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I can spend days and days trying to find a legal copy of an album I can purchase in reasonable quality (read FLAC) so I don’t have to pirate (done in less than

I can spend days and days trying to find a legal copy of an album I can purchase in reasonable quality (read FLAC) so I don’t have to pirate (done in less than a minute). And I often fail, because the content is strictly geo-fenced and incredibly complexly licensed and as a EU-citizen I cannot have those ones and zeros. The system is madness and sometimes impossible to navigate, even for strongly dedicated humans. And here the EU expects that any website which has user uploads should make a “best effort” effort to try to automatically license all the copyright of anything ever. How the fuck can they claim to mean this seriously? No really. Just how do they plan for this to work?

ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
I feel with you on FLACS. Beatport makes you pay 75c extra for the FLAC (why???) and doesn't even let you download the song again after 24 hours. It's nice the FLAC is available, but seriously 24 hours availability in 2019? It's very hard to give them money for that.
- FridgeSeal 8y ago
  Aahh, Beatport. I once lost my huge chunk of my music library due to a hard drive corruption (and not up to date backups, whoops). No big deal, I’ll just re-download all my purchases (in the order of hundreds of dollars): nope. Emailed them and asked, they said no, pleaded the case, mentioned how much I’d spent and they re-enabled them all with a snarky note about always keeping backups. I try to buy as much as I can from Bandcamp instead these days.
sigfubar 8y ago
I pay for Spotify. I pay for concert tickets. As far as I'm concerned, this fulfills my obligation to support my favorite artists. Digitally downloaded music is thus already inherently "paid for" and can be downloaded from any source, even if some random entity considers this source "against the rules". No moral hazard, no hassle. Just music.
- josteink 8y ago
  My point was not the moral aspects of pirating. It was about the impossible complexity of doing anything IP by the books, even as a end-customer, as a single instance transaction. And here the EU expects all companies out there, as intermediaries, to solve this generically and automatically. It’s a joke surely?
  - ahje 8y ago
    It's not a joke. I think most of the people behind this are simply so naive that they can't believe the free market won't fix this.
    - nonbel 8y ago
      >"the free market won't fix this." I've been seeing a large increase in comments like this across the internet. Can you share where you learned the definition of "free market"?
      - krageon 8y ago
        This is almost exclusively (average) americans and shielded rich right-wingers in my experience.
        ionised 8y ago
        Why would a rich right-winger criticise free markets? Surely they benefit most from it?
        nonbel 8y ago
        Which is easier for a rich person? 1) To pay off a few politicians 2) To sell a product/service to millions of people I'd say it is usually the first. If you are already rich and powerful it is in your interest for the government to have more control. Eg, more red tape means higher barriers to entry to your (new and smaller) competition.
pmlnr 8y ago
Bandcamp. Otherwise get the CD and rip it, even though that is still a gray territory even after 2 decades.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  In the UK doing isn't grey, it's copyright infringement. It briefly was allowed, but Tories goin'a Tory. There's no moral justification for not allowing ripping or any other format switching for personal use IMO.
d1zzy 8y ago
My findings so far for legal FLAC sources are: bandcamp: if it's there this is the best solution, you get option of what format you want and you don't have to pay more just for lossless. Unlimited number of downloads. 7digital: technically geolocked but I can access other country stores on their site and add to checkout and pay (??). Unlimited number of downloads. tidal.com store: everyone knows them about streaming but they have an actual store with lots of stuff and the option to get flac. Much higher prices for FLAC vs MP3. Availability depends on IP location but with a proxy in Europe I'm able to buy as if from Europe (although I use a US credit card). Only allows to download (MP3 or FLAC) once per song so better backup those copies... And last but not least, CDs: just buy second hand CDs as cheap as you can from discogs, Amazon or ebay and rip it. If it's not heavily scratched it won't matter that it's used.
diminoten 8y ago
The fact is, you don't have a right to that FLAC copy. You're not entitled to it, and if you can't find it, that means you don't get to have it. The end. Not saying any of this is right, but this whole entitlement attitude feels wrong too.
- josteink 8y ago
  My point was exactly this. If I as a dedicated individual can’t get a single license for a single concrete item, how is a general website able to automatically and generically obtain copyright-licenses for all the copyrights in the world? It’s simply not a reasonable proposition.

