Ability to download Qobuz purchases not permanent

In case anyone wasn’t aware of this (like I wasn’t), your access to your downloads can be revoked.

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That’s why you download them. Just make sure you download them and back them up before they are no longer available on Qobuz.

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Why should this surprise you? Licenses are not forever; they change or expire. Downloads go “out of print” or are replaced by other versions. The ability to download previous purchases is purely for convenience, nothing else, no guarantees of perpetual availability.

AJ

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It seems that they are doing it worldwide:

Torben

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Doing what? They are removing music which is unavailable due to licensing requirements. There is nothing unusual here. When you buy music, I assume you do so to download to your computer. You still own the music and still possess the music.

If you purchase an LP or CD from a music store, there is no guarantee the music store will always keep that album in their inventory.

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I assume that you and i does not have any purchases that are affected but this licensing withdrawal, unlike @crowlem who seem to have one album which is affected.

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Changing their Terms and Conditions !!!

Torben

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Why is this an issue. It’s not. Download your purchased albums. There is no guarantee Qobuz will even exist beyond today. Why would anyone purchase an album and not download it?

Chicken Little syndrome at work here. :chicken:

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Download immediately and back up.

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No one is making a big deal out of this, just informing people who didn’t know, you should be aware of this.

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Some people naively seem to expect a music download store to be the perpetual cloud storage and backup of their download purchases.

AJ

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Yes, one thing you learn is that the term “lifetime” should not be taken literally when it comes to services. The best thing about DRM-free digital assets is that they should never dissapear or degrade.

After reading through this thread, I found two emails from Qobuz in my inbox, one about the change in terms, the other about my affected albums (I had 3). I double-checked my copies are safe and sound. People should check their emails and do the same. (Hopefully, the rush of downloads will not bring Qobuz down…)

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Qobuz actually advertises this as a feature, you can stream your purchases through their app at CD quality without a subscription.

Its not naive of users, Qobuz tells them they are entitled to do this.

https://help.qobuz.com/en/articles/10164-how-do-i-listen-to-my-purchases

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It may not be naive, if you read all the fine print, which nobody does. I’m sure there’s something in there that qualifies the above statements.

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And, you can still do this unless the licensing for said album has expired.

EDIT: This is one reason a lot of people prefer to purchase music rather than stream it. They know that streaming services can lose their rights to stream music due to licensing issues.

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Yes, it is naive. Because it shows a lack of understanding of modern online digital content. This is knowledge that people already should have if they are going to transact digital goods.

For instance, if you buy a movie — note, buy instead of rent — on Amazon Prime Video, you have not bought a permanent license to that movie. No, you have bought a personal license to stream that movie for as long as Prime Video has its own licensing agreement for that movie.

If Prime Video loses its licensing agreement for that movie or even, heaven forfend, Amazon closes down Prime Video, then your so called purchase evaporates into nothing.

This is why you should rent only. Never buy movies online unless you have the option to download locally. Or you simply do not care about possibly losing access to that movie in the future.

AJ

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In fairness, though, Jim, for some users who have been subscribers to Qobuz for fewer than five years (my case) this may well be the first time it’s happened… has it happened before with Qobuz, in fact?

I confess that I think I must have somehow naïvely expected one attribute of purchasing music to have been that the purchase stayed mine regardless of whether I downloaded it or not. After all the metadata which each of us adds to the presence of the actual music file - as part of our account - must be pretty small when compared with those music files.

And Qobuz does say this this is dues to ‘…Due to legal requirements surrounding the protection of intellectual property, we are obliged to remove certain music from our service.…’ - implying (perhaps, no more) that it’s a case of force majeure outside their control.

I downloaded - immediately; and backed up, tagged, stored in two different states (‘as is’ and tagged etc ready for Roon). I’ll be losing nothing. I understand better now.

But some users may not (have been) expect(ing) that. We live and learn :slight_smile: .

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Of course it’s outside their control. Licensing has expired. It’s how on-line music works. Why would anyone buy music yet not download it? I’m sure we have all seen music being dropped from our Roon library by Tidal and/or Qobuz for this reason. This should not be a surprise to anyone.

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Whether it happened with Qobuz or not, it happened many times before, and even with DRM‘ed content that then became unplayable even if it was downloaded.

Clearly, some among us have not yet adapted to digital transactions, and it’s probably to be expected. On the other hand, I can understand the exasperation as well, when, in events like this, we realize that this is the case. Because surely nobody could have believed that they are any guarantees for content that isn’t DRM-free AND downloaded. I mean, who knows for sure if any given website exists tomorrow

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When you do not download a music purchase but listen to it online, you really are streaming that music. And with this loss of licensing agreements, Qobuz almost certainly is dropping affected titles both from its download store and its streaming service.

AJ

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