Why Do We Continue To Buy Cds?

Hi Everybody!

I'm a student at University of Liverpool, England, and I'm currently working on my MBA dissertation.
I'm studying why we, the consumers, continue to buy CDs even when we can find the same music for free on the Internet, and I'm interested in your points of view.

What is the added value of the physical product?

What are the advantages of a physical CD collection over a digital one?

What can the music industry do to add value to the physical product, so that you will continue to buy the CD instead of downloading the track?

I appreciate any feedback!

Arildho

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Originally posted by arildho@5 August 2003 - 14:57
What can the music industry do to add value to the physical product, so that you will continue to buy the CD instead of downloading the track?

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add more content...i.e. videos/bonus material

however, any bonus content would be easily ripped anyway

Warrington (between manchester n liverpool)

i have laods on my computer so i can just select the track i want without going through all my cd's

i still by cd's as i see it as a way of investing money (not a very good way but i would rather spend ity on a cd than by sum fags which i would if i just didnt spend the money on the cd)

haveing a good cd sollection is somehting to be proud of and to show off.

when havein a load of mates round you have a big rack of your cd's on show n just play sum of the ones that stand out, or poeple can flick through and find other tracks they would not normally hear, it not very sociable all sitting around a computer screen trying to decide which track to put on.

it also better showing sumone a bob dylan album that now one else has found and n then letting your mates be able to read the info in the sleve, rather than just playin him the track without him knowing much of the ack ground.

i used to buy loads of dance compilations, but i am happy to just download them and put them onto cd myself.

i sumtimes tend to download a load of songs, then if i like go and buy the proper ones as to avoid shellin out for a crap cd.

dowloadin music enables me to find remixes that you just can not get in the shop n t get songs before they hit the shops also.

i never buy singles anymore but still buy albums.

i think your cd collection says a lot about you, taking that away from you is like taking sum of your personality and individualism away.

what about just goin to the likes of hmv or virgin or musiczone with your mates n just goin through the cd's n discussing them, it a lot betetr to do with real items with people opions you can trust ratehr than sumone in a chat room telling you what they think about a track which may lead to you been given the wqrong information.

it is easy to jsut swap a few cd's with a mate n get sum of his n then you get to listen tgo a wider range of music.

sum albums are hard to download all the tracks, if you do sum are cut short or just one long track which is annoying.

hope this has helped a little.

what bars do you normally go in liverpool, n what music you into?

ever heard of warrington or mr smiths nightclub?

some people are LOADED http://www.ml20.nowinbeta.org/smilies/marsa37.gif

and buy them all the time

there not much point in buying them though if you have crap taste in music......

another point you could look at is the effect of poeple downloading music on the current uk music chart.


i beleieve that a lot of the childish, annoying, immature groups and songs are suceeding is due to poeple downloading music.

the children who tend to buy the likes of busted, attomic kitten, s club juniors, west life, triple 8, girls aloud, gareth gates, will young, darius etc... (you can see who i mean) are of an age who dont seem to download music. this could be that they dont know who, or not allowed i dont know, but... if these people are not downloading the music that means the must have to buy the music.

where as people who are a little older and into better music (in my opinion) know how to download the music and thus do not need to buy it in the shops and so bands like star sailor, oasis, cold play, the coral (even though they are number one) and other bands such as ocean colour scene, travis ( many mnay others)

i beleiev that is why so much pop n that is donimating the charts as older people simply download it n dont buy it where as kiddy music is not as downloaded as much and and has higher sales making them better in the charts.

it is not that the manic street preachers, travis, rem, coral,[ and the rest are not as popular, just look how many sell out tours they d o compared to teeny boper music, they do a lot more.....

what about all the events like glastonbury, homelands, t in the park, leeds, reading, creamfields, love parade etc... these attract a lot more people than the like of one true voice, girls aloud etc......

do you understand what i am on about or have i rambled on in a manner to which is complicating?

hope i got my point accross

I don't buy cds because I am a 15 year old who has no money and no desire to work. :angry: :(

The advantages over a digital(cds and mp3s are both digital) collection is that you can start, stop and fastforeward songs instantly and playing them are very fast as opposed to physical cds. Another advantage is that you can keep the songs you want and get rid of the "filler" songs or the ones you just don't like. Plus the obvious they are free. :P

Mp3s are also good because you can hear new, signed or unsigned artists on the fly.

