Stand with Ukraine!
Is there a way for Roon and streaming services like Qobuz and Tidal to block Russians from using their services? If so, have these companies started to do so?
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Not sure about those services but I know that Discogs has prevented Russian listings being sold to anyone based in the USA.
I donāt know if itās word wide though or if they are allowing Russia to Russia sales.
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This thread probably will get hidden or deleted for being too political. No doubt, the United States presently has ignorance and anti intellectualism issues ā perhaps even more so than Isaac Asimovās famous quote ever prognosticated. At least, though, the US electorate had the sense to reject a would be despot. Despite any misinformation campaign to the contrary. The same cannot be said of Russia or the Russian people, who allowed this creeping normalcy to happen. Little sympathy warranted. Sanctions deserved.
AJ
I hope they donāt delete your post. This needs to be discussed in light of Russiaās invasion and sanctions should be imposed. I hope that Roon and other music services will boycott Russia. Thanks for your post!
Itās simple, we all have to do whatever we can, however inconsequential it may seem.
I donāt expect his thread to be vapourised and hope Iām not disabused of this belief
.sjb
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Anything that can be done should be done. I imagine that cancelling paid for subscriptions might cause some problems but any renewals or new subscriptions could be stopped without too much trouble. What about it Roon?
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Itās always wrong to make blanket statements about entire nations. Russian people are just like any other people. Itās not clear how many Russians voted for Putin, and itās not clear if he would have won in a fair and square election. Deserved or not, sanctions are the best we can do at this point, and I hope they are working.
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I think that saying all Russians are āwithā Putin is incorrect, there are many leaving the country to get away from his regime before it clamps down even more. I hope that more companies boycott the Country, I was under the impression that Russia had cut off the internet feed into the country entirely anyway, with the idea of the general population not being able to access the truth of what is happening.
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This has caused a stir in the open source world. I for one am not sure how I feel about it at all: peacenotwar is malware Ā· Issue #319 Ā· RIAEvangelist/node-ipc Ā· GitHub
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A little background as I have some biases here.
I have family and friends in both Ukraine and Russia, I was raised by a Scottish Father and a Yugoslav mother, Iām a proper blended whiskey. My partner in life is Polish, her sons are in the regular army and currently on the Polish and Belarus border. I live with and care for my mother, to say that we are following current events 24hrs a day does not begin to convey the depth of interest and concern we have for the people caught up in Putinās ugly invasion and occupation of Ukraine.
Why the background?
Iām with @killdozer on this.
Iām having real struggles tempering anger with compassion and compassion with anger.
Even with a deep knowledge of the region, the history, the politics the very real every day struggles of ordinary people, Iām having a hard, no, very hard time understanding how I feel about it too.
It must be even harder for those watching all this suffering from the outside in, who may not fully understand all the complexities but they connect as a human being.
Emotions are triggered, we react, sometimes well considered, sometimes out of instinct, out of anger, out of love, out of fear.
Our communality, being human.
My mother and I talked last night, she was nostalgic, recounting being huddled around a radio in the winter high up in the Julian alps during the Second World War. Listening to the BBC broadcasting out of England. To her, access to this information helped her, an ordinary young girl, survive a brutal part of our history.
Music has played a profound part of all our lives. Music can motivate, can heal, make us cry, make us laugh. It has been used for good and for evil throughout history.
Do I think cutting ordinary Russians off from everything in life that can influence and help facilitate good to be a strategy that will pay off in the long term? No, I donāt.
The less we talk the less we understand. The less we share the less we relate to each other. The less we relate to one another the more manipulated we become.
Technically most likely they can. Should they? I think that decision rests with the Roon team. Iāll make an assumption that as they have an interest in music they are passionate and compassionate people. They are likely struggling with their own feelings around this topic.
They have allowed this thread as an example. I commend them for that.
Ultimately they may not have a choice, taken away from them by a governmental decision that they will have to comply with to remain in business.
In peace and love.
Slava Ukraini.
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This thread is in the Off-Topic category and posts containing opinion and comment about the current crisis are unlikely to be moderated unless they stray outside the guidelines. Please try and keep the discussion civil, even though the events being discussed are decidedly uncivil.
Please donāt post videos or link to combat footage. It can be very confronting and upsetting for people to view.
Roon has a number of Ukrainian staff and SFAIK they are all (relatively) safe. Some have evacuated and Iām sure we all wish that they and their families remain safe. They continue to post on the Forum and provide services to us despite the enormous upheaval in their lives.
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Excellent post. 
For what itās worth, neither of these services sells in Russia now or before the invasion.
Itās been reported that they have been blocking access to Russia already, but I have not been able to confirm that.
We (Roon Labs) are not blocking service, but most Russian customers have lost the ability to pay for Roon. Weāve also lost the ability to pay our Russian employees. One has already left Russia. āBrain drainā is going to hurt both Russia and Ukraine long-term.
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Very well written Andy!
Except that Ukrainians may want to return to their country once the invasion and bloodshed are over. Not so sure about Russians who have fled the country. Will they be eager to return to a totalitarian state (as Russia seems to be becoming fast).
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Even while Ukraine as war zone at the moment is necessarily at the center of the worldwide attention, the struggle is and will be much larger. So much is increasingly becoming clear.
About Putinās development a very good write-up in todayās NYT:
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Why donāt we all boycott artists who support Vladimir Putin, for example Valeri Gergijev! I would also suggest that all streaming platforms should throw away these artists!
Jouni from Finland
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We also need to ask all the streaming platforms to remove Miles Davis and we can keep going until we all listen to ourselfs
This is a good point. The relation between art and morality is of such a complex nature that after hundreds of books and thousands of articles on the subject, nothing has been settled yet.
Itās a very personal question ā thus, for instance, I can understand people who refuse to read, listen to, watch, or perform certain works because they find it intolerable to give credit to an artist they deem to be morally reprehensible. Richard Wagner is a good case in point. A raving anti-Semite, so much so that to this day some Jewish musicians refuse to perform his works. Barenboim, now, himself of Jewish origins, is one the great Wagner conductors of our day. Who got it right?
Should we cancel Gergiev, as some have suggested, because of his close ties to the Putin regime? Will it change anything or do we just want to feel good about our (supposed) moral excellence? In what way is a Gergiev interpretation of Bruckner or Tchaikovsky relevant in the present context of the war? Who is being hurt if you deprive yourself of some of the best interpretations of certain works out there?
You may (and should) feel disgusted by Roman Polanskiās dealings with under-age women (or girls, as one would need to say). Polanski, though, has also directed two or three of the greatest movies of the last fifty years. By boycotting Polanski, then, you will deprive yourself of a highly valuable aesthetic experience. What good will that do?
And why stop at Polanski? Caravaggio, Burroughs, Dickens, Picasso, Thomas Mann, Gauguin, Miles Davisā¦ and so on and on. In the end, little art will be left.
If you want to support Ukraine, send money, clothes, take in a Ukrainian family.
Maybe itās best to leave art out of this. Iām very afraid of the growing cancel culture around us. Itās not a world I want to live in, as it will ultimately diminish us all.
Put your trust in art (and not the person behind the art) ā its ability to make us see and feel more. That canāt be a bad thing, surely?
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