Pricing of digital downloads

[Dave2002]

Has anyone tried the newish Tidal streaming serrvice? http://www.tidalhifi.com/gb

Perhaps no point, as qobuz seems to have got there first.

[neiltingley]

IT's a good question. Yes. On buying a download you are presented with a file to download to your hard drive. It's yours to keep, copy, share and so on.

With a Kindle bought book there's no easy way to access the book 'file'. In this respect it's very different from music downloads.

[Alain Maréchal]

It's yours to keep, copy, share and so on.

Share? Anybody care to comment? I thought that was definitely against the law since it deprives the copyright holder of a sale, but I'm prepared to be corrected.

I'm a late convert to downloading but now that lossless downloads are more widely available I'm hooked. I use eclassical and qobuz and was pleased to discover, having mislaid a file when moving them between drives, that it was easily available again at no additional cost.

btw, nt, I have received a new kindle as a gift, and find that all my previously purchased books are still available in the aether. Try again.

[neiltingley]

It probably is 'against the law' but there's nothing to stop you copying the files onto a USB stick and giving it to a friend. That's the nature of DRM free.

I've never done it myself but the opportunity is there for the criminally minded.

[Alain Maréchal]

Is the law the same across all EU countries? It sounds as suspect as buying a CD, copying it to one's computer and then giving away the original, which I understood was illegal.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is the law the same across all EU countries? It sounds as suspect as buying a CD, copying it to one's computer and then giving away the original, which I understood was illegal.

Is there a difference between "giving away the original" and attempting to sell it on? I have bought CDs from Amazon to give as presents to others, and they (Amazon) have put the "FreeRIP" download onto my computer (sometimes when I haven't wanted it!) - does the FreeRIP become illegal once I've parted with the physical CD, and should I delete them from my computer? If not, in what way is this different from buying a CD as a gift for somebody else, and burning it onto my computer before parting with it? (Something I've never done, by the way!) And it's never been illegal to lend a recording to someone (?has it? ) - so can someone not lend someone a USB file copy?

(In other words, is it only "criminally-minded" if I attempt to profit financially from such activities?)

[Alain Maréchal]

<<Is there a difference between "giving away the original" and attempting to sell it on?>>

The difference, as I see it, is simply whether or not one keeps a copy having parted with the original. Selling or giving becomes irrelevant. "Lending" is not something easily quantified - how long is the loan?

Does one have to know the recipient? Are all those people offering free downloads of recent material merely "giving" a copy?