ApolloFortyNine 8y ago

I feel with you on FLACS. Beatport makes you pay 75c extra for the FLAC (why???) and doesn't even let you download the song again after 24 hours. It's nice the FLAC is available, but seriously 24 hours availability in 2019? It's very hard to give them money for that.

FridgeSeal 8y ago
Aahh, Beatport. I once lost my huge chunk of my music library due to a hard drive corruption (and not up to date backups, whoops). No big deal, I’ll just re-download all my purchases (in the order of hundreds of dollars): nope. Emailed them and asked, they said no, pleaded the case, mentioned how much I’d spent and they re-enabled them all with a snarky note about always keeping backups. I try to buy as much as I can from Bandcamp instead these days.

sigfubar 8y ago

I pay for Spotify. I pay for concert tickets. As far as I'm concerned, this fulfills my obligation to support my favorite artists. Digitally downloaded music is thus already inherently "paid for" and can be downloaded from any source, even if some random entity considers this source "against the rules". No moral hazard, no hassle. Just music.

josteink 8y ago
My point was not the moral aspects of pirating. It was about the impossible complexity of doing anything IP by the books, even as a end-customer, as a single instance transaction. And here the EU expects all companies out there, as intermediaries, to solve this generically and automatically. It’s a joke surely?
- ahje 8y ago
  It's not a joke. I think most of the people behind this are simply so naive that they can't believe the free market won't fix this.
  - nonbel 8y ago
    >"the free market won't fix this." I've been seeing a large increase in comments like this across the internet. Can you share where you learned the definition of "free market"?
    - krageon 8y ago
      This is almost exclusively (average) americans and shielded rich right-wingers in my experience.
      - ionised 8y ago
        Why would a rich right-winger criticise free markets? Surely they benefit most from it?
        nonbel 8y ago
        Which is easier for a rich person? 1) To pay off a few politicians 2) To sell a product/service to millions of people I'd say it is usually the first. If you are already rich and powerful it is in your interest for the government to have more control. Eg, more red tape means higher barriers to entry to your (new and smaller) competition.

pmlnr 8y ago

Bandcamp. Otherwise get the CD and rip it, even though that is still a gray territory even after 2 decades.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
In the UK doing isn't grey, it's copyright infringement. It briefly was allowed, but Tories goin'a Tory. There's no moral justification for not allowing ripping or any other format switching for personal use IMO.

d1zzy 8y ago

My findings so far for legal FLAC sources are: bandcamp: if it's there this is the best solution, you get option of what format you want and you don't have to pay more just for lossless. Unlimited number of downloads. 7digital: technically geolocked but I can access other country stores on their site and add to checkout and pay (??). Unlimited number of downloads. tidal.com store: everyone knows them about streaming but they have an actual store with lots of stuff and the option to get flac. Much higher prices for FLAC vs MP3. Availability depends on IP location but with a proxy in Europe I'm able to buy as if from Europe (although I use a US credit card). Only allows to download (MP3 or FLAC) once per song so better backup those copies... And last but not least, CDs: just buy second hand CDs as cheap as you can from discogs, Amazon or ebay and rip it. If it's not heavily scratched it won't matter that it's used.

diminoten 8y ago

The fact is, you don't have a right to that FLAC copy. You're not entitled to it, and if you can't find it, that means you don't get to have it. The end. Not saying any of this is right, but this whole entitlement attitude feels wrong too.

josteink 8y ago
My point was exactly this. If I as a dedicated individual can’t get a single license for a single concrete item, how is a general website able to automatically and generically obtain copyright-licenses for all the copyrights in the world? It’s simply not a reasonable proposition.