Two opinions (?) here.
A: A release that is not streamable exactly as it is databased on MB does not deserve a link streaming relationship. A second release should be added, that reflects the streaming relationship.
B: Purchase websites should be reflected by one link only. Hidden tracks should be included in the MB release. (hope i reproduced this correctly here)
Any experiences, opinions, knowledge, solutions?
If wished, i can elaborate further. Just saving some time here.
Broadly, I agree. I can see some justification for removing the āstream for freeā relationship from the release in question. However, how many people do you think actually use Bandcamp as a streaming platform? And those that do will almost all do so via the smartphone app after they have bought the release, and so I assume will be able to stream all the tracks.
Yes, I think this is correct.
I donāt see that these statements contradict one another. However overall I just feel that the (non)existence of the āstream for freeā link is a very trivial issue in the scheme of things.
Looking at the edit history, it feels like it would have been better to have added a new release with 11 tracks and add a āpurchase for downloadā BC relationship, leaving the 10 track release with only the āstream for freeā BC relationship and an annotation. But again, this just seem like an excessive amount of effort for a trivial issue.
ok, thank you. i mean, we already had 2 differing issues, but it will be one in the long term.
in such cases as this, i will focus adding the downloadable version and not include the streaming relationship.
This seems similar to a CD release where a selection of tracks from the CD is available for free download on the artistās website. Except in this case the ācompleteā release is a digital media release and is also available gratis.
It seems to me streaming links for each track (except the one) could be set at the recording level rather than for the release as a whole. I donāt see the point of the release-level streaming relation given that there is also a release-level ādownload for freeā relation with the exact same URL, but also I donāt think it matters either way.
This would have a knock-on effect to a lot of releases!
imo itās definitely better to just have one release, with the full amount of tracks included in the download. If people want to tag their stream rip they can live with the CD icon not going gold in Picard
Re. the actual relationship, I have erred towards not including a āstream for freeā link if you canāt stream all the tracks, but when someone has added the link in later I definitely havenāt cared enough to vote ānoā. It does seem like a pretty inconsequential issue (to me).
when a Bandcamp release has more tracks in the download version than the streamable version, there are plenty of cases:
one or more tracks cannot be streamed, but we are certain thatās the same release than on others platforms: I would keep the release as is, but remove the ācan be streamedā link because thatās just not true (it can be partially streamed).
there are extra hidden tracks exclusive to Bandcamp, only available when purchasing: thatās clearly a different release
hidden tracks can be placed anywhere in the tracklist (usually at the end, but not always), exact title, duration, and track number can only be set by someone who actually downloaded the release. We can still add the release, as a placeholder (like we do for some pre-releases), but of course it isnāt totally correct.
the problem is the same with many digitital releases: track order that changes from one platform to another (usually without intention), variants with more or less tracks (one platform used the full CD, with 10 tracks, but one of them is hidden, another platform didnāt bother to add it, and shows a 9-tracks release of the very same album).
as an 11th track was added to the first release after i entered my edits into the queue, these edits now are factual wrong. after a potential future merge, and a removed stream for free relationship, i think the release will look fine. however it still might be confusing for people that do not know that there will be (a) bonus track(s) on some releases and think the download must come from elsewhere. this is a problem caused by bandcampās intransparency, but i guess they want their artists/labels to be able to surprise the downloaders.
normally i would cancel my edits, as i am totally fine with the process and direction of this discussion, but to keep it a democratic process, iāll let it run out.
Thanks for being pragmatic about this @XonE. As I mentioned, I think this particular case could of been handled slightly better, but itās clear everyone involved is acting in good faith and are just trying to improve the database.
