Amazon Doesn’t Want to Sell Music to Pirates
Written by Ernesto on April 30, 2009A music only torrent indexer, Coda.fm stands out from other sites with its clean design and innovative features. One of these features is a link to buy the various albums on Amazon, after downloading them on BitTorrent and enjoying the sample. Surprisingly enough, Amazon objects to getting business this way and has taken action.
When we first reported on Coda.fm we praised the site for its great design and functionality. It has a full-blown recommendation engine that makes it a great tool to discover new music and its ease of use is superior to that of most industry sanctioned ‘legal’ alternatives.
On the album download pages Coda.fm has a short bio of the artist, the album’s track list, recommended albums, but also a link to buy the album on Amazon. Contrary to the “pirates of the Amazon” firefox plugin we covered previously, users are encouraged to buy the music instead of downloading it – not the other way around.
“We give the user the option to easily buy an album that they liked after downloading and hearing it for free,” the Coda.fm founder told TorrentFreak. He thought it was a good idea, and it therefore came as a surprise when Amazon asked him to remove the links from the site. In addition, the world’s largest online retailer closed his associate account.
“I can’t overstate enough the idiocy of said request: they’re actually telling us to stop helping them selling albums,” the Coda.fm said venting his frustration. Indeed, in theory this is a win-win situation for all parties involved. Amazon, the artists, labels and the Coda founder all made extra money while the users of the site could buy off their guilt.
U2’s latest album on Coda.fm, with Amazon link.
So why did Amazon request the links to be removed then? Most likely they don’t want to be affiliated with a BitTorrent site because that might hurt their image. The Amazon links are still on Coda.fm though, and the founder of the site has no intention of removing them anytime soon.
“Although we’re no longer an Amazon Associate, we’re going to keep the links to buy the albums. A couple of hundred albums and digital downloads have been sold to date, proving it’s usefulness, and that is the only criteria we use to decide what features we keep or remove,” TorrentFreak was told.
The fact that already hundreds of albums were sold through Coda.fm shows that ‘pirates’ are willing to pay for music. It’s time for the music industry to find out how to get them on board.
Previously: Google Custom Search Cuts uTorrent Off
Next: ISPs and Copyright Holders Fail to Reach Piracy Agreement
72 Responses
lol, oh amazon…
If amazon doesn’t want their links up there, send them to a competitors site.
Proves the RIAA has been wrong all along.
Amazon, such a bunch of tards
fuck ‘em. if they don’t want the link there, just lose it.
btw, what’s the source on selling hundreds of records?
Amazon has to be careful because it is a huge engine for copyright material and it depends upon the media monopoly for its revenue
at any point they can turn off the flow of rights to Amazon and open their own substitute (at least that is the implied threat however impractical it might be it matters to the stock price if they argue with their monopoly suppliers)
http://www.h33t.com growing up in public
Why not link to another music seller instead, then? One that isn’t so hostile to pirates (and butt pirates, too, amazonfail wasn’t that long ago).
Coda.fm is awesome… Amazon is worse to use, and you cant get poper previews! This is a brilliant way to shop – except I am boycotting RIAA / MPAA!
amazon suck anyway you can buy pretty much everything they offer for cheaper at other places if you look. Just goes to show which companies are scared of anti piracy and which are not. Coda.fm should keep the stats they have and offer them to other companies, and if and or when it proves to be a really good idea then they can point and laugh at amazon and tell them to get lost when they ask if they can do it
It’s not because Amazon dont want to sell music to pirates. Stop using so much god damn hyperbole.
It’s because Amazon dont want him profiting from a site that offers pirated material. Hence they closed his associates account.
Some impartiality would be nice, TF.
Hundreds? That’s pretty insignificant… especially when you consider how many seeds there are for that torrent shown alone.
I don’t think you should be flaunting the number until it reaches at least thousands or even tens of thousands.
gotta love all the companies that are being run by idiots in this world (not talking strictly music companies but in general) – really brings a smile to my face :)
Wow what dumbasses!
Well I do think darwin was correct.
The dumbest die out and the least dumb florish LoL
Jamendo and magnatune may be alternatives to those old models.
” Hundreds? That’s pretty insignificant… especially when you consider how many seeds there are for that torrent shown alone.
I don’t think you should be flaunting the number until it reaches at least thousands or even tens of thousands.”
———————
exactly. it’s such a miniscule number it’s not even worth mentioning…unless you’re trying to prove that pirates AREN’T willing to pay for music.
there are tons of places you can legally sample music. “pirate to try” is an excuse that no longer holds water.
While this might look dumb on the surface, it’s just Amazon looking out for itself.
Amazon probably realizes the money they were making fro their Associates account was being used to support a torrent site. That would not be in Amazon’s best interest if you ask me, due to them selling packaged music and mp3s.
