The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

I bought the new Jason Mraz album today off of iTunes, the music program that goes along with the iPod. Now that I've downloaded it, I can put it on my iPod, burn it to a CD, or listen to it from my computer. In addition to the songs on the album, my purchase also came with a PDF of the album liner notes and a free download of the video "Wordplay", which is the debut single. I haven't listened to the CD yet, by the way, but there's no way it can be bad. Mraz's last album was phenomenal and this one was produced by Steve Lillywhite, the dude who produced the first three Dave Matthews studio albums. I can't imagine having to eat my words here.

I don't begrudge anyone from downloading entire albums for free from the internet, but I personally feel like if I want the whole album, then I should buy it. If I only want one song by an artist, then I don't really have an issue with downloading it for free. This is sortof an arbitrary line to draw, but I can justify it by saying if I didn't download this one song for free, then I certainly wouldn't go and buy it, so there would be no money exchange in either case. At the same time, if I'm buying a whole album, then I'm supporting that band in their endeavor and part of that is paying for what they put out there. I know you could make a similar argument for a single song, but, like I say, I suppose I have a pretty arbitrary stance on the matter.

Anyhow, I don't know if I'll ever go physically buy a CD ever again. First of all, there's a new technology being introduced that makes some CDs incompatible with ripping to iTunes and iPods. Since I happen to have an iPod, this is not ideal. At this juncture the issue with those CDs is that the Apple people haven't licensed the software that would make iPods compatible. They also have no plans to license it.

Secondly, if I buy a CD and rip it to my iPod, then I have really no use for the CD any more. If for some reason I did need an actual CD versus a digital copy of the album, then I could burn it.

Also the music stores have been ripping us off for years by overcharging for CDs. New releases sell for $12-$15 and older CDs that I often want cost like $20. That's ridiculous since it costs something on the order of $1 to produce a CD for sale. This way I can support the artist I like without having to support the store that I know is overcharging me. You could argue that iTunes overcharges too, since theoretically all they really need is one digital copy of the song to disseminate it, but at least it's cheaper and reasonably priced.

I wonder once this becomes the normal way of buying music if it will become more or less expensive. I would imagine there will be more competition and the existing music stores will open their own online music stores and the prices will eventually level at some reasonable price. Although the stores have been in collusion for years regarding the overpricing of CDs, so that may be a bit idealistic.

In any event, I am going to make every effort to never buy a CD again. I wonder if that's a realistic goal. When I was 15 I promised myself that I would never pay for a haircut again in my life and I have held firmly to that goal 12 years later. I think I can pull this one off, too.