I cancelled Spotify when they stopped paying me any royalties on my music. I’m a small time artist and didn’t hit their 1,000 streams per year per song threshold for most of my songs.
I know I am just one small example, but their decision to cheat me out of a few dollars has cost them hundreds in subscription fees.
m463 · 1m ago
how can they do that?
It seems it would be more fair to pay a listing minimum, then royalties if they meet a certain criteria.
daft_pink · 44m ago
It’s not physical media, but I’ve been buying iTunes copies of Movies and TV Shows instead of streaming. I feel it’s better to own my favorite classics from the golden age of film and tv vs paying by the month for the latest stupid remake. It’s a huge shift from how I felt a few years ago.
m463 · 35s ago
> own my favorite classics
Does apple say you own them, or does it say "you are licensing the content" like amazon says with kindle books?
nayuki · 1h ago
I'd say the article is largely correct, but I have at least one nitpick:
> ‘How do you burn a CD?’ It’s something that was common for us growing up, but that’s knowledge that’s being lost as everything is sort of transitioning to digital.”
This paragraph is using a colloquial but wrong definition of the word "digital" - in this context it seems to mean "online audio/video distribution".
This is wrong because CDs, by definition, hold digital data. Some of us who are old enough to have lived through the transition from unapologetically analog audio media - vinyl records and magnetic cassette tape - to digital, optical compact discs. That was the real transition to digital, not the transition from digital physical media to digital online downloads (both are still digital). Likewise, the transition from analog broadcast TV and analog VHS tapes to digital TV and VCD/DVD/BD was less than 20 years ago. (Side note: LaserDisc stores video analogly but audio digitally.)
Digital is a word that fundamentally contrasts with analog - where analog means infinite variation, no resistance to noise, and imperfect copies. Digital simply means being composed of integers, which further implies finite information and allows perfect copies.
The misuse of the word digital to mean superfluous things is a mockery to the monumental human achievement in inventing and perfecting digital machines and methods of storing/transmitting images and sounds, being much higher quality than previous analog technologies (e.g. photographic film) and allowing information to be delivered reliably across wider space and time.
Digital does not imply electronic, new and high-tech, virtual, or communications-based (as opposed to transporting matter-based recording media). Mechanical LEGO logic is digital. DNA is digital and very old. Alphabets are digital (we agree today there are exactly 26 letters in English). The telegraph network was digital and messages were relayed by humans. A "virtual" meeting involving digital videoconferencing could just as well be held using analog NTSC video channels; the fact that digital technology happened to be used doesn't define the virtual meeting. "Digital marketing" is understood as doing business on the web/Internet through electronic online communications, but I could argue that a paper brochure designed on a digital computer is also "digital marketing".
idorosen · 44m ago
Languages change over time.
happytoexplain · 41m ago
That doesn't mean new language can't be critiqued.
Which of these definitions means "fancier than what the speaker grew accustomed to during their formative years from 10-30 years old"?
FMecha · 40m ago
Odds of Limited Run Games-style "exploitation" of this trend? That was already concerning for games.
pryelluw · 1h ago
To this day I refuse to buy digital only media. Hoping DVDs or blue rays take off again. Maybe something else? I’m not up to date with the modern physical media formats.
Correction:
I meant to speak of my refusal to buy downloadable media like tv shows, movies, video games or music.
As penance, I shall force myself to write maven config for old Java projects.
nayuki · 1h ago
> I refuse to buy digital only media.
DVDs are digital-only media - "Digital Versatile Disc". There is no analog component in it. The disc stores data digitally.
Furthermore, if by digital you mean online distribution, well, you aren't buying media by definition. You're downloading bits from a wire (or radio wave) and storing it on your own physical media.
Among the general public, there is rampant terminology abuse and devaluing of what the word "digital" means - it is in contrast to "analog", not in contrast to physical, non-electronic, non-online, etc. For example, you can make digital logic gates out of mechanical LEGO; you can deliver digital data on floppy disks via sneakers.
pryelluw · 21m ago
Your reply, while technically correct (the best kind), reminds me of a joke I wrote not long ago. I’m going to write it here from memory, so please disregard any loss of humor during the process.
A wasp is just a bee with anger management issues.
