Anyone tried to buy a new album fromm 7 Digital recently? A friend mentioned to me that Bruce Springsteen's Western Stars is not available at 7 Digital. I've just checked and she is correct. It has been out several months. When looking at New Releases section, even I realise that some have been out for several months. This may just be a UK issue, but it might also be indicative of wider issues, given who ther owner now is.
@greg I use 7Digital periodically, usually when I can't find something on Bandcamp and/or it is cheaper on 7Dig than Bandcamp. They clearly don't have everything, but they have a lot of what used to be on eMusic + some stuff that has not been on eMusic ever or for a long time. It's not a perfect solution, but between Bandcamp and 7Dig I can find a fair amount of what I'm looking for.
Thanks soulcoal. I'm just surprised the way it has gone over the last few months. I've regularly bought from them in the past, it tended to be the first place I'd look for something I knew I wouldn't get from eMusic or Bandcamp. New releases were always there on release day. They just seem to be going the way eMusic has with not updating new releases.
Thanks soulcoal. I'm just surprised the way it has gone over the last few months. I've regularly bought from them in the past, it tended to be the first place I'd look for something I knew I wouldn't get from eMusic or Bandcamp. New releases were always there on release day. They just seem to be going the way eMusic has with not updating new releases.
Well, I suppose that shouldn't surprise us. When you take the management that ran eMusic retail into the ground and put them in charge of 7Dig, what follows may be all too predictable. Certainly 7Dig has had their own financial difficulties, and given that retail is nowhere close to their main business, you wonder if some of the "cost savings tricks" (otherwise known as stealing from artists and labels) used at eMusic are finding their way to 7Dig now. I hope not, but with a track record like TriPlay management has in destroying capital, I'm not sure there is much cause for optimism.
I've bought a few releases on 7dig recently to provide digital copies of my vinyl - mostly Depeche Mode albums - as they were a bit cheaper than amazon & in 320 rather than VBR. Unfortunately, within the last 6 months or so, the FLAC options have largely gone & the catalogue cut right back (e.g. the DMBX singles box sets have gone completely, so had to get them via amazon).
There's not a lot left on there now that's on my vinyl list so I can't see myself getting much more from 7dig in the near future.
Hey fellas, I'm sorry I didn't post another update yesterday. I was very much hoping that the update would be just the service going back up, but as you've probably already noticed that was not the case. We’ve spent the last day assessing what’s been going on, and we really appreciate your patience during this time. Although we’ve been working on resolutions, we still haven’t found a fix. Based on our current progress, we realize that we may still have this disruption through the weekend as we work with our teams. What it looks like we'll be doing until we can get the service 100% up and running is go back to an older snapshot backup of the system that we have from October 2019. This is definitely not ideal but it's an interim solution that will at least let you have access to the service. The main thing that this means is that anything that happened after October 2019 will not be available for the time being - any uploaded or purchased content will not be there and the state of your account credits will be shown with the way it was at that point in time. Like I said this is of course just an interim solution while our techs work to bring back the service to the way it should be. Keep in mind that when the system goes back up after everything is resolved anything you've done on the interim system will be lost. We truly apologize for this disruption. You can rest assured that we will make things right for your credits and account once the systems are back up and running at full capacity. Thanks again for your patience while we work through this. I’m confident we’ll find a resolution soon
Well, it remains to be seen. I still think there is more to the story than being told. There was no "Site will be down for maintenance on xx/xx" type message on the site in advance, no tweets, etc., and the triplay.com site is also completely down. I don't know of any modern online business anywhere that does maintenance or updates without a mirror (or at least backup) of the site prior to the update. So I still wonder if unpaid bills aren't somehow involved, and perhaps a lot of recent content was lost in the process? Or maybe it really is just a botched upgrade of a non-backed-up, non-mirrored site, and somehow also killed the regular triplay corporate site, too. But the fact that they are putting up some very old version from Oct 2019 as an interim solution says that they at least aren't pulling the plug permanently just yet. I don't doubt they are, at this point, genuinely trying to fix a major problem... I still just wonder whether it was a planned event or a complete surprise.
