Should I sell all my CDs?

I have to confess, I don't understand it either (and I'm glad I don't). The other night, I cranked up the Victrola and spun some records that are now more than 110 years old. No digital. No sampling rate. No electricity! Analogue sound into a horn and, a century or so later, analogue sound back out.

Do people live so much in-the-moment that they think their beloved streaming music is going to be around decades from now (or even months?). Does it matter to them, or is music such a disposable commodity that they feel it can just be replaced with different music? Do people think their iPods are going to be working 25 years from now? Their computer hard drives?

 

All excellent points.

As for me, I don't care if I am considered an anachronism. I will own physical media for my music, movies, and books until the day I drop for the last time

 

Right, there are a lot of interesting questions about music streaming and ever changing digital files. Things change so quickly, both legally and technologically, that what we use today may be obsolete tomorrow.

Are people going to be satisfied with their current digital files once better ones come along? Will people who are uploading music to the cloud today be uploading them somewhere else in a couple of years?

All of this stuff is great and convenient but the constant need to stay current is as much work or more than maintaining your current physical collection.

 

Or, are they like children, really not capable of thinking of the future...

 

I still buy CDs but I also stream a lot of the music listen too. (I don't see this as an either-or situation.)

I will miss new CDs when they finally stop being made!

 

Keep the really rare hard to replace discs you may regret later unless you are confident you won't miss them and can get market value.

Sell the common.

This is a better question for those of us with 5,000 plus CDs. Should we thin the herd?

 

Thank you but no thank you.
I like to keep my herd ( CDs and vinyl ) fat and sassy.

 

Does selling the common even really make sense though? What do people get for common CDs now, about a buck each?

 

Sure... what you got?

 

I've reduced my number of CDs over the years.

I've kept anything:

- From my very favorite artists (my top 10 or 12 artists)
- That I want "real" liner notes
- In a cool boxset
- Of sentimental/nostalgia value

I got rid of a lot of stuff that I never listened to. Of course, that was when there was still a real dollar value to used CDs.

 

Ha. Not even close to that for commons. They really are pretty worthless, actual money wise.

 

That doesn't surprise me.

 

That is incorrect I'm afraid. Here is the law:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2361/regulation/3/made

"8) Copyright in a work is also infringed if an individual, having made a personal copy of the work, transfers the individual’s own copy of the work to another person (otherwise than on a private and temporary basis) and, after that transfer and without the licence of the copyright owner, retains any personal copy."​

Tim

 

To the OP: You do not have enough CDs for the answer to really matter one way or the other. Seriously. To quote Hillary, "What difference -- at this point... does it make?"

 

If you are a collector and it gives you pleasure then keep them all. If you are a user then only keep enough to listen to each at least once a year.

 

A buck is about the max for any normal disc. I am about to the point where I would rather donate then sell so cheaply. I need to find some beginning audio enthusiast and give them my cast offs.

 

Good point, giving them to a friend makes as much sense now as trying to sell them.

 

But what about the hoarder? That's relevant to this crowd.

 

op, your approx 10 years too late and a few 100 cd's too short for this to be an important issue...

 

I wouldn't.

But not because of some need to keep physical media, but because of supply/demand. Buyer's market right now unless you've got something rare / OOP / high in demand.

 

Do we feel that we're going to live forever? We ain't. My hard drives and iPods / file formats don't have to exist forever...they just have to outlive me.

Hard drives will fail, that's well known and why backups are essential. IPods can actually run for a lot longer than you might think as long as one isn't afraid to open it up for maintenance [EDIT -- and upgrades, like the battery / HDD]. File formats may have a very long life..just look at the WAV format, isn't that like 20+ years old now?

Streaming I agree with...they are basically rentals and we are at the mercy of the labels as to longevity. But my digital downloads could (and likely will) outlive me.

 

No way I'm selling any of my stuff. I still regret the day I sold my 500 tapes collection.

 

Should you sell your CDs? As long as your back-up files are all lossless....then, hell, yeah!

I did, and have never regretted it, nor do I miss them.

 

Hell no. Rip to lossless and put in a box. They don't take up much room at all.

 

I'm lucky, I never heavily invested in CDs. When I started collecting music in the early 90s, I always gravitated towards vinyl. The indie and punk I was into were still available on this format. As such, I have very few CDs that were purchased new. And the ones I do own, I have every intention of getting rid of. But it doesn't bother me because there aren't any I paid more than about $4 for.

But man, I just don't understand the need for CDs anymore, other than just to own something. And there's nothing wrong with that. The exact audio can be stored on a hard drive, losslessly compressed. There is no advantage to CD anymore.