global music downloads
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- wwfc
...does anyone have any experience of dealing with copyright issues and downloading music/audio/mp3's from a website.
i always assumed that you could simply host the files on any server, in any country and the user/customer - simply pays the money and then downloads.
but a client that i am working with at the moment is concerned that any music from his site needs to hosted on a server in the country of purchase?
is this right? or was my original assumption the right one? or are they both right?
how do people deal with the global issues of copyright?
anyone know 'bout this stuff?
- moth0
I do.
- wwfc0
...any danger of sharing some knowledge moth?
could do with some advice before i get started?
..please?!
- moth0
It's not terribly simple I'm afraid.
There are various distributors of music for different territories. It doesn't matter where the files are hosted, but you can not sell the same album world wide if your distributor only deals UK (for example).
You'd need to take say - 4 copies of the same album from different suppliers for the 4 territories - and each one is unique (could be different tracks, cover art etc... all have a unique UPC).
- wwfc0
okay, i'm with you thus far...
so in theory - a single server can be used - but the user/buyer needs to choose the version for their location?
- moth0
Yes. Or you serve them the correct product (or not if it's not in their territory) based on the their location which you'd need to detect via GeoIP...
- moth0
I worked on Peoples Music Store. The funny nature of our service meant that we had to list products, even when they aren't in the visitors territory;
http://peoplesmusicstore.com/sea…You could filter out the unavailable ones automatically though.
- ...you do indeed know what we are talking about - to the tee!!!
:-)wwfc
- ...you do indeed know what we are talking about - to the tee!!!
- wwfc0
...got you - i did think about that.
would the maxmind geoip on sourceforge do the job? or do you recommend something more?
big help already moth ;-)
appreciate it
- moth0
Yeah we used that.
Basically you have to prove that you made a best effort to identify the users location. It doesn't matter if 1 or 2 people fall through the net.
- wwfc0
...great stuff! that is what i was hoping to hear ;-)
...and (finally) how do you deal with tracking issues? sorry for adding more questions to this thread - but that is something the client mentioned - downloads need to be tracked? is that something that can be done via the actual order? or the ip? or is there any third party software needed for that too?
- moth0
Good luck.
And don't forget to pay the collection agencies for each territory.
http://www.prsformusic.comGet's mighty confusing.
- wwfc0
...okay, so tracking the files once they are downloaded is very much in the lap of the gods? no way to do it 100% other than who it goes to originally?
thanks for the luck - got a feeling i'm about to learn a few lessons along the way! lol!
yes, the payments on to the relevant people is being taken care of by the client (luckily)
thanks a million for the help and advice moth really very grateful.
- moth0
Tracking files was the whole premise of DRM. You're going to have a hard enough time selling mp3's in the first place. DRM is hugely unpopular, and if you add it, you wont sell it.
Perhaps if you offer some kind of streaming service, you can get more on-going metrics on usage.
I suppose you can look into watermarking, but that just identifies where a file came from. It doesn't feed you back anything or call-home like DRM.
- wwfc0
okay - drm = bad!