EMI Music CEO says the CD is 'dead'
Last Update: 8:38 AM ET Oct 27, 2006

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- EMI Music Chairman and Chief Executive Alain Levy Friday told an audience at the London Business School that the CD is dead, saying music companies will no longer be able to sell CDs without offering "value-added" material.
"The CD as it is right now is dead," Levy said, adding that 60% of consumers put CDs into home computers in order to transfer material to digital music players.
EMI Music is part of EMI Group PLC (EMI.LN).
But there remains a place for physical media, Levy said.
"You're not going to offer your mother-in-law iTunes downloads for Christmas," he said. "But we have to be much more innovative in the way we sell physical content."
Record companies will need to make CDs more attractive to the consumer, he said.
"By the beginning of next year, none of our content will come without any additional material," Levy said.
CD sales accounted for more than 70% of total music sales in the first half of 2006, while digital music sales were around 11% of the total, according to music industry trade body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
CD sales were worth $6.45 billion and digital sales $945 million, the IFPI said.
Levy said EMI is continuing to hold talks with Google Inc. (GOOG) on an advertising-revenue sharing partnership with the community video Web site YouTube, which the Internet search giant acquired in October for $1.6 billion in stock.
EMI's rivals, Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG), Sony BMG - a joint venture between Sony Corp. (SNE) and Bertelsmann AG - and Universal Media have all signed content deals with YouTube.
"The terms they were offering weren't acceptable," Levy said, adding that EMI continues to be concerned about copyright issues.
Company Web site: http://www.emigroup.com
-Contact: 201-938-5400 End of Story

how things have changed..

"By the beginning of next year, none of our content will come without any additional material," Levy said.

Sony already tried that. Their root kit was an incredibly stupid idea.

EMI also recently admitted to internal fraud at its division in Brazil. This was regarding overstating sales figures to the tune of $17m.

This means the boycott is working.

(But the CD is not dead to independent artists, just the RIAA.)

"dead" CDs will include DRM, rootkits and the same old crappy music aimed at teengrrlz and oldfarts at the usual high prices we've come to expect from a cartel. No one wants to buy DRM.

Independant Music CDs will include, lyrics on WordPad (adobe sucks ass), tablature, jpg pictures, and mpeg videos, all DRM free so that they can be played/veiwed with the program of your choice. (Idems that usually cost extra and come under strict copyright protection when owned by the RIAA-backed industry.)

I think DRM is a given but the general public are still naive to it. Rootkits? Maybe but after the SOny debacle, probably not, still stupidity is contagious.

From what I've heard it may mean a couple of bonus tracks/remixes/demos not included on the itunes/digital download and mpeg video protected by drm.

"You're not going to offer your mother-in-law iTunes downloads for Christmas"

Of course not. She likes the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. They're still not on iTunes and she's got all the CDs anyway.

"By the beginning of next year, none of our content will come without any additional material"

"additional material"? They still don't get it, do they? How about more damn songs?

How about stop suing people? How about an apology?

I've had 667 downloads of my songs over on SoundClick this month, good ol' free downloads from Rocking thru Amreica, who needs CDs anyways, hey?

The CD is not dead.... it's just resting

It might not happen in the next year or so and doesn't help that there isn't a unified format yet, but DVD Audio or whichever standard of increased bandwidth sound will eventually take over CD's and you can bet your bottom dollar this standard will come with DRM to the hilt in addition to the 24 bit sound @ 192 or better Khz of pristine surround sound. The improved sound quality will really show up .mp3 and .wma etc for the lossy format it is...

"DVD Audio or whichever standard of increased bandwidth sound will eventually take over CD's and you can bet your bottom dollar this standard will come with DRM to the hilt in addition to the 24 bit sound @ 192 or better Khz of pristine surround sound."

"The improved sound quality will really show up .mp3 and .wma etc for the lossy format it is..."

It has no improved sound quality even in its unadulterated form than properly mastered 16 bit 44.1Khz CDDA. Not gonna argue about it because for one, most would consider my statement my subjective opinion, and 2) There actually is technical data that could be discussed pointing out that 24/196 does not sound better. It would be far beyond the scope of anyone to read it here, and noone would really care anyways.

Remember they secret behind selling DVD-A and SACD to the public was never announced, never made known from the source. That secret is the perpetual degradation of CD mastering since after the DMCA became law in 1995, introducing intentional distortion, intentionally louder recording levels, clipping, compressed dynamics, year after year. Take a CD from before 1995 and extract it, and open it up in EAC's "process wav" feature or use something like Adobe Audition and look at the recording levels. I know for a fact that there have been recording engineers that have known full well what the hell that would do to the music but were forced to capitulate by their superiors or they would lose their job.

THe lossy DRM'd compressed "cartel-authorized" versions of so-called "music" only horribly add insult to already grievous injury.

If you present a generation of sheeple with a "product" and that part of the population thinks that's the best available, and offer DVD-A/SACD as an "improvement", people will buy it hook, line, and sinker. If you've never had something to begin with (i.e. true audio fidelity at normal recording levels), you couldn't possibly grasp the concept that you've had the wool pulled over your eyes all your life when THEIR alternatives are shoved in your face.

It's like a virgin trying to understand a hooker, they just don't get it.

cds are dieing cause no one buys them and illegally download and share them

hmm . . . that last post sounds like something we'd expect to hear from the dark side (the riaa)

you don't suppose . . .

"If you present a generation of sheeple with a "product" and that part of the population thinks that's the best available, and offer DVD-A/SACD as an "improvement", people will buy it hook, line, and sinker. "

Gee, I thought the record labels considered both of these formats (DVD-A and SACD) FAILURES because no one was buying them? I didn't "buy it hook, line, and sinker", because I was not about to reinvest my money into new equipment and rebuying my music collection again. I did it once, from LP to CD's. I'm not doing it again.

