Jerad's Profile

Your ideas are well-put but ultimately hopeless for the record industry. Virgin and Tower have already branched out to sell a lot of materials other than music, and that diversity will keep them going. (I am unsure of where you have ever seen bootlegs at either store - such corporate stores would never carry a bootleg.) Your ideas for kiosks may play a part in these corporate stores. The problem is what happens to the local, independent store. Where will they find the capital to install kiosks and the like? Finally, you article has not mentioned one advantage that CDs have over mp4 and mp3 files: sound quality. A 20 or 24-bit version of a song on CD simply blows away a flat sounding mp3 or mp4. And CD manufacturers are fighting back: the re-releases of some Bob Dylan titles, for instance, come on Super Audio CDs often with surround mixes, as well as much better packaging and printing than regular CDs. People are asking more for their money and getting it. There are also several good music titles available on DVD audio. These, plus the remasters of older albums from such bands as The Who and The Stones, as well as several jazz greats, indicate that only in the last few years have CDs begun to approach the former audio quality of good vinyl. Until small, downloadable song files can carry this kind of sonic fidelity - which right now they do not even come close to approaching - I'll continue to put my money in CDs.