It's 2012 and this still happens; trying to buy music online and failing | Hacker News Reader

It's 2012 and this still happens; trying to buy music online and failing

thomashambleton.com

23 pointstomflack25 comments

For industries that talk repeatedly about how piracy is killing their profit margins, they do make it really overly difficult to give them money.

I'm a big fan of Fringe, I wanted to stream it (personal choice of not wanting any more 'stuff' taking up space) so I could rewatch all the seasons on the run up to the end. I check Netflix UK to find nothing, so I check Lovefilm and still nothing. Decide to pay for it, check iTunes no dice. After much searching I find one place, selling at a ridiculous mark up. Give up, watch it via shady means as I wait for DVDs to be delivered.

There's literally no reason for them to not get their catalogues on these services other than they've never bothered to adapt. Darwin in action says if they don't they'll be reduce to suing random people off the street to keep afloat.

As long as you keep buying the DVDs, you are perpetuating the problem.

Sure, and as long as I keep torrenting things I'm also giving them an excuse to just blame it on the pirates. Both are valid arguments, and both are a bit over board.

Whereas the "if the made it as easy as I want, very few people would pirate" is not?

It's just as ridiculous, all of them are based in truth but taken as far as possible. Better streaming would kill off the pirates but who do it as nothing better exists, but that's still not all of them.

Boycott Fringe and all products from their studio.

Well I bought it used, so didn't put any additional money into their pockets but I wasn't putting myself out.

I had a similar experience with amazon and digital downloads. Region restrictions on the Internet? Really? It baffles me to no end that they do it even though it's obvious why they do it - suits are still thinking we live in the 18th century (which they probably do to be fair to them).

To give credit to Amazon, the "restriction" put in place is purely a token gesture and they do their best to not enforce it in any way. This is smart. They have to do it because unlike amazon the publishers live in some fantasy-land but they do their best to let you get around it if you want to so they can still make a sale and you can buy what you want. I'm not saying Amazon is in any way benevolent - they're just not stupid and they want to make the sale.

> even though it's obvious why they do it

It's still not that obvious to me. The publishers should be in the business of maximizing their profits by selling as many copies as they can; I want to give them my money for a copy; I'm also ready to pay for the international bandwidth to have the digital bits distributed to my location (Ireland);... and yet they force the distributors to kick me out of the shop.

What are the publishers gaining by refusing international sales at a price which they are in control of setting?

It becomes even more odd that I'm normally able to buy the CD versions without any restrictions... The thing is, I wouldn't know where to stick these CD nowadays.

They sign a deal with the owner of the rights to the product which might be exclusive to a region. This is a leftover from the the days of yore. The owner for example might want to sell direct in his country, but is happy to let some other distributor sell things in another country but without cannibalising his sales so they put a restriction on where he can sell the item.

All of which makes no sense on the Internet. But we've only had the Internet for what? Two decades? I guess it'll take a few more for them to accept it. Or maybe they will succeed and recreate the borders from the real world on the Internet.

That doesn't make sense when the product isn't offered at all outside of a certain region. No local distributor makes money by not selling something.

Had a similar experience. Only it was for a band from my own country! They're shooting themselves in the foot, with shotguns.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4018774

I discovered this when I moved for a spell to Italy. I knew that netflix and the like had a good chance of not working, so I bought copies on Amazon. I get over here and go to my account and I see a country restriction message.

I bought the files but I cannot watch them.

What utter stupidity.

I think the OP is surprised only because s/he is biased, because he lives in Australia.

I live in Slovenia, and for me, this happens ALL the time!

No, this is par of the course for us in Australia as well. I'm not surprised, more exasperated that it still happens.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Is that quote really relevant here? Would anyone see this and think "those mean record labels, they're being racist because they hate Australians"?

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice quote, but it's the sort that's so nice that every man and his dog pick it up and chuck it around even when it isn't appropriate.

I don't think that, but I do say that.

If you start to argue contracts, the history of commerce, international copyrights, etc, etc, etc fucking cetera you bore people to death. If you simply call it racism, or nationalism, then what are they going to do? Argue that racism is okay?

Most of the world is politics and in politics its not about presenting a logical comprehensive argument. It is about winning, and making the enemy lose.

Always assume malice.

First of all, most of the time that is correct and second of all nobody is ever going to argue that what they did was evil -- so somebody has to.

"Never attribute to stupidity or malice that which is adequately explained by greed."

So I'm curious because I don't have these issues...what happens if you "Change Store" in iTunes? Does it not work?

You have to create a new Apple ID for the store, using a different email address. Then you have to find yourself a credit card issued in that country or buy iTunes vouchers from that country online and have the codes sent to you.

This is the digital equivalent of a Chinese burn.

Thanks for introducing me to a new band. I just created a new Pandora station for Palomq Faith!

Just FYI, she's a singer, not a band (and in case it was a misreading rather than a typing error, her name is Paloma not Palomq) :)

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