Recently, I’ve been doing more of my music-buying on vinyl. Most of the music I buy comes from indie labels, and most of the larger (and even not so large) indies have implemented the vinyl-with-download-code format, of which I’m a fan. Some of this comes from how my apartment is laid out: I have a record player and CD changer in my living room, and my computer in my office. Generally, when I buy an album or EP, I’d like to be able to listen to it in both places. This works out well whenever I buy something from, say, Matador or Sub Pop or Jagjaguwar or Dischord. Which is a fine thing.
What I’m curious about are the labels that don’t bundle a download code with records: Drag City is the most prominent (perhaps because their music lends itself particularly well to turntables) but there are others — Type and Woodsist both come to mind. Admittedly, if I wanted an easily-digitized physical format of almost anything on almost any of these labels, I could get it on CD. (Though not everything.) But assumably, the people buying vinyl from these labels also own computers and MP3 players and, presumably, listen to music there as well. All of which begs the question: is the label expecting that someone wanting to hear an album on vinyl and MP3 will purchase that album twice? Or does it come from a more cynical place, where the assumption exists that since someone can easily find an illicit version of that album online, they’ll just go that route once they’ve spent $15 for the vinyl?
Could it be that they just expect you to buy your preferred format, without consideration for the other options? Or, that it’s too costly to set up and maintain an mp3 repository.
It’s not cynicism, bandwidth, or greed. I would posit that’s it’s a mix of protectionism and sonic stuck-uppery.
How about a dash of “protectionism and sonic stuck-uppery”, with a pinch of ludditism?
J.T. — to your first point, maybe? But the fact that it’s become a de facto industry standard among indies (not just the biggest ones, but also labels like Don Giovanni, Hozac, etc.) makes the exceptions that much more striking, as does the fact that some labels that don’t include the download code do have MP3 stores.
(Oddly, this doesn’t bother me as much when I buy LPs from Mississippi Records. Which may be due to their entire aesthetic being much more stripped-down; I’m not entirely sure.)