What are we to do with Emusic?

[devilgate]

A while back scunner pointed me to Emusic, an online site where, for a monthly fee, you can download as much music as your bandwidth can cope with. It's all legal and above board: the artists get royalties per download, and all in all it seems like a fine model for how music can be distributed.

Obviously not every artist on the planet is going to be on there, so it can be kind of disappointing sometimes. However, the kind of artist that is there (in my brief study of the matter) is kind of off the wall, left field stuff that maybe doesn't get major mainstream distribution. The sort of stuff I tend to like, in other words.

Furthermore, I have no problems using Mozilla at their site, and their download manager is available for Linux as well as Windows. They just get it, I thought.

So I just started a trial subscription period: fourteen days, fifty files. Plenty to choose from, and it's all going very well.

Or it was, until I started seeing this message appear alongside some albums: Not available outside North America due to licensing restrictions.

And this is alongside, for example, everything they have by The Birthday Party. Bugger. Bastards.

I'm expecting comments from scunner and swisstone about this, because they specifically said that Lazy Line Painter Jane by Belle And Sebastian was on Emusic; and it is: a Scottish band, not licensed outside of North America.

So does anyone know how to get round this? I could change my registered country to the US, but it would cause some problems as my credit card billing address, I fancy.

Though its not like they're sending anything...

Comments

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Not sure why you're expecting a comment from me, as I don't use Emusic, so will never have said anything about it.

[devilgate.livejournal.com]

My mistake, then. you and Ol were talking about the track (and/or the EP or mini-album or whatever) and Ol, presumably, mentioned that it was on Emusic. I somehow took that to imply that you used Emusic as well.

Incidentally, have you heard from Ol recently? I'm getting a bit worried. He texted me on my birthday and said he'd be back in London the Monday after, but I've heard nothing since.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Nope. Should we put out a call for a lost guitarist?

[devilgate.livejournal.com]

I kinda hoped this post would jog his attention, but since, the last time we spoke to him, he didn't seem to know about friends pages...

Ol

[zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com]

I mailed him last night, he's alive and well. I was going to nudge you too, have you seen my post on Pure about the Lab meet in September? zotz is in town...

Re: Ol

[devilgate.livejournal.com]

The 19th, if I'm not very much mistaken, is Ol's birthday. See how things connect up?

Re: Ol

[zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com]

It is indeed, and so he can't make it to the Lab. Other plans already apparently. Will you make it?

Re: Ol

[devilgate.livejournal.com]

Unusually, I might. I'm going to a work leaving do that night, but it's going to be in town, rather than in Wimbledon. I had thought that, if Ol was doing something I could go on to that when I got bored with work people; so going on to the Lab would be a strong possibility.

Of course, going out straight from work is always a dangerous business...