<p>I might be ready to part with the CD collection, or at least with the original cases, to make some room on our bookshelves. Is there any reason I should keep them? (They are loaded on the computer, and our ipods.) I do like the CD cases but maybe not enough to keep them. Anyone gotten rid of the physical CDs and cases, and regretted it?</p>
<p>No, but given people on E-bay are paying $50 for barf bags from defunct airlines (think PanAm, Eastern), I wouldn’t throw the cases and inserts away…JMO</p>
<p>I can’t stand to keep anything we don’t use so I would get rid of them. We have thousands of songs on the computer and on our phones and iPods and it just doesn’t make sense to me to keep the CDs. Try selling them on Craigslist, Ebay or at a second-hand record store.</p>
<p>Just asked the master of all things technical. Do not throw them away. Your CDs are your ultimate backup. Your computer and ipod will one day fail. You will then want to reload your CDs on your new system. Jewel cases are much better protectors than paper sleeves, if you want to go that way.</p>
<p>Montegut–thanks for confimring my suspicion–I worry all the time what happens to digital music when computers are replaced, devices fail, software freaks up. etc. CDs are the closest thing to actual albums now for most of us. I feel like I have something in a semii-permanent spot with them. I still worry, though, about where downloaded music will be, say, 15 years from now. anyone have any info on that?</p>
<p>We keep the CDs we acquired years ago, as well as the vinyl record albums and good but ancient record player. Those CDs are your ultimate backup. It will be interesting to find out what has happened in 15 years- if the end of this year disaster predicted by some doesn’t occur and if we are still alive/in reasonable mental status to care, hopefully the latter, not the former.</p>
<p>I’d keep the CDs, but they don’t need to be on bookshelves. Put them in a box and stick them in whatever you use for storage. (Attic, basement, back of a closet.)</p>
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<p>That and if you care…your plan to retain the music in digital form would be considered piracy by the media companies/lawyers. In their argument…ownership of the CDs is the exclusive means of licensing their music for personal use. </p>
<p>As far as they are concerned, once you sell/give them away…your license to use that music for your personal use is terminated. Granted, many folks disagree with their interpretation of musical licensing/IP…and they’re not all necessarily easily dismissible adolescents/young adults who want “free music”.</p>
<p>I’m a stickler about keeping my music collection legal, so I echo what cobrat says. Although all my CDs have been ripped, I keep them all. I have thrown out a bunch of the jewel cases for stuff that’s low-priority, just to save space–just kept the disks.</p>
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Does anybody actually disagree with this interpretation as a legal matter? Certainly, lots of people disregard it, and the personal risk in doing so is pretty minimal. But as a matter of law, it’s no different from photocopying books and then selling the books.</p>
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<p>One area of disagreement is in how some feel it is hypocritical to say that the CD provides a license to use the music and yet…if the CD becomes damaged/otherwise unusable…the media company treats it as if the CD is a physical product…rather than a licensing medium. </p>
<p>In their view, if the media companies want to say the CDs provide a license to use the music…the media companies should have no problems providing free CD replacements in case of damage/wear as according to their argument…the CD is a licensing medium…not a physical product in itself. In short…this argument is saying the media companies want to have their cake and eat it too…something proponents of this argument disagree with and feel is a bit hypocritical. </p>
<p>At least Apple’s Itunes musical license allow the downloader perpetual downloads of all items bought/legally downloaded. </p>
<p>Moreover, there are also additional complicated issues in areas such as lending libraries. Many not only lend out physical CDs…but allow digital downloads which you are allowed to keep.</p>
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That’s not a bad argument–the companies could at least give you a free download if you sent in the damaged CD. But don’t they actually take the position that you’re not even free to rip the music from your own CD to the computer? Or have they given up on that position?</p>
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<p>While they have tried arguing as much, the “fair use provision” in IP law undermines that as it provides the end user the right to make one backup copy for their own personal use. </p>
<p>However, recent court rulings such as DMCA have undermined that provision as the courts have effectively ruled that corporations don’t have to facilitate the exercise of the “fair use” provision and that reverse engineering copy protections…even to facilitate the user’s exercising of his/her fair use rights is illegal. </p>
<p>A point which has many activists in the IP activist community and other areas up in arms. Personally, I’d agree with them as I view the music/media industry’s attempts to blame online piracy for their supposed financial woes as a diversion from the real cause of their problems…putting out crappy music/movies, placing too much emphasis on “finding a guaranteed formula”, and focusing too much on targeting the 12-24 year old age demographic at the expense of other demographics…including those who have much more disposable income…the Great, Silent, and Boomer generations.</p>
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It seems that the music companies have mostly given up on this, though–they tried adding copy protection to CDs for a while, but it was so unpopular that they stopped.</p>
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<p>Not helped by the fact the copy protections they implemented on audio CDs caused a lot of playback compatibility problems with standard CD players…and installed rootkits which undermined computer security for the enduser. The last part was a major embarrassment for the labels which did it. </p>
<p>They still use copy protections for DVDs and movie stuff…but most are easily circumvented by anyone who knows how to work a computer and can spend 5 minutes reading online how-tos…including elementary school aged kids.</p>
<p>I remember that you could defeat the copy-protection on a CD with a Sharpie.</p>
<p>I’m probably in a tiny minority on this, but I keep my CDs around so that I can have the option of ripping them to FLAC files instead of mp3 files. When I get around to that. 
But I do dump all the (unfortunately, non-recyclable) cases, keeping the inserts.</p>
<p>Anybody remember the original Diamond 300 mp3 player with all of 16 MB onboard? Enough for 16 minutes or so of 128 kbps encoded music. I had one, which made these highly compressed files necessary. The disk space isn’t an issue anymore, but a whole generation will think that 128 kbps files sound just great.</p>
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One side-benefit of aging is that those compressed files sound the same to me as bigger files at this point, so I can fit a lot more on my iPod.</p>
<p>I remember reading somewhere that broadcast FM is equivalent to around 96kbps, so 128 kbps is better than the radio, which is fine for almost everybody.</p>
<p>I have a lot of classical music ripped at both 128 kbps and 256 kbps, and I really don’t hear a difference. Maybe it’s my cheap speakers.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. A lot of people who used 128 kbps to encode their mp3s now encode at 160 or above because there is a noticeable quality difference for not much more space…especially if you’re listening to those files on mid-high end earphones/speakers. </p>
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<p>Actually, I read somewhere that 128 kbps is equivalent to FM radio at best…assuming it was encoded with a decent encoder(i.e. LAME) and the one doing the encoding wasn’t clueless about it. </p>
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<p>It most definitely is probably your cheap speakers and expectations. </p>
<p>IME, it is classical music where you’d notice a quality difference between 128 kbps, 256 kbps, and lossless formats like .flac, .ape, and more. Especially if you play them on mid-high end earphones/speakers. </p>
<p>Most friends who are hardcore classical music/jazz fans would refuse to encode their collections in a lossy format period. </p>
<p>It’s .wav, .flac, or other lossless formats for them. </p>
<p>Personally, I’m not that anal about my digital music…especially considering I use $24 headphones for my media player. However, I do prefer to encode all my music into .flac or apple lossless so I have an archival quality digital files on hand. </p>
<p>When I load them into my Ipod, I’d do apple lossless or one of the many accepted lossy formats. :)</p>
<p>Also, lo-fi music has become chic in some indie circles so you may be considered “cool” by some for playing music through cheap speakers. :)</p>