Qobuz in USA = piracy?

[greyscale]

I have listened to Qobuz via a trial subscription on their Iphone and desktop app in Chrome (for translation), and found the sound very enjoyable. Also, the catalog of classical music also very appealing. As I reside in the US, the service is not officially available. I'm aware that the service can be gotten via a VPN. As there are no contractual agreements in place to compensate the record labels as well as the artists, when music is streamed into the U.S.

Is this not a form of piracy?. I for one, would not wish to be a part of any act that might in the end, prevent Qobuz from being able to bring this service to the U.S. .

Would like to hear other opinions on this.

 

greyscale

[bobbmd]

get over it-my address is in france or excuse me new france which is what the northeast would have been called if the french won on the plains of abraham

[kumakuma]

I have listened to Qobuz via a trial subscription on their Iphone and desktop app in Chrome (for translation), and found the sound very enjoyable. Also, the catalog of classical music also very appealing. As I reside in the US, the service is not officially available. I'm aware that the service can be gotten via a VPN. As there are no contractual agreements in place to compensate the record labels as well as the artists, when music is streamed into the U.S.

Is this not a form of piracy?. I for one, would not wish to be a part of any act that might in the end, prevent Qobuz from being able to bring this service to the U.S. .

Would like to hear other opinions on this.

 

greyscale

 

I wouldn't worry about it. I would be surprised if the labels aren't being compensated for each song that is streamed, regardless of where it is streamed to.

[CR250]

I wouldn't worry about it. I would be surprised if the labels aren't being compensated for each song that is streamed, regardless of where it is streamed to.

 

I believe that's correct. As long as Qobuz is operating legally and you're not stealing the service from Qobuz, I don't see why there would be a problem. After your trial period ends and you pay for the service like everyone else, what could you get in trouble for?

[jacquesr]

I am based in Montréal and I have been a subscriber for over 2 years.

Send an email to customer service and they will help you. They can add you "manually" in their system.

Maybe things have changed now. Qobuz is awesome.

[zackthedog]

I regularly purchase CD-quality files from them using a proxy service for things which are only available in the US in lossy formats. For the life of me I don't know why the US is limited in this way. Perhaps one reason is because Qobuz sells/streams BNF LP rips which are still under copyright in the US. I don't know. I guess I'm breaking the law, but I figure at least everybody gets their money this way.

[master]

Eventually it might become an issue. Netflix has been cracking hard on the use of proxy and VPN services. Copyright holders are pretty firm on where it can be sold and/or streamed.

[CatManDo]

Whether it is legally piracy or not (morally it isn't), I have never heard of a music fan being sued for using (and paying for) a service from the "wrong" country, while it happens all the time with filesharers.

 

Netflix tries to stop these proxy/VPN uses because they are told to do so by the content owners. If a film studio grants exclusive territorial licences to different broadcasters or streaming services, it must make sure these territorial limitations are respected.

 

This poses the question whether territorial limitations should still be allowed between countries which are forming an economic union, such as the European Union. The EU is currently working on this, but copyright holders want to be able to segment the market as much as possible.

 

European Commission - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - Commission takes first steps to broaden access to online content and outlines its vision to modernise EU copyright rules

 

And this is just about a small aspect of the issue - Cross-border portability - which means somebody who paid for a streaming service in his home country and then moves or travels to another EU country should be able to continue to access the service.

[Musicophile]

Eventually it might become an issue. Netflix has been cracking hard on the use of proxy and VPN services. Copyright holders are pretty firm on where it can be sold and/or streamed.

I'm not going to comment on the legal grey situation of cross-border streaming, an extremely complex subject unfortunately. I really don't get the concept of territorial rights for non material content in the 21st century. But as we all know, the music industry is still struggling to accept that we've arrived in this new world, and still thinks very much the old way (who knows where we would be without the arrival of iTunes store and Spotify who both changed the world of music distribution, interestingly enough).

