Sony Plans To Shut Down CD Plant, Lay Off 310

[liberal N proud]

January 18, 2011

TOKYO (AP) — Sony Corp. says it will shut down a CD manufacturing plant in the United States by the end of March and its 310 workers will be laid off.

Sony spokeswoman Mami Imada said Tuesday the plant closure in New Jersey was due to declining CD sales as more people opt to buy music digitally.
http://www.mbtmag.com/Content.aspx?id=1836

[spanone]

1. the downside of downloading.

[cbdo2007]

4. No - the downside of sh*tty music and the record companies overcharging for cds for years.

There was a class action lawsuit about it (the overcharging, not the shitty music)

[Exilednight]

7. Amen! No one has made good music since the 90s.

Every bluemoon you can find a diamond in the rubble, but they are few and far between.

CDs have been a rip-off since their inception. When CDs were first mass-marketed and put in direct competition with cassette tapes, many people did not understand that it cost approx a $1 to produce a cassette tape and 50 cents to produce a CD. Yet they charged twice as much for CDs.

[spanone]

11. people are not buying cds. content it totally subjective.

this will happen to all their plants...it's a dying format

[Seedersandleechers]

2. IMO in the near future

there won't be any CD's or DVD's.

[Motown_Johnny]

3. people who manufactured 8 track tapes lost their jobs at one time too

CDs are now becoming an outdated technology

these things happen

[MadHound]

5. So now all recordings are going to be digital,

Subjected to embedded coding that won't allow you play it except on one single source, and that source will become obsolete every five to ten years so you have to buy your entire library again and again.

Perfect money maker for the record companies.

[DCBob]

6. CDs are obsolete..

Technology giveth and taketh away.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. They're good to have when you're driving . . . .

[DCBob]

10. But even in that scenario the iPod or some similar device is replacing the CD..

its just a matter of time.

[seabeckind]

14. I think the iPods are obsoleting also.

My cell phone will do just about anything an iPod will do, maybe more.

But then I skipped the iPod craze.

BTW, the receiver will bluetooth a download from my cell.

[seabeckind]

12. You might try thumbnails

A while back I bought a Kenwood receiver with USB capability. Converted all my music (including vinyls) to files that I store on the thumbnails.

Much, much more convenient than the cd. Makes me question why I got the model with a cd drive. Only used it to make sure it works.

By taking those files and making them accessible on a server to a PC, I took an old obsolete PC and hooked the output to my home receiver. I can set up a playlist that lasts all nite.

But when I want to enjoy the quality of a recording, I can still use my vinyls.

Life is good.

[lpbk2713]

8. I wish I had known they were Made in USA.

I would have been buying them exclusively.

I have used them before and found them OK.

[DainBramaged]

13. And when DVDs became the standard, the plants that made VHS tapes were obsoleted too

As E Readers become more ingrained in our society, how soon before the bookbinders, paper mills, lumber mills, and lumber jacks themselves become obsoleted.

I wish to god that our society had the ingenuity to place skilled people in the next technological wave instead of tossing them into the abyss.


:cry:

[Initech]

15. Coincidentally I saw a Sony car stereo with an iPod drive last week.

[liberal N proud]

16. The problem with that is not everyone is going to buy an iPod

I have a mp3 player made by someone other than Apple, less expensive and works just fine.

The CD's allowed devices made by more than one company to use the same media.