Physical CD's

[Bystander]

13 minutes ago, davide256 said:

I hang on to mine "just in case". Who knows, maybe "son of Roon" will come out some day with a better ripping format for streaming playback

As long as you're using a lossless format at the same sample rate and bit depth for the files you've ripped, you can always convert your music to any superior future format that may arrive at some point. It's not possible to extract any additional data from the CD, regardless of what future formats may bring. So there's no need to hold on to the original media if that's your only reason.

[Bystander]

1 minute ago, davide256 said:

The problem with the future is we are clever enough to think of things that we didn't 10 years ago. In 10 years we may all be playing ISO images stored on 10TB drives with home networks of 10gbps

But with lossless music you can literally recreate the exact bitstream from a CD. Like, what difference does it make whether the exact same data is stored on a CD, hard driver platters or solid state disk? What sort of scenario are you envisioning that could possibly require the original medium in order to convert the stored data into a new format?

[Bystander]

3 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Look for a dissenting opinion to be made once our friend from down under wakes up... 

Uh-oh, maybe I shouldn't have asked. Didn't actually want to derail the thread that way...  

[Bystander]

23 minutes ago, davide256 said:

If I knew now what will change in 10 years, I'd be on my way to getting rich in the stock market. It costs you nothing to hang on to your media until it obsolesces and is a blind risk to assume you will never need the originals again.

I'm obviously only speaking for myself and wouldn't tell anyone else what to do. Nonetheless I'd disagree on both counts. It costs me something in so far as I have to make space for it, both in physical as well as mental terms. It's something else to "worry" about. I always feel a tiny bit lighter and more free when I get rid of superfluous physical belongings that only take up space and attention. 

I also don't see it as a blind risk to rid myself of the original media, because there is currently no doubt in my mind that I'm still holding on to all of the musical data that I could ever possibly extract from that disc and am therefore losing absolutely none of the information stored on the disc that I'm actually interested in.  If I should be proven wrong and there is some "unknown unknown" involved here that will only become apparent at a later point, akin to a digital copernican revolution, I feel like we'll  generally be screwed in terms of digital storage of information and I'll have much bigger things to worry about than my music.

[Bystander]

I should add, that I do understand one might want to hold on to the artwork, booklets,  cases or the actual discs themselves for reasons other than continued access to the data stored on them.

[Bystander]

On 2/25/2018 at 10:51 PM, jhwalker said:

if you're asked to prove ownership of a digital file, you must be able to produce the physical CD you ripped it from. 

I've heard this argument before. But in what sort of situation could I possibly be asked to prove ownership of any of the  data in my possession? Am I supposed to be able to do the same for physical objects that I possess?  Such a requirement seems preposterous to me. For all anybody knows, I could have stolen the chair I'm sitting on and I certainly wouldn't be able to prove otherwise.

[Bystander]

1 hour ago, ddetaey said:

When you steal a chair and put it in your own home, it is obvious that the rightfull owner cannot sir on his chair anymore.

True. But I haven't actually stolen it,  yet you could still accuse me of having done so if your default assumption is that people are thieves unless proven otherwise. I would have no way of proving to you that I'm the rightful owner of this chair and that there isn't somebody out there I've stolen it from.