Vinyl is starting to look like the physical format of the future. I’m not basing this on reports that sales of vinyl are in fact increasing – even though they are . Nor is this claim the boasting of a vinylphile. While I do in fact own a record player, I only purchased it to listen to 7 inches and albums that aren’t available in any other format. I’ve never heard a difference in sound quality that would justify preferring vinyl over the convenience of CDs. You can’t skip tracks as easily on vinyl, records have to be flipped, they can’t be played in the car, and if I dance too much in my pre-war apartment building, the record skips. Vinyl also fails to accommodate tracks over 30 minutes in length –a serious issue for fans of Acid Mothers Temple. So choosing digital music over vinyl has always been an easy one for me. Nevertheless, vinyl could someday become the only physical music format purchased, especially if we abandon digital copyrights as I said we should in last week’s piece.

How could such an aging format come back as the future of physical media? Key to this idea is the fact that reasons for eliminating digital music copyright protections just don’t apply to vinyl. As an analog format, it is by nature impervious to the instantaneous mass reproduction of digital music. Therefore, protecting copyright infringements of analog formats is actually quite easy. In fact, the economic and practical hurdles to reproducing analog formats are probably basically enough to protect artists against fraudulent vinyl copies sans copyright altogether. Anyone with a computer can make an exact digital copy from a CD or digital download. Copying records by contrast requires a record presser –something most of us have never even seen—and the master recording –otherwise you end up with a vastly inferior product. With very little research, I can confidently say that the manufacture and distribution of pirated records never has and never will pose a serious economic threat to musicians’ livelihoods. While I am all for eliminating copyrights for digital music, the same ideas simply are not applicable for analog formats like vinyl. Enforcing copyrights for analog recordings only hassles a small class of fraudsters rather than nearly an entire generation of people, as is the case with those who are currently downloading at least some of their music collection illegally.

Even without the overhaul of our copyright system that I’ve advocated, we’re already seeing what happens when copyrights can only be enforced for analog formats. CD sales continue to plummet year after year, while vinyl sales steadily increase. I’ll go out on a limb and predict that by the end of the decade CDs as we know them will be gone. Like I said last week, there’s just no reason for CDs to exist anymore. There are more convenient ways of storing music that can deliver superior sound quality, and as such, CD collecting is dead (or it will be soon). This can only increase the appeal of collecting vinyl.

The other thing is this: Making digital music free is not going to stop people from collecting vinyl. Those who consider a record something worth paying for will continue to do so. And while I think the case for vinyl is frequently overrated, vinylphiles do have some arguments on their side. Theirs is the format with a deeper history and more potential for discovery of rare artifacts of the past; it’s the format that yields the oldest, rarest treasures for collectors, and that will never change. But there are also reasons to find vinyl collecting more enjoyable for new albums. The packaging and artwork is bigger, and frequently much cooler. You can frame your records on your wall. And even I admit that there’s something indescribably exciting about listening to records. And now, there’s just no reason to purchase a physical digital copy (read: CDs) of your music. For those who are spending money to have a music collection, vinyl is quickly becoming the best choice.

For reasons mentioned earlier, I’m still not personally especially enamored with vinyl. But I think that the music world might actually be a better place once vinyl is the only music format anyone purchased. Once we get there, music will mostly only be purchased by collectors. The only albums that will be made will be those that are purchased and collected as works of art, not as disposable pop music. This isn’t to say that recorded music will only be left to “serious” artists. But we’ll finally see the pendulum shift back to favor those who create bold, creative and serious works of art and away from pop factories. And I don’t mean everything’s going to be a giant downer like a Swans album. But because the profitability of recorded music will decline while the source of the profit will shift to collectors, recorded music will no longer appeal to those out to turn a quick buck. Instead, music will be recorded for the same reasons artists paint paintings: to create works of art. Not that this does not already happen, but in a post-digital copyright world, this would be the only reason to continue to record music.

However, while vinyl may be the best way to continue to earn money from music sales in a post-digital copyright world, it’s not the only way recorded music can continue to be profitable. Radio stations, bars that play music, films and TV shows all have to pay licensing fees to play music. I have serious quarrels with these systems as they exist, but these markets can at least be fairly regulated in a way that digital file-sharing never will be, protecting the artists’ work. Music can still be profitable; vinyl proves that there will always be a consumer market for music. But the vast majority of the music listening public is starting to expect a certain amount of music for free, and that is only going to increase. Rather than making digital music pay in ways that it really shouldn’t, the industry should focus their energy on exploiting other formats and mediums for music. Most importantly however, vinyl proves that there are ways to make music earn money without establishing unfair and invasive copyright protections. We should continue to learn from this century old format.