Area purchase blocking - The reason for it?

[Oceanrower]

Hi!

 

I would like to be a customer of HD-Tracks but as I live in Sweden, I am not allowed to purchase and download files from HD-Tracks. I would like to know why? Is it due to legal rights provided by record companies? Presently they all loose my money...

 

I would really appreciate a thorough answer so that I understand it more in detail.

 

Othervise please lift your websites area blocking...

[ericuco]

From my understand, sites like HD Tracks only have the rights to sell in certain geographical regions. Here in the US, we are restricted from buying from some of the European based sites.

[One and a half]

The 1950's sales mentality lives on and on. Not the only industry either books, audio equipment to a degree.

 

To the OP, use a VPN , USA address and PayPal to pay to work around the restriction, or fly to the US and purchase direct and take the files home to Sweden.

 

Such a comical circumstance.

[JoeWhip]

Yeah, one would think that in today's climate vis-a-vis music sales, the sites, labels and artists wouldn't care where the sales and more importantly, the money is coming from. As for HD Tracks, they are now on line in the UK. perhaps you would have better luck there.

[Oceanrower]

Well, it almost think I have tried all of the sites.

 

HD Tracks UK and Germany dosen't work. Pono is limited to US. It is almost as one would need to move to another country to get a better audiofile.... The defenders of yesterdays business modells are controlling this business...

 

If only Tidal would import 24bit audio in their catalouge..!

[Oceanrower]

To have an online website and not sell to a customer that is willing to pay, is bad policy!

 

To have websites in several countries in the European Union and not sell to another person in the European Union is acutall illegal, if it has to do with record label rights. According to European Law, which regulations are valid before local country law, a product or services that are allowed to sell in one country is allowed to sell in another country.

 

However, a company can always deny their customers to purchase for what ever reasons they would like.

 

Therefor, in reality this nonsens of 1800-century entreprenurship can go on.

 

I really hope that companies like this goes under. We really need a new global player in the high-res-market that sells all labels to everybody. In the world of internet it should be easy to do.

[mansr]

Buy from Opus3. Great Swedish label.

[misterspense]

In the Netherlands you cannot buy from Pono store for instace, but Qobuz is no problem. They also sell high resolution files.

[rwwjr44]

HiRes Audio is a very good site which resides in Germany.

[firedog]

The restrictions exist because the music distribution market was setup in the days of physical discs, and the rules/amounts of royalties etc differ from country to country. Also a given album can be on one label in one country, and distributed by another in a different country. If a site like HDT contracts to sell an album, they are generally contracting to sell it only their home country and with royalty rates etc paid to the specific distributor and at country specific rates.

 

Therefore, country restrictions.

 

The different sites enforce the rules differently. At some you need to register with a country specific address. At others you don't.

 

At some they check your IP for the country code, at others they don't.

 

I get around all the regional restrictions using various VPNs.

 

At some sites you need to put in an address - they don't care as long as it is an actual address in the country. They don't check. You can put in anything. Address of a friend, of the White House or Buckingham Palace, etc. They aren't sending you anything by snail mail.

 

I personally feel fine with this, as royalties are being paid and the artist is getting whatever rate the download site contracted to pay.

You may feel differently, we can agree to disagree.

[bmoura]

From my understand, sites like HD Tracks only have the rights to sell in certain geographical regions. Here in the US, we are restricted from buying from some of the European based sites.

 

It varies. HDtracks has separate sites for the US, UK and Germany markets. Other music download sites are worldwide - anyone can buy music from them.

 

For example, check the Music Downloads section of the DSD Database - 18 of the 29 Music Download sites listed there allow purchases from music listeners in any country.

 

http://www.dsd.sonore.us

[firedog]

Sites that directly sell their own music productions on their own label (e.g., BIS) can sell to any country they want. Sites that are buying albums from labels/vendors/distributors are legally restricted by the laws, royalty rules, distribution rules of that label/vendor/distributor. That may or may not allow worldwide sales.

[wdw]

N

Hi!

 

I would like to be a customer of HD-Tracks but as I live in Sweden, I am not allowed to purchase and download files from HD-Tracks. I would like to know why? Is it due to legal rights provided by record companies? Presently they all loose my money...

 

I would really appreciate a thorough answer so that I understand it more in detail.

 

Othervise please lift your websites area blocking...

 

When I want to purchase from HDTracks, I briefly use Chrome as a web browser, which has a Hola! tie-in, select "browsing from USA" and all is good. It is absurd that we, with money in hand and in good faith, cannot make these purchases in a straightforward fashion.