 

Just on this particular comment: "eventually", for once Qobuz tiny subscriber numbers should actually help them. We're talking about some thousands of subscribers in total right now, the number accessing the service from a non "authorized "country are probably very tiny in absolute, compared to the millions of Netflix users.

[JediJoker]

I am based in Montréal and I have been a subscriber for over 2 years.

Send an email to customer service and they will help you. They can add you "manually" in their system.

Maybe things have changed now. Qobuz is awesome.

I wonder if this would also work for someone like me who just wants to purchase downloads?

[jacquesr]

For sure.

[Snowmonkey]

I wonder if this would also work for someone like me who just wants to purchase downloads?

They are very, shall we say, flexible. I asked them to let me access their store years ago and it has been my go-to place for downloads since. My Qobuz profile shows my address as Sydney, France

[Boy Howdy]

In my experience, the only piracy was on Qobuz' side. I was having trouble getting a clean, reliable signal, so they just dropped me even though I had just paid for another month. They just went silent... I'm enjoying Tidal CD-quality just fine now with no reception issues whatsoever.

Mike

[Don Hills]

It could be worse... there was a stir a while back when people with e-books found that that if they travelled to another country, any e-books not licensed for publication in that country were deleted from their e-readers. Bit of a bummer when you buy a book to take with you to read on holiday...

[mrvco]

They are very, shall we say, flexible. I asked them to let me access their store years ago and it has been my go-to place for downloads since. My Qobuz profile shows my address as Sydney, France

 

Considering how aggressive the RIAA has been towards piracy over the years, I'm surprised they don't police their distribution partners as aggressively. Obviously the labels are still getting paid, but not at the US rates or in US dollars. I can't imagine that their distribution partners that do pay for US rights would be too happy about it.

[ajay556]

I signed up for Qobuz. But when i attempt to download music i get a french version. Any one have idea on how to navigate and download music in english?

[Rexp]

I signed up for Qobuz. But when i attempt to download music i get a french version. Any one have idea on how to navigate and download music in english?

My account is assigned to a UK address so I get the English site.

[sockpit]

Mine too.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[kumakuma]

I signed up for Qobuz. But when i attempt to download music i get a french version. Any one have idea on how to navigate and download music in english?

 

I don't read French but I found it pretty easy to download music from the French site once I figured out that "Télécharger" means download.

[jiminlogansquare]

Just a data point, but during a recent visit to Peru, I found that great swathes of music files had been "disappeared" from availability on both Tidal and ClassicsOnline. To the point that it was ridiculous. I assumed at the time it resulted from issues regarding IP rights and payments.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[new_media]

I have a French account. I have Chrome set up to automatically translate the page, but I have learned a little French as well.

[mrvco]

Not piracy by the user since qobuz and the labels are getting paid. It's really only an issue to services paying for US distribution rights and they would have to take it up with Qobuz and the labels, not individual users.

[skypickle]

well i tried signing up through my vpn provider , expressVPN , and selecting Paris as my proxy site. It still knew I was in the US. Shucks...

[zackthedog]

well i tried signing up through my vpn provider , expressVPN , and selecting Paris as my proxy site. It still knew I was in the US. Shucks...

 

Yes, My proxy service worked for a while but no longer.

[jvlata]

Yes, My proxy service worked for a while but no longer.

 

I signed sucessfully to Qobuz from my home.. I installed the free Tunnelbear (TB) VPN, I connected to TB.. I choose a server in England.. Then I when to Qobuz..(I got the english version) Created an account.. login name, email, and password. I signed for the monthly Hi-Fi with the 15 days free trial.. I choose to pay using paypal.. I clicked pay with paypal, my PP account opened.. Qobuz assume that the email you signed is the email in PP.. in my case this is different.. soo I just typed my email for PP and finished the transaction. Sucesss!

 

Opened Audirvana+ and connected to Qobuz.. exploring their music catalog now..