About "Name your price" and streaming physical releases?

I have a few related questions:

  • Should a “name your price” (0 or more) release be linked as “download for free”, “purchase for download” or both?
  • If you have a “download for free” link e.g. to bandcamp, does it still make sense to add the same link as “stream for free” too?
  • Can a physical release have a “stream for free” link?
  • Wouldn’t it make sense to only display one bandcamp link in the sidebar no matter how often you link to it (purchase, download, stream)? I didn’t find a feature request for that.
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Should a “name your price” (0 or more) release be linked as “download for free”, “purchase for download” or both?

I’d say both, yes

If you have a “download for free” link e.g. to bandcamp, does it still make sense to add the same link as “stream for free” too?

I think it does make sense to have two links, because they are two different things.

Can a physical release have a “stream for free” link?

I’m not sure if that is allowed, but it always annoys me when I see it. It is not that hard to duplicate a release anyway.

Wouldn’t it make sense to only display one bandcamp link in the sidebar no matter how often you link to it (purchase, download, stream)? I didn’t find a feature request for that.

That would make a lot of sense, here is the relevant ticket.

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True it is not hard to have a physical and a digital release in a release group, but I think it still makes some sense to have a stream for free link even for the physical release, so you know that you can listen to it before you buy.

Thanks, seems I used the wrong search terms.

The BandCamp importer adds both purchase and stream relationsships, so you could call it a de facto standard.

I agree, but this is a UX issue. And there’s no obvious solution, since there might be multiple streaming links, possibly with differing tracklists.

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Well obviously I’d only add a streaming link to a physical release if it’s the exact same release.

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If you can stream it, then it isn’t a physical release.
It can be a CD + digital release though, or just a digital release.

Usually physical releases shouldn’t have streaming or download links, but the UI doesn’t forbid it.

If you can download or stream, it means you should enter a digital medium.
Some artists are bunding vinyl + CD + digital, but usually it means digital is available alone.

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Usually physical releases shouldn’t have streaming or download links, but the UI doesn’t forbid it.
Beg to disagree. For instance a CD is just a digital release in a physical format. That digital data can either be streamed, downloaded or be on a CD. As the release is the same you can certainly treat them that way.

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A CD is digital data, we all know this. But you are mixing things here. What I mean by digital release is a mb release with only digital media. As you probably noted, we have a lot of different media, one of them is CD (with a bunch of variants), another one is digital medium.
An album available for streaming or download is a release with usually one digital medium. An album that one can purchase as a CD is a release with usually one CD medium.

We usually talk about digital releases VS CD releases. First ones can be downloaded (or streamed) while second ones cannot (they are physical).

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