I’ve been a music-is-a-service-not-a-product evangelist for almost a decade now, so most of my friends and a lot of reporters (some people fall into both groups) are accustomed to hearing me go on and on about why I think Rhapsody’s so great.
They don’t hear me talk about its problems as frequently, but there’s one big issue with subscription services that frustrates me every bit as much as it does our customers: sometimes, a track that was in the service on Monday disappears on Tuesday. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s incredibly disturbing when it does, so I want to explain to our customers why it sometimes occurs, and what we do about it.
As of this morning, the Rhapsody catalog includes 8,669,469 tracks (we add another couple thousand most every day). In order to make each one of those available to you on-demand, we need permission from two entities: whoever controls the sound recording copyright (usually a record label), and whoever controls the composition copyright (usually a publishing company).
When a track comes down, it’s usually by request of a label or publisher. Sometimes, it’s simply because a label is still thinking only in terms of retail sales -- they’ve retired a particular version of an album (what they call a SKU) and replaced it with a new one, possibly because it’s remastered or has bonus tracks. In a store, this is no big deal, but in a subscription service it can mean tracks you’ve added to your library or put in a playlist cease functioning. Instances like these are annoying, but pretty straightforward to fix.
It’s more complicated when two different labels or two different publishers claim ownership of a track, and we have to pull the track down while they resolve it. Or when an artist from label A is a guest vocalist on a track licensed to us from label B. Or when tracks come down while artist and label argue over what the latter owes the former (legally, we have to pay the copyright owner; how the copyright owner shares that payment with the performer varies based on whatever contract the artist has with its label). On the publishing side, one composer may want her song in our service, while her co-writer disagrees. It’s all exacerbated by the fact that copyrights often change hands -- an old owner may have granted us a license to material, but if ownership changes hands we have to pull it down until we can get that same license from the new owner. And every once in awhile someone just makes a mistake -- they feed us a track flagged “Yes” for on-demand streaming, when it was supposed to be “No.”
Anytime we get a takedown notice, we work overtime to get the material live again as soon as humanly possible -- we have label relations managers, publishing experts, lots of lawyers and your humble editorial staff all tracking lists of affected content and working the phones to get it back. We also do everything we can to prevent takedowns before they happen; if we know a particular catalog is changing hands, we work with both parties to try to ensure that the tracks can stay live during the transition. And we’re always working with labels and publishers to find a more permanent solution, so we don’t have to deal with these problems one by one.
None of which makes you feel any better when you push Play on a track you were enjoying the other day, and you get a “not available” message. So if that ever happens to you, please know that we’re working on it. And take consolation from the fact that there are 8,669,468 other tracks to listen to in the meantime.
When a track comes down, it’s usually by request of a label or publisher. Sometimes, it’s simply because a label is still thinking only in terms of retail sales -- they’ve retired a particular version of an album (what they call a SKU) and replaced it with a new one, possibly because it’s remastered or has bonus tracks. In a store, this is no big deal, but in a subscription service it can mean tracks you’ve added to your library or put in a playlist cease functioning. Instances like these are annoying, but pretty straightforward to fix.
It’s more complicated when two different labels or two different publishers claim ownership of a track, and we have to pull the track down while they resolve it. Or when an artist from label A is a guest vocalist on a track licensed to us from label B. Or when tracks come down while artist and label argue over what the latter owes the former (legally, we have to pay the copyright owner; how the copyright owner shares that payment with the performer varies based on whatever contract the artist has with its label). On the publishing side, one composer may want her song in our service, while her co-writer disagrees. It’s all exacerbated by the fact that copyrights often change hands -- an old owner may have granted us a license to material, but if ownership changes hands we have to pull it down until we can get that same license from the new owner. And every once in awhile someone just makes a mistake -- they feed us a track flagged “Yes” for on-demand streaming, when it was supposed to be “No.”
Anytime we get a takedown notice, we work overtime to get the material live again as soon as humanly possible -- we have label relations managers, publishing experts, lots of lawyers and your humble editorial staff all tracking lists of affected content and working the phones to get it back. We also do everything we can to prevent takedowns before they happen; if we know a particular catalog is changing hands, we work with both parties to try to ensure that the tracks can stay live during the transition. And we’re always working with labels and publishers to find a more permanent solution, so we don’t have to deal with these problems one by one.
None of which makes you feel any better when you push Play on a track you were enjoying the other day, and you get a “not available” message. So if that ever happens to you, please know that we’re working on it. And take consolation from the fact that there are 8,669,468 other tracks to listen to in the meantime.
- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC.
Why doesn't Rhapsody have any type of customer news or updates as part of the user interface? It's one thing when certain tracks or albums go away, but when an artist the magnitude of Springsteen is removed -- for whatever reason -- a few words of explanation would show concern for customers. I am a huge fan and long time user of Rhapsody. It just puzzles me why the company doesn't do more to keeps its customers informed.
I agree with Ted. There should be some way to know what is going on before your entire library just becomes a collection of grayed-out song names with no way to play them short of buying the album, which makes Rhapsody (and the monthly fee) totally unnecessary. At least half of my library is no longer available and the songs that remain are mostly classical Mozart tracks. I do enjoy them, but do not feel that they are worth the monthly charge. If there is no change, I will be canceling my subscription. If I have to buy the music I want, I might as well do it someplace I am not charged a monthly fee for the privilege.
If you notice, it's always the SAME artists coming down and going back up and coming down again. The Eagles are notorious for this, up and down several times a few years ago until they just came down for good. Zappa, ARS, etc. I understand the explanation, but this still seems to be an eventual deal-killer for subscription-based music. I, too, have been a Rhapsody subscriber since the beginning (my client is Audiogalaxy, for crying out loud), but I'm paying $15.99/month for access, not access when Rhapsody manages to give me access. Add in the hair-pulling frustration of a buggy client and on-again, off-again mobile device nightmares, and it adds up to a lot less than what I'm paying for.
I'm in agreement. Springsteen gone. Jackson Browne gone. And not a word about it. C'mon Rhapsody. It's called customer service.
I feel the same way as all of you do, but in Rhapsody's defense, there are just some times that they have absolutely no say in these matters, since they do happen to be very legalistic. I would, however, be overly joyed if I were to find that Rhapsody was coming out with an update that would alert you to this a few days prior, or at least give an explanation as to why certain songs were "greyed out", so that users don't go through some rigamaro trying to figure out why their songs won't play. I honestly thought that something was wrong with my computer or program, so I reinstalled it. Now I find the truth. Rhapsody, please help out your faithful customers. We love you lots for your simplicity, but we'd love you even more if you would listen to us.