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Re: [ARSCLIST] [OffList] creating access cd's
As somewhat of an aside to this, I've begun making "access copies" of almost all my CD's, rarely
playing the original record company disc. Two things have led me that way.
First of all, more and more material is taken out of print or only left in print for a limited time.
I have been close enough to a couple of deletion situations where I know how it can work -- simple
accounting errors or computer programs that just go and delete whatever hasn't sold X copies in X
months. Once a SKU (stock-keeping unit or individual CD) is deleted from a catalog, it's actually
somewhat of a pain to add it back in. Some material later crops up in new/deluxe/different format
reissues, where it is a whole new SKU (different barcode, etc). But more often than not, the
material is simply out of print, just like what happened to the original LP, which for the kind of
music I listen to (jazz mostly), means the original LP may have been out of print for 20+ years
before the CD was issued. So, bottom line, no guarantee you can replace a CD if it's lost, stolen or
damaged. No way in the world I'll ever use original CD's in the car again. Only copies for the road.
Second, here's a true story. My brother worked in an office building that faced Ground Zero. He and
all his office mates made a successful escape and were uninjured on 9/11, but their office was never
occupied again and all of the contents were condemned as hazardous material. Guess what he had in
his office? A large pile of his CD's, which he listened to while he put in long hours. He got
reimbursed just fine by the insurance company, but when he went to re-acquire the music, he found
about 30% of the title were out of print! Including some that he really loved. Plus there were
numerous assorted-tunes homebrew discs that would take a long time indeed to recreate (particularly
if they included borrowed material). And there were a dozen or more CDR's full of MP3 that various
people had given him over the years. As with most of us were with most things before 9/11, he was
falsely confident that nothing would happen to his office so no problem to leave a large stash of
personal property there. That story was the clincher for me -- no more original-issue CD's leave my
house. Only copies. The net result is that the vast majority of my listening is to copies since I
listen to music constantly at work and in the car.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2006 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] [OffList] creating access cd's
At 10:34 AM 1/26/2006, you wrote:
Please define "Access CDs"
Aren't these the ones you swipe in the reader as you try and enter gov't buildings <smile>.
Couldn't resist.
I'm glad you asked...because from some of the posts I think there may be some confusion. Here is
what I think it is without further qualification...
Audio (red book) CDs that are available for general patron use under the normal terms of such use
for sound recordings (i.e. listened to in the listening room, taken home, etc).
They are nothing more than a disposable copy of the asset. This distinguishes them from a
preservation copy which is a surrogate for the real original which is decaying or may become
unplayable for other reasons.
You can have more than one access copy and you can have more than one preservation copy.
The access copy is essentially sacrificial - it gets used and cared for, but if something bad
happens, who really cares.
The preservation copies are used only for making additional access copies.
Preservation copies don't have to be Red Book CDs even if the access copies are.
Cheers,
Richard