The advantage of cds is you support the artist that makes great music(I'm talking about indie bands, forget mainstream) and the quality is better. The quality is better because of the lossless quality of the cds and you are probably playing it on a stereo as opposed to cheap computer speakers.

Well one way to increase the value of a cd is to lower the price of them. $15 for a cd is too much. Dropping it into the price of $10 or lower? Or if they are going to charge so much then there should be extras like on DVDs. A band poster, artist commentary or some videos to go along with the album.

I still buy CDs because I like to support the artists whose music I enjoy. I know that if I wanted to, I could just burn all the CDs I want and save a lot of money. But then I would be stealing from a band that I like. I buy CDs because when I listen to a song on my computer, it feels good to know that I've actually supported the artist who created that song.

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the children who tend to buy the likes of busted, attomic kitten, s club juniors, west life, triple 8, girls aloud, gareth gates, will young, darius etc... (you can see who i mean) are of an age who dont seem to download music. this could be that they dont know who, or not allowed i dont know, but... if these people are not downloading the music that means the must have to buy the music.

where as people who are a little older and into better music (in my opinion) know how to download the music and thus do not need to buy it in the shops and so bands like star sailor, oasis, cold play, the coral (even though they are number one) and other bands such as ocean colour scene, travis ( many mnay others)

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I have to disagree with this guy. Sure, older listeners have more experience and can probably find and download music more efficiently than a child, but I find that kids don't really care about whether they hurt a band by downloading their music; people in my age range (18-21) are more open-minded and therefore more likely to be inclined to purchase the album of a band they like. They are also more likely to enjoy bands that are just under the mainstream radar, and know that it's important to support those bands. Having a job and steady income also helps them since they have extra money to spend on CDs.

I am a college student...*enough said*...

Little kids are the most gullible and will swallow up whatever crap these media companies throw at them. <_<

yea, im 15 and im broke as hell. but if there is a cd from a band that i respect and want to support, i will buy it.

i buy CD&#39;s because - quite frankly - the quality of MP3&#39;s is terable, listen to some though a decent setup (i.e. not PC speakers) and you can hear how bad they are - the reason is this - mp3&#39;s tend to be at around 128/192 k/s, CD&#39;s run at about 1124 k/s - that is a lot off differance :o

I typically buy my cd&#39;s because I am extremely anal about the kbps at which my mp3&#39;s are at, preferred is using alt-preset standard, which is about the same size as 192 kbps

my other reasons, you sometimes get bonus songs, videos, or a bonus dvd

some bands I am willing to support, others (like Metallica) can lick me where the sun don&#39;t shine

i&#39;ll but a cd if im a big fan of the band. but most of the time, its just a waste. most of the cd&#39;s out there have 2 or so songs that are actually good and the rest is just shat. also, many places selling cd&#39;s at &#036;18 (US), thats just bull, it shouldnt be that much, especially if there are only 1 or 2 songs you want, not worth it in my opinion.

its just the furture , Like how people stoped buying those old big black disk forgot name then cassets then CDs now digital. :o

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Originally posted by arildho@5 August 2003 - 13:57
What can the music industry do to add value to the physical product, so that you will continue to buy the CD instead of downloading the track?

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they could bring the price down

£12 per CD

breakdown (estimate):
£2 - Manufacturing costs
£1 - Artist
£1 - Support New artists
£1 - Tax
£7 - Profit

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Originally posted by FearNot@5 August 2003 - 19:18
its just the furture , Like how people stoped buying those old big black disk forgot name then cassets then CDs now digital.&nbsp; :o

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you mean vinyl? which is now selling a lot due to the fact people have realised it sounds better than CD&#39;s??

Well, I&#39;ve never actually bought a CD myself (yet I somehow own 4 of them), but I have some opinions on the subject.

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What is the added value of the physical product?

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I think that people prefer to own something that&#39;s physical over completely digital. Music on a CD that you can hold in your hands simply seems more tangible. The same music held somewhere on a complex machine, who&#39;s owner probably doesn&#39;t even understand how it stores it or how the format works, is much more abstract. It&#39;s like asking someone if they&#39;d rather be given a ten dollar bill or be given a debit card for an account with &#036;10 in it. (Maybe not a great analogy, but it gets the point across.) They&#39;d prefer the physical item even though both are worth exactly the same.
Also, if they&#39;re not very knowledgeable about making their own CD&#39;s or don&#39;t have a burner, then the store-bought CD&#39;s have the advantage of being portable.

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What are the advantages of a physical CD collection over a digital one?