Technically incorrect as they’re not quite the same. But amusing nonetheless.
linotype · 1h ago
This is an absurd level of pedantry, everyone knew what OP meant.
JumpCrisscross · 1h ago
I think it’s valid to distinguish between digital (downloaded) and digital (streamed), which OP and the article fail to do.
The problem is owned (for practical purposes) versus leased content. Not digital or physical.
happytoexplain · 48m ago
I disagree, I didn't know what they meant. It's a fairly confusing use of the term "digital media", which is almost always meant as opposed to analog media.
I assume the parent is using it to mean streaming, or other kinds of DRM.
acheron · 53m ago
Words mean things.
Dylan16807 · 40m ago
If we're going to be super pedantic about exactly what words mean, then a DVD is digital but it's not "digital only". Every single owner has a physical disc with the movie on it. Digital only ownership is a few bytes abstracted into some database somewhere, and the movie files themselves are also very loosely correlated with hardware.
hmry · 1h ago
Optical disc media is pretty great, if only they didn't scratch so easily... Or get completely destroyed if something sticks to the label side and you try to pull it off... Or delaminate themselves from old age...
Enclosed discs like Minidisc solve most of those, but still die from age.
Still hope they can perfect those "laser-created point clouds in glass cubes" media someday
cosmic_cheese · 29m ago
Minidiscs are the most practical physical media I’ve come across. The used discs I’ve bought are 20-25 years old and don’t have a case or anything and still play like they were recorded yesterday, even when their contents make it clear that they were recorded to shortly after the disc was manufactured. The CDs and DVDs I’ve burned of the same age are comparably in much poorer shape, some being entirely unreadable.
Their size is great, too, being about as small as you can get while still being easy to handle across the gamut of human hand sizes yet too big to easily lose, and they’re more fun than SD and CF cards with their outer plastic casings coming in all sorts of colors and patterns.
A new media format that takes these strengths and fuses them with those of flash storage would be wonderful. The only thing is that I don’t know how you’d solve is the bit rot problem flash has when spending extended time powered down — maybe dedicated storage for parity data? Capacitors that hold just enough juice to keep the flash “alive”? Redundant flash chips? This isn’t my area of expertise so I’m just throwing things at the wall haha.
i80and · 1h ago
I recently started an effort to make backups of all of my DVDs and blurays, and it's not a lot but I do have a number of older discs of both sorts that now have errors or even can't be read at all despite only leaving their cases a handful of times and having no visual damage.
It's been sobering for me.
pradmatic · 1h ago
What software are you using for this?
btrettel · 24m ago
I'm not them, but I've had good success with ~20 year old CD-Rs using GNU ddrescue.
Not everything was recoverable, but the vast vast majority was.
beej71 · 25m ago
Not the parent, but I've been using Handbrake for DVDs and good old CD Paranoia for CDs.
vel0city · 1h ago
What brand/model of discs had high failure rates?
I've yet to lose any data after validating a good burn on any M-DISC DVD even well over a decade now. I have also not experienced any loss in data for Verbatim Blu-rays after validating the burn.
14 · 28m ago
I remember back when I was making xbox 360 back ups buying a cheap dvd just would not work most of the time getting to many errors. I think it was the Verbatim brand also burned at a slow speed that seemed to be the most successful.
My thought with that is that being cheap to save a few bucks on on discs might cost you your data. Buy the trusted brands who have a proven track record.
slyfox125 · 1h ago
Likewise. UHD blurays are still quite common; perhaps not in physical stores so much, but that holds true for many products.
add-sub-mul-div · 1h ago
Are they really blaming anyone? This is a good thing, but it's destined to remain pretty niche. The vast majority of people do what's easiest and what everyone else is doing. They like streaming and watch whatever is put on their home screen. Tons of people watched Electric State, Red Notice, The Tomorrow War. Citadel got a season 2.
xg15 · 39m ago
Some people used to have the TV running constantly, solely as "background noise", without any interest in what's on screen. Those same people will likely also prop up viewer or listener numbers for literally whatever the streamer put up on screen next. But this does not tell you anything about the actual interest in the media.
add-sub-mul-div · 18m ago
Right. At least with cinema it takes a certain amount of intention to choose to go out and see something. Not that there aren't successful bad movies anyway, but at least the audience has agency.
