The downside of lossless formats is the size. They take about 5 times the hard drive space of MP3s. Although, one CD will be about 350 MB in a lossless format. For 1000 CDs that’s about 350 GB. Not bad now that TB drives are out there.

There is a local record store that buys used cd’s but will not take them without the jewel cases.

What is a girl to do now? Is ebay my only option? I have over 500 cd’s that I don’t want, sans jewel cases.

(And if anyone thinks I can just give them away they’re nuts, we’re in a recession here people!;))

Please help:)

I have also put everything on the harddisks.
As i want to keep the discs in good order indefinately i store them in the safest possible way:

1. Vertically
2. In Amarax boxes (they’re patented locking system puts just enough balanced stress on the hub to prevent warping)
3. In a closed larger box, kept at the same temperature/humidity level all year long.

The recommended CD notebook method will slowly kill the discs over time(warp and pressure damage).

As the original purchaser of the CD, I’m the only one whose money went to pay royalties to the artist. The artist still has my money, whether I keep the CD in perpetuity or give it, trade it, sell it, or burn it in a fit of This Music Is EEEEEVVVVUUUULLL madness. Hence, I’d think whatever rights I “bought” with that money would remain mine, and not that of subsequent buyers.

Of course, in practice the whole business is (as others pointed out) rather gray-area and not particularly practical to enforce. Also rather difficult to demonstrate, short of keeping all of my receipts, that one paid for the album as a new item and thus is the one who gave the artists their due. I’m by no means an advocate of mass pirating and sharing of files, but making a digital copy for personal use only should not be a problem.

What I’m objecting to, mainly, is the bloating ad absurdum of legitimate interest in preventing illegal distribution of content. It’s bad enough I have to keep tax forms and other documents for-freakin-ever; do we REALLY have to start documenting every aspect of our lives, birth to death, right down to proving that we really really did make a purchase of that CD back in tickety-two?

Also, everybody would be wise to learn from Mike up at the top, if you care about music. The compression algorithms used now will someday be obsolete. Better compression will come about and even you’re 320 VBR MP3 files will sound horrible by comparison. You also may be ripping your CDs in a semi-proprietary format that won’t play on future media systems.

But if you still have an uncompressed audio CD around, you can re-rip it in a new, better format. If you don’t, you’ll be like Mike, kicking himself and spending time and money trying to recreate what you already had.

I got my first CD player in 1989 so this is a great comparison point. I have about 300 gigabytes of digital files, many of which were bought from iTunes and never owned as a physical CD, but if I had to estimate, I would say I own the equivalent of 2000 CDs. Over twenty years, that’s only 100 CDs per year. Many acquired used, or as part of a multi-disc box set, so the total expenditure on music is probably $4-$8 per disc, or around $600 per year. That’s $50 per month.

While that may seem like a lot to the average consumer, it’s not much for someone for whom music is a main hobby. Compare it on either a yearly or monthly cost for someone who is into bowling, bicycling, video games, cuisine, or golf — let alone more expensive hobbies like travel — and it’s not very different.

And unlike the dusty old snowboard in the attic or the archery equipment in the closet, a person’s music collection tends to get used fairly often — even if that person is only a casual listener. Unclutterer isn’t about minimalism, but about getting good value out of what you have and discarding the things that aren’t proving as worthy.

http://tinyurl.com/ybu7tk2

I like the fact that they’re portable (in case of emergency) and easy to store in a closet or under a bed. Someone upthread made a very good point about hanging onto your physical copies because technology is always improving and you may want to re-rip at a later date. I agree with this.

You may also find, as we did, that some of the rips we made had errors in them (due to the software used) and, had we sold the cds, we wouldn’t have been able to re-rip them correctly later. Food for thought.

My CD’s are in one CD notebook and I tossed the plastic cases and paperwork. Mostly I use my ipod because it is small and convenient.

I agree this isn’t a minimalist website but it’s impossible to declutter until you purge.

So your argument is it’s ok to break the law, because no one will ever know? Remind me not to invite you to my house so you can steal from me. God knows you might take something I didn’t notice, and so that would be ok.

I have some little wooden crates that I store my CDs in. I just shelve them like that. That works okay, if you don’t have a huge amount. I’m a visual, sort of ADD person, so if I have them where I can see what they are it works better for me.

I need to upgrade my computer, before I do the digital thing. I’m looking forward to it.

Thanks for a good post, Erin!