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I don&#39;t really see much of an advantage to owning large amounts of CD&#39;s. Especially if a person can burn their own - then a digital collection can become physical. I guess the mentality may be something like with other expensive things, like cars, home theater systems, etc. Something to be proud of, to show off.

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What can the music industry do to add value to the physical product, so that you will continue to buy the CD instead of downloading the track?

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Like others said, more bonus material like videos and so forth. I don&#39;t think I&#39;ve ever seen bonus content from a CD available anywhere. To me, that would be the only reason to buy a CD (or at the very least, borrow one from someone who did). IMO, that&#39;s really the only selling point they have right now, since most album art is available in addition to audio of practically lossless quality. Lowering the price wouldn&#39;t make much of a difference to me since I have no intention of buying an album, especially now. However, I&#39;m pretty sure lowered prices would appeal to others, but would probably not convince many people who regularly download and never buy.

Hope I helped, good luck on your dissertation. :)

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Originally posted by ObiWan+5 August 2003 - 13:25--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (ObiWan @ 5 August 2003 - 13:25)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-arildho@5 August 2003 - 13:57
What can the music industry do to add value to the physical product, so that you will continue to buy the CD instead of downloading the track?

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they could bring the price down

£12 per CD

breakdown (estimate):
£2 - Manufacturing costs
£1 - Artist
£1 - Support New artists
£1 - Tax
£7 - Profit [/b][/quote]
I thought it would cost less the create a cd.. most only have the jewel case and a little booklet.. im guessing more like a dollar cus they do it in such huge quantities.

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Originally posted by arildho@5 August 2003 - 13:57
Hi Everybody&#33;

I&#39;m a student at University of Liverpool, England, and I&#39;m currently working on my MBA dissertation.
I&#39;m studying why we, the consumers, continue to buy CDs even when we can find the same music for free on the Internet, and I&#39;m interested in your points of view.

What is the added value of the physical product?

What are the advantages of a physical CD collection over a digital one?

What can the music industry do to add value to the physical product, so that you will continue to buy the CD instead of downloading the track?

I appreciate any feedback&#33;

Arildho

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well to be honest if i really like an artist and cant be arsed looking through kazaa im gonna buy a cd cos it aint that much of my pocket money and it also is nice to have one original amoung the many fakes :)

you will prolly find that olda teens and students are the biggiset downloaders of music we simple cant afford 2 buy albums at £13 - £14 well i cant anyway the only time i would by an album was if i really liked the artist and had money&#33; or as a birthday/x mas prsent 4 sum 1

the only cd&#39;s you&#39;ll find me buying are blank ones ;)

hmm now do i buy 1 album for about £16 or do i buy a pack of 100 blank cds for £17? damn hard choice :rolleyes:

I can&#39;t really back this up but we should support some artist we like by buying there music but I don&#39;t thats why I can&#39;t back it up. It&#39;s not like I don&#39;t have money to get it I just don&#39;t want to buy it. Because most cd&#39;s u are only buying because of the single then u get it and the rest is garbage. So why not download it to see if u like it first but still not saying that i&#39;m going to buy it cause once u get it off the net why buy it like u said.

Although I thought we have to share our thoughts openly to understand ech other better - I also buy cds. Why?

**** If the musician is good I think it is worth to support him on the one side
so he can probably continue making good music.
How many the musician get and how many the music company?

***** The other side is in many albums there are additional infos in the
small leaflet which is included in most of the cds. There you often find the lyrics :)
and interesting informations.

Ok, that are only two advantages I can imaigne at the moment.
The first is a little bit more important :)

thanks anyway, - hope this helps :) - david.

It is hot here in Nuremberg :)

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Originally posted by Paul_NFFC@5 August 2003 - 20:19
the only cd&#39;s you&#39;ll find me buying are blank ones&nbsp; ;)

hmm now do i buy 1 album for about £16 or do i buy a pack of 100 blank cds for £17? damn hard choice&nbsp; :rolleyes:

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http://www.iespana.es/Planet-Z/trigun/veryfunny.jpg
HA HA HA HA ME 2 :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Originally posted by Luca_Snipes+5 August 2003 - 19:27--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Luca_Snipes @ 5 August 2003 - 19:27)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-FearNot@5 August 2003 - 19:18
its just the furture , Like how people stoped buying those old big black disk forgot name then cassets then CDs now digital. :o

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you mean vinyl? which is now selling a lot due to the fact people have realised it sounds better than CD&#39;s?? [/b][/quote]