And I bet one of the reasons these products don't sell is that I'm not the only one that thinks this way, better sound or not.

why cds aren't selling

1. not enough quality songs on a cd
2. they're over-priced
3. a large number of potential buyers want options of rights of use and portability, and it's true that non-DRM'ed music is available on P2P which is also tempting because it enables a person to try before they buy
4. used cds are still selling fairly well, aren't they
let's see, what was the old addage
oh, yeah, the customer is always right
how about that one
5. (i'll stop here and let someone else take over)

While I do not disagree with TrueAudio, the general public does not care about sound quality. They want to hear what they like and if it sounds kinda crappy, that's okay.

I discovered rock and roll and Motown on a transistor radio with a two-inch speaker. I was happy with that until I learned how to listen. By comparison, the iPod is pristine audio.

Why would anyone want 12 songs on a disk, when you can have 50,000 on a harddrive, or even 300 on a DVD? Cause they play in a car? So does an ipod or a notebook.

"the general public does not care about sound quality."

True, but it's not whether they do or not, it's the fact that the RIAA/MPAA are trying to *make* people care about something which previously they didn't, even though they have failed with DVDA and SACD, they have not learned their lesson, and they are desperate to convince everyone that "newer is better".

The same song and dance is re-hashed once again right now with the big push to shove Blue-Ray and or HD-DVD down everyones throats, touting "greatly improved picture quality over DVD", and enhanced audio, blah blah blah.

People don't care about improved picture quality either (for the most part) reinforced by the fact that most people can't notice anything more than a negligible (if any in some cases) improvement in the resolution of BRD/HD-DVD, over plain DVD and -this is the key; certainly NOT for the cost, repurchasing all those titles that you already own, and the extreme level of DRM crippling both so-called "formats".

*Millions* of people realize that the "pirated" product is always superior, because it contains ONLY what people WANT, and NONE of what people don't want (bullshit propaganda trailors about a redefined version of murder or robbery on the high seas), shove down your throat advertising for other films, and warning messages that insinuate that everyone is a potential felon who purchases the disc.

The Commodore 64 was the most popular computer of all time because it had the most "pirated" games for it than any other platform ever.

The Sega Saturn was THE LEAST POPULAR GAME SYSTEM OF ALL TIME, WHY? BECAUSE IT WAS EXTREMELY HARD TO "PIRATE" GAMES FOR IT, SO THE GAMERS SAID, "FUCK YOU" WE DON'T WANT IT.

Even the PROGRAMMERS HATED the Sega Saturn, due to its highly proprietary electronics built to cockblock "pirates", the coders couldn't even hardly write fucking games for the console itself, much less expect windfall profits, YOU BROUGHT IT UPON YOURSELVES COPYRIGHT POLICE IDIOTS.

The X-Box is highly popular as is the PS2, because they're both easy to "Pirate" and mod (AKA. restoring freedom back to the user to do what they want with WHAT THEY PAID MONEY FOR).

The new X-Box 360 (the latter revisions with the gay epoxy bs crap) will be less popular, because "more difficult to pirate".

In conclusion choose your business model:

A) hardware allows total freedom --> result, high popularity, demand, MASSIVE hardware sales (read PROFITS), and GOOD profits from games, even if "pirateable" because giving people freedom to do what they wish with what they buy, garners respect back from them as a whole and the return is greater than the imaginary "return" gained from preventing people from doing what they want with what they pay for. You get: Real profits, and Real popularity, while losing IMAGINARY profits in scenario A.

B) Cockblock the shit out of the hardware to prevent "piracy" ---> RESULT: AVERAGE TO LOW sales (read: PROFITS) from hardware, LOW popularity (resulting in PR campaigns and spin and deceptive marketing to fill in the void in a desperate attempt to create "APPARENT (but FAKE) Popularity --READ: UPCOMING WINDOWS VISTA). You get: Real profit LOSS, and Real UNpopularity, while losing REAL profits in scenario B.

correction to last part:

should read:
You get: IMAGINARY (spun, FALSE EARNINGS REPORTS) profits, and Real UNpopularity, while losing REAL profits in scenario B.

Lets not forget the laughable and counter-intuitive cost passed on to the customer for the money spent by the cartels to fund R&D for anti-copy mechanisms, which are cracked within days. The literal equivalent to unzipping your pants and pissing millions of dollars down the toilet, over and over and over again.

One great irony to the whole MAFIAA agenda is that if in fact, every person in the world that the IFPI/RIAA/MPAA wants sent to prison for backing up CD's, DVD's, games, and/or filesharing et.al, there wouldn't be enough people left on the Earth to buy their "products" to even meet their production costs to begin with, imo.

No no! The CD is not dead! EMI is dead! Sorry EMI. And Sony is already rotten!
And TrueAudio is an RIAA Agent!

TrueAudio is roting right now with his friends at the RIAA!

"And TrueAudio is an RIAA Agent!
TrueAudio is [sic] right now with his friends at the RIAA!"


wow, what makes you say that

"AM
TrueAudio is roting right now with his friends at the RIAA!"

Huh?

That would be akin to Jesus saying to God; "Get thee behind me, Satan"

ignore MajorTreat

he's mistaken about you in a "major" way

"Why would anyone want 12 songs on a disk, when you can have 50,000 on a harddrive, or even 300 on a DVD? Cause they play in a car? So does an ipod or a notebook."


Because You will actually be able to hear 12 one at a time and do u really wanna fill ur harddrive with nothing but the collection of 60's music?