Free Record Store | Lawrence van Rijn

This thought came to me last night after I have had a few negative encounters with places like JB HiFi and likeminded places. First off, JB Hifi (et al) did nothing wrong. They were all as kind and as customer service minded as needed. What was the small fact is that I had a few dollars at my disposal and I wanted to catch up with music by Bowie, Kraftwerk, Enigma, Supertramp and a few others. None were available. Moreover there is a whole range of other musicians that would not normally be available in Australia. Then I remembered the larger setting. It was IP, but not mine. It was a Dutch entrepreneur named Hans Breukhoven who created the Dutch chain ‘Free Record Store’. It was as impressive as JB HiFi or the Virgin Megastore. He came up with the idea where people selected an album and it would be created at the spot. In the 90’s this was too new, too forward thinking, but I reckon he had the right idea. Now we rely on Spotify, but why? And when bandwidth becomes an issue, places like Spotify will have a problem. What matters is that this idea by a place like Amazon (most likely) could create a special store in the larger cities first, creating such a place. Allowing people to connect to music and strongly local music.

You see there is no clear number of expats globally, but some sources state it is well over 250,000,000 people. Consider that there are that many people that cannot connect to their original music. We can give you a list, but that list becomes too large and too overwhelming. New York Alone has an expected 3.4 million expats. As such one store offering them a whole range of music done at that point and offered to these people become a viable solution now. After that places like London, Paris, Amsterdam and like minded locations become a next setting. It is becoming more and more easy to create high quality CD’s, the elements are there, the printing options are there and it is not out of the realm of possibilities that a place like Amazon will partner with a place like QuickCopy and complete the circle. Where do you find local Italian music? Name a nation and the names will come pouring out. The idea that Hans Breukhoven had was spot on, he was merely too early with the idea and he left us without seeing it come to fruition. Yet I reckon that this is registered IP and they might want to consider talking to Amazon about it. Amazon is not the only player, but it is the most viable player to make it work and I reckon that an element that has the ability to become a billion dollar industry should not be ignored, but that might merely be me.

No matter how it turns out for me, I reckon that there is a market which is now becoming large enough to take another look at the ideas that some rejected over the last few decades, but that might merely be me.

For those with the simple setting that I should rely on Amazon, they are not incorrect. You see, I believe in supporting my own local hooker (a term from the 70’s). I get that Amazon is soon the only option for me, but that implies that the local shops have failed and I believe that it is my duty to offer them a solution, even if Amazon is added to it, unless they partner with QuickCopy, making my believe sound fine. You see, it is not merely about the music we all like. How about musicians like Abadi Al-Johar, Adriano Celentano, Sakis Rouvas, Liesbeth List, Rufus Wainwright or Gustavo Cerati. I know merely two of them. But the world is larger than me and the setting of someone wanting an album now is not out of the realm of possibilities and when we have that running. People will have an evolving mind towards movies. DVD’s is an option, but Blu-Rays not yet (as far as I know). A station where distribution will lose out of, merely because they cannot have all and that tracks will have to evolve and the idea that Hans Breukhoven had a few decades ago is now starting to make more and more sense. And I get nothing out of this, which is not a prerequisite. I believe that in this world, in this economy we will need to put all hands on deck to start making an impact. This today was mine, I have had a few ideas in the past and I merely added another one. I do not reject anything because it is not part of my bottom line, that is the stupid approach of a local thinking manager. It is as someone once said Think Local, Act global and I am merely doing my part.

Enjoy the day, soon you are merely one day away from the day before the weekend.

I had an idea, it is not my IP, even though it might be possible to create an innovation patent. You see, the original idea came from Hans Breukhoven who in the Netherlands created the Free Record Store in the early 80’s (perhaps late 70’s). His idea was that you could request a CD, any CD and it would be created on the spot. It never came to anything, because data speeds were not ready for this. He had the insight when 300KB/s CD drives were regarded as high technology. The idea was good, but the timing was wrong. Today I wanted to see/get the movie StarGate, I had not seen it for a long time and even though I have it on DVD somewhere, the Blu-ray would be preferred. At that point my mind started to think. You see in the same way that Spotify is destroying the music industry. Netflix et al are doing pretty much the same to the movies (not intentionally mind you). People are stopping to care about physical formats and that is where it soon will be at. You see when congestion hits (and it will hit hard), people will rely on anything to see a movie and that is where physical formats will come into its own right again. In that same way console games are hitting new spots and even as this is not a short term track. A system that can create games, 4K movies and so on might have a real future in metropolitan areas. There will still be a need for games and movies on disc and having it in stock when it concerns new releases does make sense. But what about a movie from 2018 and before that? What about a game that is 2020 or earlier? This sets the premise of thousands of titles. Yet in this day and age shops cannot have it all, there is no space and moreover, the money becomes scarce in their pockets. So what if a store had such a machine? You can order, you can pay upfront of online and you get a voucher and the time when to pick it up and that is when you pick up YOUR request. Now it might be ordering, but soon (within 2 years) devices can burn a 4K movie in under 5 minutes and that is when the setting changes. No longer a stage of waiting for stock, just go to the store and get what you want and considering that the stage contains thousands of movies there will be a real market soon enough. I reckon that by the time we get to PS6 and whatever Microsoft has, these systems will have the burners and when you order overnight, the next morning a quality 4K movie will be waiting for you. Optionally you can keep it on an SSD so that you can watch within minutes and the disc is created overnight (home systems will not have the high speed burners that commercial places will have).

A setting that could be here a lot sooner than we think and a man named Hans Breukhoven paved that way 30 years ago. By the way try finding some of your favourite movies, how many are still on the market? How many does Netflix (et al) have?

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