I almost exclusively buy VINYL because it sounds better and lasts longer and it&#39;s what I first started buying so there&#39;s a certain sentimental attachment to it. :lol: As for buying CD&#39;s I buy a few now and again when I see one I like or if there&#39;s a sale on. If people like me didn&#39;t buy (and rip) CD&#39;s there&#39;d be a really fucking limited selection to choose from. You gotta keep buying music to keep filesharing going, it just spreads the costs to minimal amounts. ;)

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Originally posted by gavin@5 August 2003 - 14:55
you will prolly find that olda teens and students are the biggiset downloaders of music we simple cant afford 2 buy albums at £13 - £14 well i cant anyway the only time i would by an album was if i really liked the artist and had money&#33; or as a birthday/x mas prsent 4 sum 1

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exactly my problem. I cant work cus i have school unless its the odd babysitting job.

There are some CDs which could be viewed as Art. There is the Cover Art, Back cover Art, Inserts, and the CD itself - some of which are really great looking, especially if you have the &#39;Bang & Olufsen Beosound 9000&#39;:

http://www.bang-olufsen.com/graphics..._1_1_1_1_L.jpg

That is a sweet system, and CDs look incredible in it&#33;

A huge CD collection is a beautiful thing when displayed properly, and ev en better looking when the Cds are spinning in the 9000. If money were no object, or if the freaking price of CDs was reasonable, I think it would be easy to get addicted them.

Because neither is true for me, and because I can only afford to purchase them on rare occasions, I tend to be very picky as to which CD goes home with me.

Tchau&#33;

I to have a quality sound system..

Cd&#39;s and Scd&#39;s just sound so much clearer and precise.. you can pin point any exact sound, these systems were designed for cd&#39;s, not mp3&#39;s so if you would rather have quality than quantity you buy the cd that has had thousands spent on it being produced in a good studio.

i download the songs first, then go buy them if i like them.

i currently got a 4 nive big mission 755i&#39;s in my room.. thats very loud&#33;

The reasons why i dont buy cds are the following. I cant afford to buy all the cds i like. one cd at a time? yes , but first i want something good to play the cds on. Right now they&#39;re are so many formats that i will say , hell no, to buying a player that can only play one kind of media only. There is vhs , super vhs , d-vhs, dvd , dvd-audio, cd , sacd. I mean damn how many things you need to buy just to hear/watch them? but concentrating on audio only...... Currently the local radio stations play whatever they want. (locally speaking) So i do not know what other better artists are out there. UNLESS i look for them on the net and download their music. Then if i like what i hear i buy their cd if possible. I used to have a small to medium size collection of cds... around 400 cds. But i had to sell them. I just saw on the bestbuy mag that comes in the newspaper every sunday , this pioneer dvd-audio , sacd , dvd , cd player. With progressive scan. Thats a good choice eh. But then i guess to buy sacd&#39;s , dvds , audio-dvds , and well..im not rich ....ohhh i will also need good speakers and i will need wires , cables , racks for cds,dvds Blah , till porn comes out only on dvd , till there is a all in one player i wont go out and spend much money on anything related to cds.... ohhh another reason i have put listening to music , or at least paying to hear music , buying cds , is because of the world events that have occured in recent years , im not gonna be concentrating only on buying cds , ok? crap then there are those tv show series on dvd , sets costing as much as 90dlls HELL NO :o

It rare i buy cds now, and i only do if it got the music video on them. Why pay for just the song if you can get that and the music video too

I have not really had the time to read other responses to this....but here&#39;s my input.

People will have to buy cds first of all so people can share music on the internet. Without the purchase of the cd, there will be no sharing. One person buying a cd will not guarantee it being shared on the internet.... lots have to buy it, because lots of people do not know how to rip and those who do... there are still some that cannot rip correctly.

Another important reason for purchasing of music, is devotion to the band.

Another reason is fear from downloading.

Another important reason goes back to the devotion to the band, which is the artwork inside. If you download an album and then download artwork... it sometimes is not as nice as having the orignal.

This is the main reason I buy cd&#39;s is my dedication to the band.... a great price on the cd... and the art content of the packaging. Oh, and of course THE MUSIC

i dont buy cd&#39;s but rarley download eiather.

I continue to buy CDs, cause I like browsing the record store, unwrapping it from the plastic, etc. Its more of a ritual than anything else. There is something nostalgic about it, and I hope I can do it for years to come. B)

I don&#39;t buy CD&#39;s unless it&#39;s a compilation and priced under &#036;6 and it has to be all known songs.