Re: [microsound] Collectibility of Digital Files?

[John Nowak <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Feb 16, 2005, at 2:48 AM, Kevin Ponto wrote:

> By "collector", I think he meant someone who is interested in the rare 
> finds and complete catalogs, bootlegs and so forth as well as huge 
> libraries, as opposed to people who just amass as many files as they 
> can with little regard for what they have.
>
> The point of course, is that the limitations of physical distribution 
> have provided people with the pastime of collecting, yet the digital 
> distribution model is not hampered by these limitations. So will 
> collecting, in this sense, survive and if it does, how will it differ 
> from today?
>
> Personally, I've had the experience of trying to track down a rare mp3 
> online. it's no easy chore, almost as hard as trying to track down 
> something in real life. It was an mp3 that was only posted to an 
> artists website for a few weeks. I grabbed it and had for a while, 
> then I lost it (fried computer parralled a physically corrupted backup 
> cd) and spent six months or so trying o track it down on p2p networks 
> and the internet before I found it again. The whole experience, and 
> the rush I got when I finally found it, was not unlike that of 
> physical collecting.
>
> Anyone else have a similar experience or insight?

Collecting is an obsessive behavior. My obsessive behaviors come out in 
other ways.

I have thought about this in the past. One thing I came up with was 
releasing mp3s on my site, and then having the server remove them after 
N number of downloads. Of course such an effort is easily thwarted by 
any number of means. I think its best to give up the idea of collecting 
really.

Actually, I do sort of collect stuffed octopi...

- John


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