Bypass BeatPort Territory Restrictions
By Nemonic
You spend one hour digging through piles of digital tracks and finally settle on 3 gems that will work the dance floor. On your way to proudly paying for and downloading the tracks you are met with:
“One or more of the items you’ve selected for purchase are unavailable in your territory”
Dammit and that was my favorite track! A quick Google search reveals that the exact same track, in high quality, is available as a free download from a popular blog. Your left to ponder why anyone would be against you purchasing their music when its readily available through other means.There must be a way around this thing right? Yes, there is and its called using a proxy server. Read on bellow and we will show you how to bypass the territory restrictions by surfing on another persons digital passport.
Dial by Proxy
There are 2 forms of proxy servers available- the paid and free variety. To make things realistic, this tutorial is going to be performed using a free proxy. If you run up against a lot of restricted tracks, it may be wise to get a paid proxy service but for just a few tracks its probably not worth it.
THE TOOLS YOU NEED
Firefox Web Browser – http://www.mozilla.com/
Firefox has the best tools for cookie management, and the plugins are sweet.
FoxyProxy – http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/
I’ve used SwitchProxy before, but there are some interesting options in this plugin that help us get a better experience.
PayPal account set up and ready to go (just in case).
Getting Started
After digging around, I found a track that was restricted to me here in the US. DJ Boris – The Breaks 2009.
First thing we need to do is take note of the artist, title, and label. This is important if we’re going to find a working proxy. Log out of Beatport and let’s go to http://www.discogs.com/ . This is a great resource for all music, and we’re going to use it to find out where the Duplex label is located.
Wow… there is almost NOTHING on that label. There’s a hit in the Czech Republic and another in Norway. DJ Boris is from Russia, so that’s the right ballpark. But this is a good example of a “worst case” scenario. Usually there are a ton of hits for any given label. OK, at least I have an idea of where I should be looking for a proxy now. So lets get to that.
Load up http://www.samair.ru/proxy/ . This is a list of free proxies. Even though it’s filled with CoDeeN proxies (which are mostly un-usable), this list has been lucky for me. So I load up the page and right there in front of me is a proxy in Norway.
If you installed FoxyProxy, you should have a little icon in the bottom right corner of Firefox.
- Click on FoxyProxy to open the Options.
- Click the ADD NEW PROXY button on the right.
- The first tab (GENERAL) will let you give the proxy a name. I just called it “Beatport”.
- Make sure ENABLED is checked as well.
- Now go to PROXY DETAILS.
- Go to the MANUAL PROXY CONFIGURATION
- in the HOST OR IP ADDRESS box, put in the IP address of the Norwegian proxy we found (77.88.66.251). Now fill in the port (8000).
- Now go to the URL PATTERNS tab
- Click ADD NEW PATTERN
- Let’s call the pattern “Beatport”
- In the URL PATTERN box, put “*.beatport.*”
Why are we doing this filtering? FoxyProxy allows us to “proxify” traffic based on these filters. Since I don’t want to get in the way of the ancillary sites that Beatport relies on (like buybutton.net/cybersource.com for payment processing, or Google), this filter lets me be selective about who gets the proxy. Using filters means that I no longer have to open IE while Firefox is proxied if I need to look at something. Press OK, then CLOSE to get back out to the browser. Now, let’s test the proxy to see if it’s working.
Right click on the FoxyProxy icon in the bottom right corner of Firefox and select “Use proxy “Beatport” for all URLs”.
Now load up Google. the page is going to take a long time to load, because proxies are slow. But if it’s working you should see something like this…
Nice! That means we have now been issued a digital passport from Norway and beatport will think that is where we hail from. One more change and we are on our way:
- First, let’s now set FoxyProxy to use the filter instead of a blanket proxy.
- Right click the icon again and select “Use proxies based on thier pre-defined patterns and priorities”
Now, lets clear out all Beatport related cookies.
- In Firefox, click TOOLS, then PRIVACY.
- Go to SHOW COOKIES.
- This will open up a small box showing all the cookies currently stored.
- Type in “beatport” and clear ALL of those cookies.
- Now do the same for “buybutton”, then press CLOSE, then OK.
Navigate to http://www.beatport.com/ but be warned – this is a SLOW process given the size of Beatport and the speed of the proxy.
If it looks like it’s getting stuck on a part of the loading (like the “initializing” screen), try clicking one of the genre buttons at the bottom of the screen or reloading. Eventually you should see the interface load.
Now, here’s the cool part. Right click on FoxyProxy and “Completely disable FoxyProxy”. That’s right! There’s no more multiple checks against your IP like there was in the old Beatport. It sets your session ID when you first load up Beatport and that’s you for the rest of the session.
