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Serious Problems with Qobuz

About six weeks ago I started having trouble with Qobuz. Many recordings that are available to stream suddenly appeared as "Unavailable" in Roon and as "Sample" in Qobuz own app (in this last case, you can stream only about a minute of each track and nothing more). I contacted Qobuz on several occasions and they emailed me saying that it is a "rights" problem. The labels affected are Chandos, BIS, Naxos, Capriccio, and CPO, and not all of the recordings are affected but mainly high resolution ones, and featuring certain composers, orchestras, conductors and performers. According to Qobuz, Naxos is the culprit as it owns all of those labels. Qobuz mentioned that the "are working with the labels to solve the problem", but up to now nothing has happened and the list of unavailable recordings is growing. In fact, some labels, like BIS and Chandos, have told some customers that have contacted them about this problem, that they are not the ones doing this.

Interestingly, this is not affecting the same recordings in Tidal, which are only available in CD resolution (44.1/16). This raises the question, at least for me, how viable is Qobuz when the recordings I want to listen to are being made unavailable. Mind you, recordings that were available before and which I listened to and marked as "favorites". Customers are paying for this service, which is not cheap, and it seems that Qobuz is reneging on the recordings it made available when one signs on.

I asked some very well known reviewers, some who had featured Qobuz reviews and interviews with the company's CEO, but none answered, and one is "sponsored" by Qobuz.

Qobuz has to answer to its customers and be forthcoming about the real problem and let us know if this problem can be solved or not. If not, they will be losing a lot of customers to others. A very bad way to run a business.
brucknermahler
decooney
1,905 posts
 
Well that's a bummer, recently switched from Tidal and Spotify to Qobuz.  I did notice last weekend a few tracks were shown and then failed to load or not found on 2 of 50 tracks or so.  

They've had an uptake on membership lately and just wonder its a matter of a company trying to grow too fast, overpromising and underdelivering.  

Have you checked other forums and found similar complaints lately?
Ag insider logo xs@2x
cleeds
5,656 posts
 
I don’t think what the OP describes is a "serious problem" at all. It sounds like a licensing issue. This frequently happens with CATV providers who get into a spat with a local station or cable channel about licensing fees, and channels are sometimes removed from a lineup - for a period of time - until the matter is resolved. As @jjss49 noted, Qobuz itself doesn’t own the music and neither do you.

Qobuz does offer the option to purchase and download its files so if there are some albums that are especially important to you, you might want to consider that. I like Qobuz a lot, but I’m not giving up my LPs and CDs anytime soon. Your experience is just one reason for that.
big_greg
6,561 posts
 
This "serious problem" may be a matter of perspective.

Every once in a while, I’ll run into a song that isn’t available. From what I remember, it’s usually on compilations. So one artist’s music hasn’t been licensed by Qobuz and they can’t stream that song.

99% of the time I can find and listen to anything I want on Qobuz. That 1% (or less) of times that I can’t hear a song I want to is NOT a "serious issue".

If there’s another service that caters more to your musical tastes then vote with your wallet.  I have Tidal and Qobuz in part, for this reason.  I much prefer Qobuz, but sometimes Tidal will have something Qobuz doesn't.

As another poster mentioned, Qobuz has to pay to license songs to deliver them to you.  If the licensing groups jack up the prices and Qobuz pays them, guess who ultimately pays.  You and me.

I think you’ve blown this way out of proportion.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
cleeds
5,656 posts
 
big_greg3,201 posts09-24-2020 8:35am
This "serious problem" may be a matter of perspective.  Every once in a while, I’ll run into a song that isn’t available ... 99% of the time I can find and listen to anything I want on Qobuz. That 1% (or less) of times that I can’t hear a song I want to is NOT a "serious issue" ... I think you’ve blown this way out of proportion.
I agree. I've actually found a few major artists totally missing from Qobuz (there's no Bob Seger, for example) and of course there's plenty of more obscure music that it doesn't have. So what? For a single payment of $150/year it's a pretty good deal.
brucknermahler OP
11 posts
 
"Matter of perspective" is not. First, I signed with Qobuz, as well as Tidal, because I wanted to stream the music I like. When I signed, all those recordings that are now missing were available, thus, this was one of the main reasons to join. Qobuz made the offer of giving me that music in order to have me sign to their service. Second, I joined because I want to stream music I like, not to buy and download. If I want to buy, I can do it in other sites and many times at a lower price. In addition, if you want to buy music from Qobuz you don't have to sign for their streaming service. Third, yes there are more persons mad at this state of affairs. You can check it in the Roon community web site. Some of those persons have contacted the labels directly. One contacted the CEO of BIS and this person told him that they were not doing this, nor had they asked Qobuz to do it.

It is interesting that some people accuse others of "blowing things out of proportion" when the conditions do not affect them, or when it suits them. As a paying customer I have the right to voice my concerns. And if the firm in question does not answer clearly, I have the right to bring those concerns to others that may be facing the same conditions.

As I mentioned in my original post, six weeks ago Qobuz promised to correct the matter. Different Qobuz personnel have given different versions. And if the rights argument is true, then Qobuz should have issued a notice to all its customers about this condition as soon as they knew it. Not to keep silent about it and wait until customers start complaining. Thus, yes this is a serious problem because it could mean that all those recordings will not be available anymore from Qobuz if they do not reach an agreement.
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