.

    And then the whole thing went digital, and the idea of collecting has lost some of its luster. First of all, it's not something you can display on your shelf, so you don't get the satisfaction of having your collection also be a design choice in your house. At most, you might be satisfied when you go to sit through your computer, or as you scroll through your iPhone.

    Secondly and perhaps just as importantly, the collection has lost its uniqueness. Sure, you may have every Rolling Stones album ever, but you can just copy it and give it to your friend, and now he has all of their albums too. So there's no status in it, and no accomplishment.

    Aside from that, there's nothing personal in it. When you had physical copies, you might look at an old record and remember, "This is the first record I bought for myself when I was 16. I bought it with money from my first job. I listened to this exact physical record over and over until it started to wear out. Now there's a scratch in this one part of the song, and I know exactly when it is from memory, because I know this physical object so well." Now a song is some bits that get transferred from device to device, and are effectively identical to everyone else's collection of bits for that song.

    So when you take away the aesthetic appeal of an actual collection, and you take away the uniqueness and the personal nature of it, there's nothing left but the listening. That's all people want: to listen to the music conveniently and cheaply.

  • My problem with streaming is that things are always in flux. You never know which labels are participating with X streaming service, and even when they do, the contracts are being changed. If you're counting on your favorite song being available online for streaming in 6 years when you want to reminisce, it's a losing battle.

    Looking at my YouTube favorites list, a whole bunch of videos are removed due to vauge "terms of use", "copyright claims", or "user deletions". It makes me wish I had been ripping them.

  • Old listener prefers streaming (Score:3)

    by chrismcb ( 983081 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @11:14AM (#40371305) Homepage
    I've been streaming music for a long time, since before it was cool. I also don't own any of it. It is very liberating. I have money to spend on other endeavors. I can listen to music in my car, or when I workout. Of course I don't have the freedom to listen to the song I want, but I do get a variety of music. I also get introduced to new songs, from time to time. Sure, they may stop playing a song I like, but since I never paid for it in the first place...
    Its called listening to the radio.
  • ... can be saved at the same time. It's only a matter of using the right client software. Everything else, I don't see its significance. If young people think that they don't need to save what they stream, let'em experience streams being pulled or closed. They'll quickly come to their senses. Or what they've been streaming wasn't worth saving in the first place. In which case, nothing of value (to them) was lost. All this is a non-issue, IMHO.

  • I have been using Rdio for the last six months or so. For $10 a month, I have all-you-can-eat access to a huge collection of music with an offline feature for mobile devices. I can access the web player from any computer with any OS and modify my collection from all my devices. I also don't have to worry about buying music I find out is crap ex post facto. It also allows me to try out new artists and genres that I might have not even considered if I had to buy an album in order to find out if I like them. I

  • Young Listeners Also Have Access... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eepok ( 545733 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @11:26AM (#40371529) Homepage

    Young listeners also lso have access to silly amounts of bandwidth almost without regard to their location. If there's not a WiFi hotspot, then the kid (or Mom/Dad) are paying for a large bandwidth cap on the smartphone.

    They don't bother to learn directions anymore or explore because Google Maps or Yelp tell them exactly where to go. They don't wander what their friends are doing, their friends are desperately advertising their locations and activities on Facebook and "young listeners" hear it.

    It's not surprise that Gen Y or Millennials are less likely to have their own copies of music. They understand bandwidth and internet access as ubiquitous. Most of us don't. We grew up with low-speed hardline modems, not always on broadband connections. We see wireless internet access as a luxury. They see it as a given.

  • Youtube (Score:3)

    by brainzach ( 2032950 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @11:56AM (#40372023)

    Everyone talks about Pandora, but it is Youtube is a major streaming service that you can listen to any music on demand. Why buy the song, when you listen to it for free as many times as you want? It's not perfect, but it is a big factor in young listeners music consuming habits.

  • Grandpa here. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @12:08PM (#40372195)

    Over the long haul ownership is the only thing that guarantees you access to the music of your life.

    Many of the things that I loved when I was a college student are out of print, or just flat out not available except as rare items.

    Streaming? Not available.

    People streaming now will eventually own the music that ties into their memories, or lose it.

  • Pffffft (Score:3)

    by dcollins ( 135727 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @12:22PM (#40372375) Homepage

    "I think ownership is access, you don't have to have music on your local hard drive to own it," he said.

    Also: I think that Freedom is Slavery.

  • Lost mine and didn't go back to buying (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Necron69 ( 35644 ) <jscott DOT farrow AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @01:37PM (#40373527)

    I lost my entire hard copy music collection in a house fire back in 2008. I took the insurance money for all the CDs and kept it. Fortunately, my computer hard drive survived the fire, so I still had the ripped MP3s, but in the four years since, I've only bought a handful of new albums/songs. Nonetheless, I actually listen to a much wider variety of music, and more often now too - all via streaming.

    Pandora is easy, free, and available just about anywhere I go. I really can't rationalize paying for what I can get for free.

    Necron69

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