[LINK] all the music in the world

[Craig Sanders]

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 08:21:29AM +1000, Ivan Trundle wrote:
> On 02/06/2009, at 5:24 AM, Kim Holburn wrote:
> >> Let us also say that a CD can generally be represented as a 100MiB
> >> MP3 file at an acceptable bit rate.
> 
> Not for me it isn't. Well, unless I actually wish to LISTEN to the  
> music, that is.

it's about 250-400MB for a FLAC lossless compression of a CD, depending
on the CD (length, type & complexity of music, etc).

"lossless" as in *identical* quality, and the compression is fully
reversible - you can get back the exact same CD if you want.

that compares to about 600-700MB for an uncompressed CD.


at current prices, a 1.5TB drive is about $200 and a 2TB drive is a bit
over $400.

at an average of, say, 300MB per FLAC encoded CD, that would store:

1.5TB - about 5000 CDs for $0.04 per CD
2.0TB - about 6666 CDs for $0.06 per CD

in two years time, those drives will seem to be of average size rather
than large, and will probably cost somewhere between $50 and $150 each.



the main technical issue with this idea is not the size or cost of
disks, it's the speed and cost of internet bandwidth. it'll be a lot
more than 10 years before it's viable to automatically download every
recording ever made and keep it up to date.

of course, it wont ever happen - if their bought governments magically
became unbought, the copyright lobby would send out assassination squads
to deal with the problem. parasites can get a little hostile when
there's a risk that their snouts may be kept away from the multi-billion
dollar troughs.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>