It’s pretty dumb when record companies limit distribution by region like this.
It’s totally dumb because it’s not about getting a good deal for consumers or artists, purely about rights-holders maximising revenue. If they can’t negotiate a good enough deal in a region they’ll simply not allow it to be streamed. This is what happens when they separate the cultural value of “content” from the monetary value of it, the perceived desirability. Viewers and listeners want a good show to watch or album to hear, rights-holders simply want to get a good deal, regardless of what the stuff it.
I bought an album off iTunes last year in September. I made the mistake of joining Apple Music and it completely fucked my offline music library. So I had to revert to a backup prior to September.
Went back to download that album and was told I couldn’t because it’s no longer available in my region.
It’s okay to buy it but you can somehow lose access to it because rights expired that had no bearing on you.
It’s fucking stupid and they wonder why people pirate when they pull shit like this.
Whenever I release music myself, I actively block it in Russia, because they relentlessly steal my trance / freeform releases and upload them in warez sites.
Of course geoblocking can be circumvented by a determined pirate but it helps to not be on their radar in first place as a lesser known artist.
As an example, once I released a freeform album. Freeform is a very niche, small scene. It was on Russian forums within a couple of days. Fortunately one of my fans notified me, I had a Russian friend contact the site on my behalf to explain that I’m a poor struggling artist, and they’re literally taking money out of my pocket; to my surprise they agreed to take the links down.