I dont think ill ever be “on board” with what the music industry wants.
The music industry only produces diluted-meaningless music for the brain dead Americans, that do nothing but work-buy-consume-die, their choices as an organization that is supposedly suppose to represent artist, have been complete failures and do nothing but upset their consumers. I wont support anything they attempt, if that means boycotting everything, then so be it.
@Khristopher:
You probably right, it’s not in their best interest to be associated with torrents right now because the channels are owned by the MAFIAA and associates.
But there is no harm in calling them fools for being in a disadvantage position even though is no fault of their own, maybe this way they fight more to get some changes done(ok I’m deluding myself I know that)
http://www.linkshare.com/ for the win…
Wow everybody is pissing me off today.. google.. now amazon..
Go f*ck yourselves, dont make the same mistake as the MAFIAA, we will stomp you just like are them.
They don’t want the association as it helps to legitimise BitTorrent technology in the eyes of consumers and – as a competing distribution technology – is a threat to their own enterprise.
Amazon couldn’t give a crap about a few lost $$$ versus BitTorrent technology as a sucess.
Set up a CD Universe affiliate or something then.
Had never heard of Coda until this, but i’d had an idea of starting something similar but I’ll keep on to it as I reckon it could be how all digital media is sold in the future :D
guys I cant belive some of you really belive that any company runned by people in their own mind would give away their product for free while hoping for somebody to pay as much as they care to. Or that some company would sell any quantity of their product for a insignifiantly fix monthly fee.
Or that some company will want to share profits with somebody who is making money from unjustly competing with them.
As much as I love Amazon this pisses me off.
FUCK YOU Amazon! Should the ass hats in Congress pass legislation to tax internet sales made across state lines I’ll be hardly ever visiting the pages of Amazon.
And Google, well, I’ve always hated Google with their blatant Liberal-agenda and pretentiousness so while upsetting they seemingly took issue with that one torrent site, I’m not surprised nor care as I don’t give Google any of my business.
Amazon is a great site to shop…there is absolutely no doubt about that !
And coda.fm also is a great site for torrents.
But this kind of reactions were pretty much coming as it looks very weird when you see something like – Like this artist…download their discography…and then you have a torrent with 320 kbps rip..and when u click on individual albums …you see a link to amazon to buy and you go there and find 256 kbps rips and not all the albums available unlike the discography torrent listed :) due to copyright issues on certain albums never to be sold digitally.
This sort of situation will be very uncomfortable for anyone doing business.
Also more than Amazon I believe that it is the RIAA lobby and business terms that they need to follow to keep selling the Big4 labels in their catalogue..or else business will be discontinued !!!
I am a heavy torrenter myself but I love a site like amazon with their great deals..and ITunes has always suck with their DRM monopoly for a decade.
So I don’t think linking to a competitor will not solve the issue, because there are no decent service out there ( other than amazon and the monopolist itunes ! ) which is a bigger issue and can be discussed separately ( and one of the many reasons why legal downloads still sucks outside US )
I can understand the fact that Amazon does not want to be associated with anything that might be associated with questionable downloads, however remote it may be.
Of course, Amazon does have an awesome MP3 store that is DRM-free with a large selection and often great prices and completely legitimate, so why not use it?
On the note about Amazon, thanks to PC World, I recently came across an interesting table that details the discounts on Amazon.
It is at http://www.uberi.com
Maybe someone will find it useful and amusing too.
People, young people! Stop playing the big corporations game! Stop listen to pop music. This is the only solution! Stop listening to Radiobug, U3, Mettulicah, Coldfeet, Onasis, The Core, etc! Start to listening the classics! Go get an education and give RIAA the final one finger! Let the jews go fuck themselves! The same to the juws of the MPAA! Fuck them all!
Pop is dead! The flu is out! Israel is a shit!
I agree with Steve on this one. Amazon just didn’t want the site owner making money off of pirated stuff. This article is a bit biased.
@gunhead
Then what about services such as Rhapsody or Zune Pass? A few bucks a month, unlimited music.
@The Idiots
If they simply didn’t want him making money, they would simply close his merchant account without requesting the link removals.
@awesome
Downloaded music off Rhapsody and has DRM protectiion Rhapsody using “Helix” Zune Pass i’m not so sure about, another part of why amazon requested the links to be removed would have been because they didnt want to be affiliated with a Piracy website, due to all their sells via packaged music and digital downloads.
Some impartiality would be nice, courts.
@ipanda
zune pass is okay but there is a lot of things on there you cant get. they are listed but you have to buy them separately for whatever reason.
If they are so desperately against people buying music, then perhaps we should give them exactly what they want. They seem to advocate against it, after all.
The way I see it, performers should grow accustomed to the idea that this type of distribution is over. Was a nice ride but is over.
