What I learned at MIPA...

While the music industry has gone digital, there are places where music junkies can go to find everything they need-vinyl records, CDs and cassettes, while being owner-operated.

Think about it: Walking into a store, seeing huge rows of all things music, breathing in the atmosphere, you’ll notice that there are things you wouldn’t see on iTunes.

One place in particular called Flat, Black & Circular in East Lansing, has been open for 30 years, and the owners still are the ones to assist customers happily.

I was at Michigan State University for a journalism workshop and my teacher took us to the small store on the upper level of a building, to get a taste of what it was like.

As the class of 20 something teenagers walked into the store, one employee yelled “Call the fire department, we’re over our limit!”

I guess they aren’t used to the amount of people all at one time.

Which is, in a way, depressing.

Years ago, people used to trade CDs, records and cassettes; now with the click of a button you can send all your music to your friends.

It’s useful though, not having to actually lend your things to your friends if they aren’t very responsible and you don’t want them broken.

And it’s nice having every CD on a MP3 player.

Digital music is posing a threat to stores like Flat, Black & Circular.

It should be cheaper, considering there are no manufacturing costs or anything like that, so why are we still paying 99 cents for a song when we can go to a store and buy a CD and have it in a hard form, not just on a computer?

People may think that their music is safe on a computer, but think about it: Computers crash all the time.

Would you want to be the one who has however many songs lost in cyberspace because you downloaded all of them digitally?

I didn’t think so.

And when you download music digitally, you can only use the player that the store sells.

For example, if you have an iPod, you can’t go to another store and buy songs and put them on your iPod because of copy protection.

And if you try to get past this copy protection, you could be subjected to legal issues.

Apple reserves the right to change anything they want regarding the music you purchased because in a way, they still own it.

These copy protections place protection on your music, so that you can only burn them to a CD so many times, can’t share with others and can’t change the format of the music.

So is this really your music? You bought it, why shouldn’t you do whatever you want with it?

Because the digital music industry still wants to hold onto those rights.

Digital music is decreasing the satisfaction in listening to music.

There are many reasons for this, one being that the sound quality decreases.

Also you can’t get the cover art, lyrics and special features that usually come on CDs.

Going to a store like Flat, Black & Circular helps pay the bills for people who really need the money, unlike people at iTunes who are getting paid no matter what.

It’s not just because of money; it’s about saving an important part of culture.