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Amazon is dangerous!

 
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jefflewis



Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 1485

PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 6:47 am    Post subject: Amazon is dangerous! Reply with quote

I really have to stay away from that Amazon site, it is just so easy to download albums there! It's devilishly tempting - the prices are usually pretty cheap for these downloadable albums, like 7 or 8 or 9 dollars, and I can feel good about it because it's an "official" purchase which I think counts towards the artists' real album sales. And I can just buy these albums with one click! It didn't used to be a thing for me, I think they just started having a much better selection in recent months or something, I keep finding albums that I really would have thought much too obscure to be included as buyable downloads. Or I'll see old 60s albums that I have on vinyl, for $8 I can download it officially and have it in digital format plus bonus tracks... so I just hit that button... and before I know it I've bought a couple more albums...
I suppose it's all a good thing, and hopefully the artists are seeing some kind of fair cut from it. But sometimes I find myself buying a few albums a week like this, or even sometimes a few albums a day, it feels strange to realize that! They make it too easy! I should stay away...
Tonight's purchases: The new EP by The Fall, only $6 (in my local shop it's an expensive $18 import CD), and a double-disc edition of The Ill Wind, a great 60s LP that I have on old vinyl but I didn't know there was this double-disc reissue with 12 bonus tracks... and only $8 for the whole 2-disc thing!
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misshelenc



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 943
Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 11:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

British Amazon is well known for avoiding taxation, that knowledge alone makes me stay away from giving them my money. x
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jefflewis



Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 1485

PostPosted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 2:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, here in America we just ASSUME that all the big corporations are probably avoiding most of the tax they are supposed to be paying... not to mention the vast land-holdings and wealth of the church, which isn't even SUPPOSED to pay taxes at all. That's how we are the richest country in the world but with very little social services and millions of poor and unemployed etc... It's basically living in a medieval feudal system of landlords and serfs.
At least they toss us some cheap digital downloads of obscure psychedelic bands to keep us distracted from our problems...
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misshelenc



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 943
Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

PostPosted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 11:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Apparently the UK legal system has a lot more loopholes for businesses to avoid/evade tax than you lot, but I don't know myself, it's just what I've heard. Starbucks have done a similar thing. There was a recent documentary here too that showed an Amazon employee undercover, the working conditions are beyond horrendous! So I use it as a last resort, there are usually other, I'm assuming, less naughty places to buy things from. I'll let you have your digital downloads though, I don't know enough about anything to actually argue about it, and I'm too much into individual freedom to tell anyone else what to do.
xxxxx
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jefflewis



Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 1485

PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 4:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ooooh, wish I hadn't heard that, now I feel like I shouldn't support Amazon by continuing to download these albums! What i would REALLY rather do is just download them directly from the record labels that put them out, or even directly from the artists if possible, instead of going through this intermediary like Amazon or iTunes. In fact, I think I even posted here a few months ago about wishing there was some kind of online index/search-method/database that could allow me to search for album titles or artist titles the same way Amazon or iTunes provides a search function BUT would come up with results pointing me to the individual record label's own websites where the albums could be downloaded, with my money going straight to them. I HAVE bought a number of albums, even rare 1960s/1970s obscure stuff, from individual label websites downloads like this, but it is often hard to find them and sometimes they actually only offer the download service through Amazon. Like, the record label might be responsible for re-issuing a certain album in CD format, and distributing the CD to stores, and thru Amazon, but then Amazon takes the initiative to also make the album available as a download, an option which is not provided by the record label's own website.
Maybe someday soon these little labels will offer direct downloads more frequently, or use Bandcamp as a cheap and convenient way to offer album downloads. I don't know if record labels even use Bandcamp, or are allowed to use Bandcamp, it is mostly a service used by individual artists it seems. Which is a good thing... BUT in the case of older material, reissued rare albums for example, it's pretty unlikely that the original artist will put the stuff on Bandcamp!
One exception that I've noticed is Ed Askew, he had some wonderful psych-folk on the ESP label in the 60s, and now he is quite active putting his own recordings and self-released albums thru the years onto his Bandcamp page. I have one of his old albums and a couple of his more recent ones, I enjoy them all and I think it's cool that he's still active with this stuff. But you're probably not going to find, like, Silver Apples or Simon Finn on Bandcamp.
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