Article: Reevaluating My Music Storage

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4 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

It's precisely because of these contingencies that I have a cloud backup.  My cloud provider has better provision for such eventualities than I could ever manage with an offsite backup that I owned.

I know cloud backup is far better today but I would still keep a hard drive(s) in a bank safety deposit box and update it periodically if I had a home library. I got tired of all this and switched to streaming only when it got good enough with advent of Qobuz. Plus I am not sure a cloud backup would work well with the size of a library like the one Chris and some others here have. The other thing I found is that like Chris mentioned in the body of the article, I no longer wanted to listen to a lot of what I was storing and that Qobuz( and Tidal to some extent) really suited my current musical tastes. 

 

The other problem with home storage is the legal one. If something is ripped from a CD, you really should keep the CDs to be within the letter of the law. If something is downloaded, you really don't own it. You have only purchased the right to listen to it and delete it if you no longer want it. You can't really even give it away or bequeath it. I admit that I have not researched this stuff in years so it may have changed.

 

My point is that for me it was way more work, worry and hassle than it was worth but I do realize that others have vastly different opinions and I certainly respect their choices. 

[Jud]

7 minutes ago, bobflood said:

I know cloud backup is far better today but I would still keep a hard drive(s) in a bank safety deposit box and update it periodically if I had a home library. I got tired of all this and switched to streaming only when it got good enough with advent of Qobuz. Plus I am not sure a cloud backup would work well with the size of a library like the one Chris and some others here have. The other thing I found is that like Chris mentioned in the body of the article, I no longer wanted to listen to a lot of what I was storing and that Qobuz( and Tidal to some extent) really suited my current musical tastes. 

 

The other problem with home storage is the legal one. If something is ripped from a CD, you really should keep the CDs to be within the letter of the law. If something is downloaded, you really don't own it. You have only purchased the right to listen to it and delete it if you no longer want it. You can't really even give it away or bequeath it. I admit that I have not researched this stuff in years so it may have changed.

 

My point is that for me it was way more work, worry and hassle than it was worth but I do realize that others have vastly different opinions and I certainly respect their choices. 

 

Well, I was only a lawyer for 42 years, so there are things I may have missed, but I think I'm pretty safe. 😉

 

Yes, I have all my CDs (and all my old vinyl, come to that, but I don't record that, I play it on my turntable).  There's no one waiting for me to give away or bequeath my downloads - it's purely my musical taste. (Though there are companies that will allow you to bequeath now.  Don't know if Qobuz is one of them, but as I said, I'm not going to be trying to will my downloads to anyone anyway.)

 

I pay ~$60-$70 annually for unlimited backup with a company (Backblaze) that has so far proved to be no hassle and extremely reliable.

 

To this point I haven't felt purchased/ripped music is different than streaming in terms of ease of listening and any associated preparations.  Of course, as always, YMMV. 🙂