They don’t need to like it, they don’t need to think it’s fair. It’s what it is.
People already proved that even legal action will not even slowdown this type of behavior.
why would someone having links on a site have any type of affiliation with amazon.. i can create a blog right now about rape and murder and have amazon links on there.. it doesnt mean amazon rapes and murders..
the affiliation excuse is a joke.
The only thing I don’t like about digital downloads (even stolen ones, as nice as “free” is and all) is the relatively low quality of the bitrates.
A common bitrate is 128kbps, but this is so compressed that while listening to it in my car, the music will distort in my speakers. Imagine a sine wave with the tops and bottoms cut off.
With CD’s at least you get a WAV file that, while still compressed, is some 720kbps — some 5x more depth to the sound you get (assuming one has nice speakers).
I could be wrong about those numbers, but I hope you get my point – compression is bad for the crystal clear audio enthusiast.
I downloaded one song from the U2 album, and I didn’t like it. I wasted my limited bandwidth to download, but I won’t be buying it.
I thought it lacked melody, and no amount of bitrate can fix it. I’ve never been a great fan of U2, and their latest work is not going to change it.
I am thankful to the uploaders for the chance to sample it, though.
Urden, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_audio#Lossless_audio_compression
To all the people standing up for Amazon and knocking TorrentFreak for reporting facts, just take a step back a minute. It is very clear to me that all Amazon had to do was just be grateful for the business – but no. It had to go poking around in other people’s business instead of doing what everyone else is doing and trying to ride out this recession and be grateful someone is giving them business.
Amazon covering its ass? Gimme a break
Amazon BEING an ass more like
128kbits/s common? 5 years ago, maybe! From 196kbit/sec and above i think 99.9 % of all poeple can’t tell the difference in a blind test. Of course there are always nut cases who are absolute sure they can tell the difference between a Musicplayer powered by Solar-Energy or Nuclear-Power.
@38
I think this depends a lot on your speakers and amplifier setup. With a set of speakers costing £30 you cant tell the difference, however with £300 speakers tehre is a world of difference!
(excuse the spelling in the previous post – its too early :p)
WHY DID TORRENTFREAK NOT MENTION THAT CODA.FM GETS AFFILIATE PAYMENTS WHEN SOMEONE BUYS FROM AMAZON AFTER CLICKING THROUGH FROM THEM?
There is no excuse. Amazon offer DRM free tracks. Amazon offer previews. Coda.FM exists purely to make money out of P2P.
Downloads though Coda: hundreds of thousands. Purchases through Amazon: a couple of hundred.
amazon is file-sharing friendly.
just include alternate links on your site, no prob.
oh wait, AFFILIATE PAYMENTS?
well, screw you Coda.fm!
—————————-
dear Coda,
please remove all torrent links from your website.
we love torrents, we love music, but we don’t want to play part in your pirate scheme. you make us look evil in the eyes of society.
with your greed and butthurt you only destroy our beloved P2P.
yours sincerely,
not a pirate
I can’t believe Amazon are being total idiots about this. Surely, they can see, that this is just free advertising, and that someone is bound to buy music from them if it is listed on a torrent site. Many pirates do also buy what they pirate.
The media industry in general is still stuck so far up it’s own arse, it can’t see what is coming. The digital revolution. Oh sorry, that started several years ago, and they still haven’t caught on. Retards.
Wow, a legitimate company doesn’t want to have to explain to its suppliers why it has a direct link back to a piracy site. Shocker…
Or did you think that Coda were doing this out of the goodness of their hearts?
I can only really purchase things online through paypal, and recently Amazon stopped accepting paypal and wire transfers, just as I had a whole list of things I was going to buy from them, so I’m happy if they get as little forthcoming business as possible, thank you.
Why the hell do they have a link to Amazon? Shouldn’t the link say “Donate to artists directly via paypal” or something? I think that Piratebay should implement this. And perhaps even uTorrent. If every artist has paypal account, the information could be included in the torrent file itself.
YEAH! That’ll generate some extra sales!
Good job Amazon, now I will never buy the stuff I illegally downloaded
@Urden
CD’s don’t use wav they are PCM (@1411kbps/16 or 20 bit, the 720 redbook figure is never used), CD’s are ripped TO wav. Wav is uncompressed, you seem to be confusing the compression used in audio mastering (why cd audio is described as “compressed”), with data compression, like wavpack, flac, mp3, zip, rar ect. Whle 128kbps mp3 is far from great sounding, it’s unlikely to cause audible distortion unless your equipment is crap or the encoding process introduced artifacts, again usually as a result of poor hardware.
Pirates are morons.. Are you really confused about why this is? The reason Amazon is pulling the account is because Coda’s business model includes ham-stringing Amazon’s suppliers.
You do not have the right to consume something and pay for it if you like it. You do have the right to pay for something and give or throw it away if you do not like it.