DON’T log in yet. Let’s look for our song again…
So we got the country right! I was worried about that. Log in, then click the BUY button for the selections you want to grab, click your crate, and check out.
Now here’s the iffy part. If you forget to unload the proxy before checkout and try to use a credit card, the transaction will be declined. If you see that you’ve been declined (and you still have money in your account), use the PayPal payment option instead.
You might be wondering..
No, Beatport doesn’t at any time look at your account information as a location check. They do what’s called a reverse IP lookup. That is why the proxy solution works.
When you load up Beatport (even if you don’t log in), they set a cookie that tells them what country your computer is from, and that is your country for the entire session. This works out well for us, because we no longer have to endure the slow proxy for the entire session – just long enough for the cookies to be set. At that point we can unload the proxy and enjoy a normal session.
Just because you’re able to get around one proxy doesn’t mean that you’ve beaten them all. If you have restricted music from multiple countries, it’s likely that you’re going to have to end your session, unload your cookies, and begin a new session using a different proxy to access those songs. If you’re after music from many different areas, it might be a good idea to write down the music and try to group them according to area.
Proxy lists are generally bad. You get a lot of trash. Only experience will tell you what the good candidates are on a given list. But there are also other reasons why proxies don’t work for some people. Some proxies don’t pass signed content (like CoDeeN/ PlanetLAB), which will stop your Beatport session before it starts. I usually avoid proxies using the port numbers 3124-3128 for that reason. If Google loads fine proxied, but Beatport won’t load at all, you probably have some filtering going on and need to find a different proxy. If Google and Beatport load fine, but your song is still territory restricted, then you have a proxy in the wrong country. Do a little more research on the label and artist.
*Editors Note*
People that go through the steps above to purchase a track instead of downloading readilly available mp3s from blogs should be applauded, as they are trully dedicated to supporting the artist instead of taking a much easier short cut. Unfortunatly, they make up a minority, and I would argue that most artists end up losing more sales than they gain over these territory restrictions. We know there must be some good reason to have them though- so Beatport, if your out there, could you fill us in and perhaps help everyone understand this problem from your side?
Thanks to nemonic for the great article, please visit him on the web at http://www.nem0nic.com/ where you will find more helpfull tips.
April 13th, 2009 at 5:44 am Quote
great article and very useful info! i know i’ve experienced the wrong territory thing a few times >_<
April 13th, 2009 at 6:04 am Quote
great article Nemonic, territory restrictions have pissed me of for a while now and I’d always wondered if a proxy would get around it.
Now to go find some of those tunes I’ve been missing out on!
April 13th, 2009 at 7:24 am Quote
I think you will find the territory restrictions have nothing to do with beatport, they will be set by the record label. Probably because there is a sample used that can’t be cleared in the US (common issue).
So using a proxy bypass is still breaking some kind of copyright law, and someone down the line, in theory is still missing out on royalties.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:44 am Quote
Does this raise any security issues? Are these proxy servers secure enough to have your credit card or paypal account information running through them? This is the only issue I could see with this method.
April 13th, 2009 at 8:09 am Quote
Great article, ran into the Territory Restrictions several times.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:06 am Quote
aren’t you worried about the security of the proxy? i once used a technique like that (proxy server in the us because of the euro to dollar exchange where you could save 1/3 of the money) but i knew the owner and paid 1€ per month.
on publicly available proxies i would be worried about my paypal or credit card information being logged while buying the tracks.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:18 am Quote
This seems like a genuine concern to me as well.
I agree that they are certainly set by the label as beatport does not have any incentive (that we are aware of) to not sell something. However why these limitations exist is the question. The licensing issue is one good point- perhaps there are others?
April 13th, 2009 at 11:50 am Quote
WOOOOWWW!!! honestly FUCK THAT SHIT!!! no offense ean i get where ur going but im not going through all this bullshit just to download the track, there is a magical thing called google on the start up of my firefox for this sort of trouble solving oh by the way, it’d be very interesting to make a post on how the WEB 3.0 will benefit the djing community
April 13th, 2009 at 11:57 am Quote
Anyone done this on a Mac?.. So much hassle when you can’t find the track or get hold of it because of restrictions..
April 13th, 2009 at 12:31 pm Quote
How it’s done in explorer? I don’t use Firefox
April 13th, 2009 at 12:43 pm Quote
About security. It’s is absolutely a concern anytime you’re going through a proxy. But if you take some basic precautions that are a good idea for any online transaction, you’ll be fine.
First, don’t use your “normal” credit card for online transactions. In my case, I applied for a separate checking account (free) through my bank, and got a card on that. When I log into my bank’s website, both accounts show up under my name. I transfer funds covering the online purchase into that account before I buy something (I keep $20 in there all the time just in case). This isolates the damage that is possible, and has worked very well for me. I can even transfer funds using my Blackberry. Also, DO NOT link your 2 accounts using overdraft protection or you’ve negated the benefits.
