Remember that movie “Click” with Adam Sandler? He wanted everything
in life to be condensed into one universal remote to help control his
life and then it blows up in his face in the long run. The concept is
the same as what this article, “
Industry Opinion: The Future-Proof Music Library”, is talking about. Only it’s talking about people’s music
libraries.
The snapshot of the article is somehow pulling
all your music from all the different formats you have it in (CD’s,
Vinyl, digital, streaming, etc.) and compiling it into one universal
library via an app or online platform.
It’s an interesting thought
in regards to storing music in the future but for the most part it just
takes a little elbow grease to convert CD’s or Vinyl into digital files
to be stored in one place. Personally I wouldn’t insult the Vinyl
format and dumb it down to a digital track. It’s almost like ordering a
gourmet meal at a nice restaurant but asking them to prepare it in the
microwave. So now we're just talking about those easy to lose, easy to
throw CD's.
The thing is, you already can
have all your
music in one place. Just obtain it legally and put the effort into
organizing it. I think the real issue is just the organization process
of the whole thing. CD’s are lying around the house, Vinyl’s are dusty,
and digital files may not work and it’s logical to want it all in one
place and to make that process easy. But is it realistic? Regardless
of the way you do it, the CD or Vinyl, would need to be converted to a
digital format, if we’re talking about a universal digital library, so
you’re spending time doing that anyway.
The biggest thing that
sparked my attention however, was taking playlists off of streaming
sites, like Spotify, and putting them into this universal library in
hopes to keep it forever. I couldn’t help to think that sounds a little
too hopeful. The business model that makes a streaming service a
streaming service is paying a monthly fee for
access to their music catalog and you
license
the use of their music for as long as you’re paying for it. When you
stopping paying, you lose the playlists you’ve created. That’s just how
it works.
Without actually downloading the track from the
streaming service you’re simply borrowing it for an undetermined amount
of time. You can’t just take that music, throw it in another library,
and expect to keep it even after you’ve terminated your subscription to
the streaming service.
Formats come and go with the years and some
people are really dedicated to having hard copies of music instead of
throwing it all into a digital format of sorts. Being able to scan CD’s
and put it into Spotify, like Covify for example, is great technology
but it’s not too much easier than just looking it up, highlight it all,
drag and drop into a playlist. It’s essentially just another method to
burn a CD into your computer.
People who love Vinyl, or CD’s for
that matter, tend to take care of their albums and organize them because
they are proud of their collection. If the real worry is being able to
take music from streaming services to another platform, then the
question is do streaming services offer a clause to make that happen?
Maybe that’s in the form of an exit fee to obtain the rights of your
playlists or it’s an understanding between streaming services to allow
that to happen.
I think the cure is to watch a few episodes of
hoarders and get the bug to organize the music you have without causing
more of a mess and downloading more apps to help with a simple
organizational problem. Think about it.
