Posted by
Martyn Drake – May 11, 2010
It’s not often I’d agree with the TV Licensing Authority, but in this case they did the right thing in this case. Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, refused to pay his TV license out of protest against the incident involving Jonathan Ross & Russell Brand’s phone call to Andrew Sachs, and was consequently fined £262.
Where Mr. Moore went wrong was that he continued to watch TV on a TV. He was quoted saying, “The question was, how to protest. Normally if you don’t like a service or a political party, you can at least withdraw your custom and choose another. With the BBC, there is no such option.”
WRONG!!
He should have donated his TV to charity (or sold it) and watched programs via a device that does not contain a TV tuner. Providing he does not watch live television via the Internet, he could have easily have watched non-live TV via services such as BBC’s iPlayer, 4oD, ITV Player, or See Saw. Sky has Sky Player which doesn’t require a TV for it’s non-live shows. Then there’s iTunes for downloading TV programs and films which can be bought on an individual or by-season basis. He could have also listened to delayed OR live radio without ever paying having to pay the license fee and without the risk of prosecution.
There is an alternative to the TV License fee. If the BBC doesn’t change it’s policies regarding what services are covered by the license, that’s their problem. Most of what I watch these days comes from Channel 4 and their video-on-demand service is supported by advertising.
Posted by
Martyn Drake – October 17, 2009
Since Spotify first came to my attention several months ago, I have been a big fan. Despite it being a streaming service, it's enabled me to find and listen to tracks that I would otherwise would have to pay a small fortune to iTunes for to listen to in their entirety. Due to their partnerships with various record labels, Spotify is able to keep adding tens of thousands of tracks to the catalogue on an almost weekly basis. I've supported Spotify by buying a Premium subscription and have done so for the past few months.
But there is a problem. It's Achilles Heel, as it were. Something that is making me re-think whether I want to continue supporting Spotify and the record labels that are supplying them.
While tracks are being added to the catalogue, others are being removed. This is mentioned on each update posted to the Spotify blog. It's claimed that these tracks are removed due to regional licensing and other matters, but it's infuriating - especially to somebody paying the Premium fee. Even having the recently added offline mode cannot compensate for having tracks suddenly vanishing from your playlists without prior warning.
I'm sure Spotify is doing everything in it's power to ensure tracks that are added remain so. I have no doubt that Spotify is working it's hardest to provide the best service imaginable. But what's really spoiling this service for me is the record labels and people behind them who impose silly, ridiculous, and seemingly random licensing restrictions which may well see people move away from Spotify because one cannot guarantee that your favourite playlist may be reduced to only a couple of tracks due to them being removed due to licensing restrictions. This wasn't such a big problem at first, and I could almost live with it, but I have started to notice that more and more tracks are going bye bye.
There is no warning at all as to what tracks are going to be removed, or when. I recently added Elbow's One Day Like This to a playlist one day, only to discover it was no longer available the next. It makes me wonder what else I can look forward to having removed from my playlists.
So unless the record labels can be more upfront with Spotify as to what can and cannot be played through the service, I'm not willing to support the artists or record labels of the removed tracks by buying those songs through iTunes (or elsewhere). Nor can I fully support Spotify until this issue is properly resolved.