We’ve been alerted to the fact that many of our customers have experienced an ongoing service disruption to their account. We apologize for this serious inconvenience. We’ve spent the last few days assessing what’s been happening, and we have appreciated your patience during that time. Although we’ve been working and testing several resolutions, we still haven’t found a fix.
We do believe that within the weekend we will be able to restore some account functions. However we want to take this time today to reach out to you with our apologies, and to assure you that our team is working on this as highest priority. Should you have any disruption to your credits during this time before we are back up and running, please be assured that we will make things right for your account in due measure.
If you have any additional questions, please reach out to us at support@emusic.com.
Wait, they actually included the qualifier "many of our customers"? Are they saying that some people were having no difficulty getting on the site and purchasing and downloading music?
Wait, they actually included the qualifier "many of our customers"? Are they saying that some people were having no difficulty getting on the site and purchasing and downloading music?
Hmmm ? . . . Interesting point.
It could mean that some (many?) customers was not aware of the ongoing service disruption.
Just remember, what you are gladly spending is the artists' money, who apparently do not get paid by eMusic. It's like a pirated music site giving out free coupons to download pirated music. They could give you a $15 credit or a $1500 credit and the cost to eMusic is the same - zero. It's just how much "free" pirated music they are offering you to keep you paying a monthly or annual subscription fee for them to pocket while continuing to give away others' music.
Has it ever been confirmed that they, still, are not paying out revenues to artists, labels, rights-holders? I mean, I know they weren't for that time. Curious if that's changed?
The only evidence at this point is the continued loss of labels (Polyvinyl, one of the last major pop indie labels on the site, appears to have left this past week). But there are LOTS of public notices by labels and distributors over the past couple years saying they were pulling their catalogue due to non-payment. And I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary - either labels coming out and saying "yeah, they started paying again", or "hey, we've always been paid!" This link is a good example, from Oct 2018 (and came with the irony that the former head of Naxos had just been named as a blockchain advisor for eMusic):
Note that Naxos felt compelled to do their own press release on the topic (e.g. in many cases the takedown letters were obtained by third parties and published, but Naxos went straight to the public).
There are so few significant labels or distributors left on the site that it seems unlikely we'd get much in the way of announcements from labels, and, obviously, those already gone are not getting paid anymore. So we are left to draw our own conclusions...
Well let's find out. I posted a query to artists & labels about whether eMusic appears to be on track with payments. Asked in on the BitW facebook and twitter accounts. We'll see what people say, if anything.
Too bad there isn't an old-school tech still on staff that could've swapped out that "no response" for an old-fashioned result of "not available in your region."
Comments
I'm sorry I didn't post another update yesterday. I was very much hoping that the update would be just the service going back up, but as you've probably already noticed that was not the case.
We’ve spent the last day assessing what’s been going on, and we really appreciate your patience during this time. Although we’ve been working on resolutions, we still haven’t found a fix. Based on our current progress, we realize that we may still have this disruption through the weekend as we work with our teams. What it looks like we'll be doing until we can get the service 100% up and running is go back to an older snapshot backup of the system that we have from October 2019. This is definitely not ideal but it's an interim solution that will at least let you have access to the service. The main thing that this means is that anything that happened after October 2019 will not be available for the time being - any uploaded or purchased content will not be there and the state of your account credits will be shown with the way it was at that point in time. Like I said this is of course just an interim solution while our techs work to bring back the service to the way it should be.
Keep in mind that when the system goes back up after everything is resolved anything you've done on the interim system will be lost.
We truly apologize for this disruption. You can rest assured that we will make things right for your credits and account once the systems are back up and running at full capacity.
Thanks again for your patience while we work through this. I’m confident we’ll find a resolution soon
Maybe I was premature with my RIP!
We do believe that within the weekend we will be able to restore some account functions. However we want to take this time today to reach out to you with our apologies, and to assure you that our team is working on this as highest priority. Should you have any disruption to your credits during this time before we are back up and running, please be assured that we will make things right for your account in due measure.
If you have any additional questions, please reach out to us at support@emusic.com.
Sincerely,