Second, the only data you’re transferring through the proxy is the user name and password for Beatport, and POSSIBLY the 3 digit confirmation number for the linked CC. I say possibly because in the method above we’re just proxying the data with Beatport, NOT the payment processing service. Even assuming a worst case scenario and assuming that a hacker set up a honeypot and is packet sniffing your session, he would still need to decrypt the SSL session you have going. And if he was successful, all that work would still only get him access to your Beatport account. Because your CC is stored on their end, you aren’t sending your whole number through, and logging into your account only reveals the last 4 digits of the card – the same 4 digits on almost every paper receipt you get. So doing all that work would allow him to buy music (that he can already get for free somewhere else).
So while using a proxy is certainly exploitable, in this case I personally think it’s pretty low risk. Do what I mentioned above, use good password policy, and alternate login creds on the websites you share information with, and you’ll be fine.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:46 pm Quote
Use Firefox. Explorer is nowhere near as friendly for this kind of thing.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:51 pm Quote
You can go trough:
Tools > Options > Connectivity > Lan Configuration > Proxy Servers (at botton) mark the checkbox and put the IP and the port. The next webpage that you load will be trough the proxy.
Clear cookies at Options start screen if you can open the google for that language but you are have any problem at the beatport (they can store your IP-country into the cookies).
Good Luck!
April 13th, 2009 at 1:40 pm Quote
Every justification I’ve ever heard for territory restrictions comes from the music industry’s desire for more money, or their attempt to impose an antiquated business model on the online distribution of music (or both). Region coding on DVDs pisses me off just as much as territory restrictions do, because their reasoning is just as stupid.
I’m not suggesting that everyone should be wagging their fingers at Beatport for this. But I think they could start wielding their influence a little more. More attention needs to be placed on these restrictions, and Beatport is the perfect entity to do it. I understand that it’s a fine line between pissing off the labels that service you, and pissing off your customers. But Beatport is a game changing entity in dance music – I just wish they would realize it. Maybe it would be something as radical as creating their own label. Or as simple as facilitating relationships between labels to encourage wider distribution of music for their customers.
In all cases, users need to know what’s going on. If progress is being made publicly, users might wait before resorting to RapidShare.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:51 pm Quote
Is there no way to make a fake cookie for your computer information that would tell beatport that you are from somewhere else?
April 13th, 2009 at 1:55 pm Quote
I don’t think so, the cookie information should be encrypted and unreadable to us…
April 13th, 2009 at 1:56 pm Quote
And we don’t know for sure that beatport store that type of info in the cookies, they could check the IP-Country everytime you request a new page… Deppends how the developers had implemented the code…
April 13th, 2009 at 2:03 pm Quote
The problem with using Explorer is that it’s a blanket proxy. The biggest issue I see people running into when following my guides are that they don’t know if everything is proceeding properly because of the slow speed. If you are using a blanket proxy and have only one browser on your computer, it’s hard to tell whats going on with your connection.
If you have 2 browsers, or are selectively applying the proxy rules, then you’re free to troubleshoot, multitask, search for new proxies, etc.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:51 pm Quote
I’ve been using Beatport for years and experienced the pain of Territory Restrictions early on in my digital music experiences. The reason Beatport state for this, and I have no reason to not believe it, is that the labels themselves require this restriction as part of their contract with Beatport. A label is a company that has paid for the rights to distribute an artist’s music to a particular region (whether that is a country or a continent, it depends).
The internet, being a great big level playing field for the entire world, has therefore completely sidestepped the regional labels – and they don’t like that! So at the first opportunity the labels seem to have reworked their contracts to force Beatport to sell the music in a way that allows the labels to survive and continue trading in much the same way as they did before the internet. We all know that the music industry as a whole has fought the change that is “the internet” tootah and nail. Only now are there small signs of it engaging the internet – albiet still fighting for every penny of profit.
Another example of the labels fight is the fairly recent changes to Beatport’s pricing structure. Initially Beatport sold all its music in US dollars. I am from the UK and loved the fact I could “import” my music so cheaply. Beatport effectively undercut all UK digital music sales without even trying because the UK pound was so strong at the time (this was a few years ago) making dollar purchases relatively cheap. So you can imagine how disappointed I was when Beatport introduced localised currency pricing which meant instead of paying $2 for a track I was asked to pay £2 – effectively doubling the price overnight. I could not understand how this was in any way fair. I have since been told that the labels demanded this change (so the UK labels weren’t being undercut) and also there is tax to pay on music in the UK (called VAT) which has to be added. Still, it was good while it lasted.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:54 pm Quote
Man, I wish I could re-edit my spelling mistakes!
