The online music magazine Side-Line reports major music labels like Sony, EMI and Universal plan to stop the production of CDs by the end of 2012.
The article claims that labels will release music through online streaming services like iTunes and will limit physical CD releases to special edition packages to be released online through sites like Amazon.
Noel Jackson, manager of Music Treasure Chest on North Acadian Thruway, said the sale of CDs has declined, but he hasn’t noticed anything recently that would indicate that major record labels have plans to drop the CD format.
Today’s youth aren’t used to collecting things like CDs, records or cassettes, but there are still a lot of people who buy CDs, Jackson said.
“There’s still some people who like to have something in their hand, not just air,” he said.
But Jackson has noticed a new trend in distributing music.
Jackson said record companies are moving toward making their catalogues digital, and some stores download the CDs onto blank discs. He said this new strategy saves the labels money in stocking the CDs and pressing them to discs.
For Jackson’s store to stay current, he said it needs to have a machine to press the digital music to blank CDs.
Students often get their music from several different sources, but some still think the decision to stop making CDs is unwise.
Elementary education sophomore Jamie Schrieffer said she buys physical albums and only uses iTunes when she wants to purchase a couple of songs.
“I like to have the hard copy in case anything happens to my iTunes library,” Schrieffer said.
ISDS freshman Mary Miller said she doesn’t buy CDs and mostly uses online streaming websites like Livestream to listen to music. She said if people aren’t buying CDs anymore, the record labels are doing the right thing, but otherwise they should keep making physical copies.
“If it’s still profitable, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said.
Biology freshmen Peter Bernzen and Keith Lasko said they think music services like iTunes are changing music in a bad way.
They think these services, which offer customers the option to purchase individual songs from albums, promote one-hit wonders and cause people to miss out on hidden treasures on an album, like songs that weren’t released as singles.
Bernzen said the way he buys music depends on the artist.
“If it’s like my favorite band, I’ll buy the CD,” Bernzen said. “That’s revenue for the band, and it’s a hard copy if my computer