I know I am just one small example, but their decision to cheat me out of a few dollars has cost them hundreds in subscription fees.
It seems it would be more fair to pay a listing minimum, then royalties if they meet a certain criteria.
Does apple say you own them, or does it say "you are licensing the content" like amazon says with kindle books?
> ‘How do you burn a CD?’ It’s something that was common for us growing up, but that’s knowledge that’s being lost as everything is sort of transitioning to digital.”
This paragraph is using a colloquial but wrong definition of the word "digital" - in this context it seems to mean "online audio/video distribution".
This is wrong because CDs, by definition, hold digital data. Some of us who are old enough to have lived through the transition from unapologetically analog audio media - vinyl records and magnetic cassette tape - to digital, optical compact discs. That was the real transition to digital, not the transition from digital physical media to digital online downloads (both are still digital). Likewise, the transition from analog broadcast TV and analog VHS tapes to digital TV and VCD/DVD/BD was less than 20 years ago. (Side note: LaserDisc stores video analogly but audio digitally.)
Digital is a word that fundamentally contrasts with analog - where analog means infinite variation, no resistance to noise, and imperfect copies. Digital simply means being composed of integers, which further implies finite information and allows perfect copies.
The misuse of the word digital to mean superfluous things is a mockery to the monumental human achievement in inventing and perfecting digital machines and methods of storing/transmitting images and sounds, being much higher quality than previous analog technologies (e.g. photographic film) and allowing information to be delivered reliably across wider space and time.
Digital does not imply electronic, new and high-tech, virtual, or communications-based (as opposed to transporting matter-based recording media). Mechanical LEGO logic is digital. DNA is digital and very old. Alphabets are digital (we agree today there are exactly 26 letters in English). The telegraph network was digital and messages were relayed by humans. A "virtual" meeting involving digital videoconferencing could just as well be held using analog NTSC video channels; the fact that digital technology happened to be used doesn't define the virtual meeting. "Digital marketing" is understood as doing business on the web/Internet through electronic online communications, but I could argue that a paper brochure designed on a digital computer is also "digital marketing".
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/digital
Which of these definitions means "fancier than what the speaker grew accustomed to during their formative years from 10-30 years old"?
Correction:
I meant to speak of my refusal to buy downloadable media like tv shows, movies, video games or music.
As penance, I shall force myself to write maven config for old Java projects.
DVDs are digital-only media - "Digital Versatile Disc". There is no analog component in it. The disc stores data digitally.
Furthermore, if by digital you mean online distribution, well, you aren't buying media by definition. You're downloading bits from a wire (or radio wave) and storing it on your own physical media.
Among the general public, there is rampant terminology abuse and devaluing of what the word "digital" means - it is in contrast to "analog", not in contrast to physical, non-electronic, non-online, etc. For example, you can make digital logic gates out of mechanical LEGO; you can deliver digital data on floppy disks via sneakers.
A wasp is just a bee with anger management issues.
Technically incorrect as they’re not quite the same. But amusing nonetheless.
The problem is owned (for practical purposes) versus leased content. Not digital or physical.
I assume the parent is using it to mean streaming, or other kinds of DRM.
Enclosed discs like Minidisc solve most of those, but still die from age.
Still hope they can perfect those "laser-created point clouds in glass cubes" media someday
Their size is great, too, being about as small as you can get while still being easy to handle across the gamut of human hand sizes yet too big to easily lose, and they’re more fun than SD and CF cards with their outer plastic casings coming in all sorts of colors and patterns.
A new media format that takes these strengths and fuses them with those of flash storage would be wonderful. The only thing is that I don’t know how you’d solve is the bit rot problem flash has when spending extended time powered down — maybe dedicated storage for parity data? Capacitors that hold just enough juice to keep the flash “alive”? Redundant flash chips? This isn’t my area of expertise so I’m just throwing things at the wall haha.
It's been sobering for me.
https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/
Not everything was recoverable, but the vast vast majority was.
I've yet to lose any data after validating a good burn on any M-DISC DVD even well over a decade now. I have also not experienced any loss in data for Verbatim Blu-rays after validating the burn.