@54
“You do not have the right to consume something and pay for it if you like it. You do have the right to pay for something and give or throw it away if you do not like it.
”
Bollocks… If I buy a car I take it for a test drive first. If I buy from a catalogue then I can send it back. If I buy from the high street I can take it back… Except for CD’s, DVD’s or Games – which has their own unfair rules! There is no way that I would buy something that I can’t return if it is poor quality, mis-sold etc!
peter=troll
in case you missed the site’s name, it’s TORRENT FREAK …..not TROLL FREAK. It’s a torrent news site. Not a troll site.
Go crawl back in the sewer you just came out of.
Pirates are not evil…..we are people who share . The MAFIAA are the ones who have now been exposed to the reality of what people are standing up for.FAIRNESS!
Get your head out of your ass or crawl back in your sewer.
They should not keep the links, why help amazon if they don’t want to? They should put links to other websites intstead.
And that is why I don’t feel sympathy when I read things like this on the internet.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/05/01/wolverine.movie.piracy/index.html
CNNs take on the whole thing they even manage to cite torrentfreak I guess they’re reading this too LoL
YEAH! That’ll generate some extra sales!
http://www.tech3d.net/
Good job Amazon
does anybody know anyone who actually buys stuff from amazon?????Amazon tend to conquer web searches if you don’t know how to filter properly but thats about all. I can think of 50 different sites that do a better and quicker deal than amazon. Maybe the guy at codafm had a brainstorm that day, it happens from time to time.
@#42
“From 196kbit/sec and above i think 99.9 % of all poeple can’t tell the difference in a blind test.”
Wholly depends on what one is listening to. Generic pop and rock? Perhaps you’d be right.
Some harpsichord music? You’d have to be deaf not to notice a difference between even 320K MP3 and original.
Ultimately, if online stores are going to charge a similar per-track fee to buying a track pro-rata on a physical CD, they can damn well provide something of equal quality.
oh stupid Amazon
More proof that you get nowhere pandering to greedy corporate terrorists.
Seriously, isn’t this twisting the facts? What percentage of Peers / Seeders will ACTUALLY click the link and purchase the CD? Of these, how many will be purchasing THROUGH Coda.FM? I am an Amazon Affiliate and own a prominant Album Art Exchange site and know what a small percentage of my viewers actually will purchase from Amazon. I would be quite curious to learn what their conversion rate is and how many people they are clicking the links. No offense intended but I would bet good money that their percentage is waaay lower than my paltry figures for my site.
Of course, the reality is that it’s not that they won’t sell to Pirates but that they cannot associate with someone who pirates music or is even remotely associated with this activity or seen by the Labels as condoning the activity in order to make a profit. Of course, nothing is stopping these Peers from going to Amazon, previewing the songs there and legitimately purchasing the MP3’s. Who are you trying to kid here?
Your article twists the facts to make is sound as if people who are violating copyright laws are getting the short end of the stick. “Oh, Boo-hoo – Poor Pirates”. This is just a rediculous proposition!
AMAZON SUCKS EVERYONE BOY-COTT THEM NOW! AND SEE HOW MUCH MONEY THEY MAKE THEN!!!!!
I would never pay money for lousy mp3! Must be lossless. I did something remarkable today: bought a CD! Collection for 7 euros. Was very spontaneous after I started feeling bad for all that I had downloaded. :)
I still love Amazon, they blow away their competition, IMO. Their prices are awesome especially their deals. Their MP3 deal of the day rocks – I get a few complete mp3 albums for usually about $2 a week, can’t beat that. I track the deal at the following site (its the first one on the page):
http://www.frugalgadgets.com
or you can go directly to just the deal here:
http://www.frugalgadgets.com/amazon-mp3-daily-deal.php
Facts:
1)Some lossless sound better than some CDs
2)Pirates are willing to pay for certain music
3)Artist leechers must learn that a n artwork it’s not a product.
You got them? now to MPAA RIAA etc. Please read the blogs around the world and realize that something has to change. Seriously you are losing a great opportunity chasing ghosts.
People love music and the artists listen to those people instead of hanging them in the public plaza for everyone to see.
That’s fine by me. Pirates/fans should be buying the albums directly from their local record store or the artists anyway.
OK, not only are the Amazon links still up on the Coda website, but they still work when you click on them. Im using IE and I tried 4 different albulms and all of the Amazon links brought me to the Amazon website showing said album. Can others confirm? It is beyond my conmrehension why a company would shut down free advertising to sell their products. Wow!
Who can by stuff nowadays with price hikes on cigs and various foods? Seriously. Cost of music is figurative, doesn’t exist, its cost only exist person to person.
Anyone remember when Amazon ads were on the-realworld.de? I do and Amazon refused to put ads on TRW’s replacement.
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