[Allan F]

To have an online website and not sell to a customer that is willing to pay, is bad policy!

 

The restrictions exist because the music distribution market was setup in the days of physical discs, and the rules/amounts of royalties etc differ from country to country. Also a given album can be on one label in one country, and distributed by another in a different country.

 

The policy is not the choice of the websites, but is forced upon them by the record labels. You can rest assured that HDtracks and others would much prefer to do business without these contractual restrictions that are a relic from another age. The major players in the recording industry have continually fought against rather than adapt to changes in the marketplace.

[Harry K]

There is an also element of price fixing. Somewhat akin to the DVD regional codes. Different markets can be pumped for different quantities of money per unit purchase. Although any of us can walk into a record shop anywhere in the world, buy a CD or album and take it back to our home country to play. Which seems a bit odd if it's so "illegal" to sell audio files across different regions. Qobuz will abide by a label's restrictions unless requested to ignore them by a buyer. They will drop the IP block on request. Probably because they are not legally obliged to enforce it.

[CatManDo]

The restrictions exist because the music distribution market was setup in the days of physical discs

 

Yes, licensing has also been region-restricted in the past with physical discs, but that did not prevent people from ordering CDs in Japan for example. The CD mailing store in japan would not refuse the sale to a US resident, as download stores are doing now when someone outside their authorized region wants to buy a download.

 

Due to the national exhaustion of copyrights, it was illegal for a US store to import japanese CDs and sell them in the US (although this was hardly enforced, if the CDs were not counterfeits), but it was always legal for a private US person to order CDs in Japan for his personal use.

 

With downloads, the regional restrictions are now enforced more strictly. This is even the case within Europe, which is supposed to be one common market. A german resident cannot buy stuff in the british iTunes store. The EU is working on solving this, but the "copyright industry" (the creators but even more royalty collecting societies) would prefer to continue to be able to divide the market between countries.

[mansr]

Yes, licensing has also been region-restricted in the past with physical discs, but that did not prevent people from ordering CDs in Japan for example. The CD mailing store in japan would not refuse the sale to a US resident, as download stores are doing now when someone outside their authorized region wants to buy a download.

 

With physical goods, import duties are easily enforced. With downloads not so much.

 

Due to the national exhaustion of copyrights, it was illegal for a US store to import japanese CDs and sell them in the US (although this was hardly enforced, if the CDs were not counterfeits)

 

A while back, someone started importing books from Thailand and reselling them in the US for a fraction of the retail price. They got taken to court by the publishers and ultimately won the case in the supreme court: Supreme Court upholds first-sale doctrine in textbook resale case | Ars Technica

[dean70]

This situation really is ridiculous. I can purchase a given album in my home country on CD in a store, but cannot purchase the self-same album in hires for download due to geoblocking.

[Patrick Case]

This situation really is ridiculous. I can purchase a given album in my home country on CD in a store, but cannot purchase the self-same album in hires for download due to geoblocking.

 

I have remained true my principle to legally buy and download music. Like others, I'm 'rewarded' with ridiculous region restrictions on downloading music from hdtracks. For example, because I live in Canada, the entire ECM and Verve catalogues are off limits to me.

[CatManDo]

I live in Luxembourg and buy a lot of stuff from german webstores.

 

Recently, I checked for a book on buch.de and saw than an ebook version was available for half the price of the paper version (and no shipping costs).

 

But the ebook can only be bought by someone who has an address in Germany, while the paper book can be shipped anywhere in the world. I haven't found a website which sells that ebook to someone in Luxembourg.

 

I'm glad that paper books still exist

[DaQi]

DVDs are even more insane as there is the hardware region coding in the drive itself. Ever try playing a DVD legally purchase in Europe in your US DVD player. You can change the region on the DVD player but you can only change it a limited amount of times - crazy!

 

True story here - I lived in China and actually bought a legitimate DVD there. Wouldn't play in my US purchased DVD player. Of course, all the cheaper, more current, pirated ones played fine. Which do you think I bought after that?

[mwheelerk]

I'm not sure how much this applies but it may not only be a particular label restricting rights internationally but some artists have had albums released by one label in the US and another label for Europe or other parts of the world. It may not only be the website retailers who don't have the rights from the label but the labels they do business with may not own worldwide rights.

[Jockaruba]

May I suggest trying something like hotspotVPN. This will reroute you to a server in another selected country and lets the provider 'think' that you are in another county, for instance the usa.

I use this to watch Formula1 from Aruba from a provider in the Netherlands and it works perfectly

[Hailey]

In Sweden you have Qobuz, though. Much more comprehensive than HDTracks.

[Pat Case]

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