If the owner were not allowed to make backup copies, would it have been better to release that album as a set of vinyl records instead of 2 CDs? I am just wondering if an analog medium would be more likely to remain useful after ~80 years of physical degradation compared to digital discs.
A lot can happen in 88 years. With only one copy, there is a reasonable chance that this album will be lost to time. Even if the label has a copy sitting in a vault to release it in 88 years, who’s to say that label will even still be around. So many things could happen.
I get they are trying to make a point, but the idea of music being exclusive, just seems wrong. They want to make it like art… I don’t have to go to France to see the Mona Lisa, there are pictures of it online. I only have to go to a museum to see the real thing. It seems like a concert would be the museum of the music world. There shouldn’t be listening parties at museums, Wu-Tang should go on tour. If people want to hear the new songs, they can see them performed live.
> I don’t have to go to France to see the Mona Lisa, there are pictures of it online.
True but the Mona Lisa was painted around 1500, so it was about 500 years before the work was digitized and widely available online. There were prints before the internet, but that’s not exactly the master’s work.
I think the music/art should be freely available, but I’ve also been talking about this album for 10 years and until yesterday hearing the 5 minute sampler for the first time, I had never heard a second of it.
