Murfie is gone, and so are all the CDs people sent to them

If you ignored Murfie's other add-on services and treated them just as a bulk ripping service then they were fine. You could ship them your CD collection, they'd rip it, then send it back with all the jewel cases and packaging still intact. It was their add-on services that confused things. Even their marketplace for used CDs confused things. The value for a used CD that has been divorced of its jewel case is less. Murfie would also prefer to just send you the ripped files for the used CD you just bought instead of shipping the physical CD to you. So their marketplace was kinda weird, and not what I wanted when buying a used or new CD. I want the physical CD when I buy one. So I never shopped their marketplace.

There are other ripping services around. At least I hope so. One other option is that there are services that will rent you a bulk ripping robot so you rip your own collection at home. That seems like a better option than boxing up and shipping an entire CD collection. Get a robot and do it yourself. Less risk to your collection if you do it that way.

 

From my observation, casual people don't seem to get as upset over losing some music.

 

well sure. I was able to do ripping while doing other things for the most part though. I did tons of them while at work a bunch of years ago, but I guess it depends on the type of job one has.

 

No idea what you mean or why you quoted me.

 

Murfie (them) obviously stole millions of CDs from the people (us).

Pink Floyd song - 'Us & Them'

 

Trust me, if someone is too much of a technophobe to rip CDs on their desktop or laptop, they're going to be even more intimidated by a ripping robot. They'll probably expect it to go all Terminator on them and vaporize the cat.

 

Here's what I want to know - Murfie was quasi-legal because they retained the original CDs for you, and allowed you to download the rip or stream it on demand. But now that the CDs have been shipped off to the dump (or in a best-case scenario resold), is it legal for the original owners to retain any rips they downloaded? Or are they now suddenly pirates thanks to the failure of Murfie?

 

It's all probably in the contract. Lesson is to always read everything that involves you sending off your property.

 

It sounded like a scam just waiting to happen and it did happen.

 

Millions? You really think "millions" of CDs were involved?

Certainly "hundreds of thousands" of CDs at most.

 

Almost a million, per the first sentence of the article in the OP.

 

Very true. The robots are more complex and intimidating than ripping by hand.

Some audiophile clubs have bought a ripping robot for use by members. Joining and being active in a club with a ripping robot would be a way to get advice and assistance on how to use it.

 

A fool and his money soon go separate ways

 

If he ever made any to begin with . . .

 

He must've had some startup cost, otherwise no creditors unless it is personal bankruptcy he's filed.

 

I'm referring to the "fools" who bought into this "service."

 

This is basically the scenario by which the original Mobile Fidelity went out of business. Their distributor tapped out with Mobile Fidelity's stock in their warehouse (and probably with unpaid invoices from previous shipments). Apparently MFSL couldn't just go get it back, either.

 

Since I live in the Milwaukee area, this morning's Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel has a
lengthy article about Murfie for anyone interested.....
Music storage startup Murfie shut down and customers have to pay to get their CDs back

 

My sentiments exactly.

 

If anyone here is interested, PM your email address and I will send you a PDF list. I'm not into listing and shipping individual CD's, but will sell them in batches for cheap.

 

That's a low ball offer for sure if that's the type of stuff you have. Is this store known for paying really low? Sometimes stores will offer less, even if they generally pay ok, for titles they know will be hard for them to sell based on their buyer base.

I would try listing locally on Craigslist and include what you would like to get for them. You could try Facebook marketplace. I know collectors do search both, at least locally (although locally most people use Kijiji.ca).

Another option is to list it on eBay as a bulk buy. Do it as an auction. Worth a shot. If it's not going well you can always cancel it. Or list it as a buy it now.

You do have be realistic though. You can get more than 25c but if you are hoping to get 50% of retail that might be a tall order.

When I sold a batch of 400 locally I was aiming for a buck a cd on average. I had a list and I did look up each one on Discogs/eBay. $1 each seemed about right on average. There were a few high end items. In the end the shop took less than 200 and gave me $400. I did get 50% of retail on some of the more expensive ones. I was happy. Before going to the shop I listed it on Facebook Marketplace and was offered 10c a disc. Turned that down pretty quick.

One thing I learnt over the years of cd culling, what you think are great titles sometimes turn out to be not so great titles. Sometimes they are great titles, but shops see them often enough that they can pass on them until they reduce their stock of that particular item.

Also, a good way to increase the value is to remove the junk. Sometimes buyers use the junk as an excuse to lower their offer.

 

This reminds me of what the internet was like 20 years ago before the dotcom bubble burst. I wonder how many of the customers had more or less forgotten about their discs by now?

 

When the couldn't stream them anymore it probably jogged their memory somewhat.

 

I tried to sell my CD's to Princeton Record Exchange. I sold them my LP collection 20 years ago. Should have kept it.
I now have 250 CD's and 10 box sets. All are original CD release, no remasters. They offered me $10 for Tim Hardin Live, and $5 for MFSL Byrds (untitled) and 25¢ for the other 300. I'd sell them here for $2 each, but, ideally, 10-20 or more at a time.

 

Some news on Murfie's

From TheVerge: This guy now owns Murfie’s nearly 1 million abandoned CDs