…has fought the change that is the “the internet” tooth and nail…”
Maybe that makes a little more sense now :S
April 13th, 2009 at 3:51 pm Quote
This is from Beatports customer support section giving a brief explanation on the Territory Restriction.
http://beatport.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/beatport.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=22&p_created=1179946387&p_sid=*1t2wevj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=0&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD04NiZwX3Byb2RzPSZwX2NhdHM9JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9wYWdlPTE*&p_li=cF91c2VyaWQ9amFzb25qcGV0ZXJzJnBfcGFzc3dkPW1hYXprSyY2IVomcF9lbWFpbC5hZGRyPWphc29uanBldGVyc0Bob3RtYWlsLmNvbSZwX25hbWUuZmlyc3Q9SmFzb24mcF9uYW1lLmxhc3Q9UGV0ZXJzJnBfbGlfcGFzc3dkPW1hYXprSyY2IVo*&p_topview=1
April 13th, 2009 at 4:20 pm Quote
Nyce Article!!! Very Helpful!
April 13th, 2009 at 4:28 pm Quote
Great freakin article, saved my life :]
April 13th, 2009 at 4:59 pm Quote
Yea, I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel like I should have to pay for Dj Mixes. No offense to other serious, professional Djs out there, but you all just play the music other people make. There are exceptions who make their own music of course (and I mean more than just making mashups, like beats and stuff), but then I wouldn’t consider them just Djs, but rather producers or contributing artists as well as Djs.
Yes we mix well, throw in samples and effects, but its still someone else hardwork we are playing. Mixes should be a form of advertisement. We Djs make our bread and butter on live performances, and it shouldn’t be any other way. So we should release our mixes on our sites, and if the people enjoy them that should make them want to seek us out and come to our performances.
So I am sorry, but I will never pay for Dj mixes… I don’t think it right to the artist who made the original track.
April 13th, 2009 at 5:43 pm Quote
Pay for DJ mixes? I think the focus of the article is primarily about buying single songs that happen to be territory restricted. I’m not sure anyone is talking about paying for DJ mixes.
April 13th, 2009 at 6:14 pm Quote
Oh give me a break! If you have to go through all that trouble just to legally buy a track that’s nuts! Don’t bother! And don’t give me any of that “support the artist” nonsense either; you’re depriving them of mere pennies they couldn’t have gotten from you anyway since the label or distributor restricted the territory in which their music could be sold. You want to support the music? Pay to see your favourite acts play live. Buying music on Beatport using this method is just MADNESS…
April 13th, 2009 at 6:40 pm Quote
Beatport should remove those territory restricted!!! I will keep on blog those who are territory restricted until they remove that silly restriction!
April 13th, 2009 at 7:14 pm Quote
@Dirty_Licious: I don’t think you understand. It’s not Beatport who are to blame. It’s the labels. They will only allow their music to be sold if Beatport do so on their terms. Beatport have little choice but to try and help the music labels move forward and embrace the internet in the future.
We all know that piracy is rife on the internet which hurts artists as much as it hurts the (awful) music industry, so hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:30 pm Quote
I’m pretty sure the Territory Restrictions are setup when 2 or more labels have rights to a particular release. What’s unfortunate is that these labels don’t work together to put out the release at the same time. So some people are able to buy the track, and then others are left waiting until another label comes along to release the track in your region. An example of this was: ‘Tom Middleton – Lifetracks’ album. It first was released on ‘The Big Chill Recordings’ on September 30, 2007. Under that label the album was Territory restricted to the US, I had to wait until November 13th, 2007 before it was released again on ‘Six Degrees’ before I could legally buy it. This time frame difference wasn’t too horrible, there have been times where I’ve waited up to a year before another label finally pushed out a legal release for my region.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:40 pm Quote
Well good idea but I will never use a proxy for buying tracks… for the proxy owner It is very easy to sniff all your passwords…. (Paypal, Beatport Login, Email etc…) I am working for an security company and we tried to sniff privacy data trough a proxy…. It worked… Think about it! An alternative is an own Root-server….
April 13th, 2009 at 7:41 pm Quote
@cmay119: It’s annoying isn’t it?!
People please, don’t make the mistake of blaming Beatport for this situation. I hear they aren’t exactly angels in all of this (they apparently take quite a hefty percentage of any sale on they’re site much to many small independant labels’ detriment) BUT territory restriction is one issue that is out of their hands.
Labels are the problem here. I am sure Beatport don’t care which Labels they pay for the music as long as they sell more of it, and Territory Restrictions just make it more complex and more difficult for Beatport to make money – so rest assured Beatport are working to make this an easier process.
Even if it’s just easier for them it will hopefully translate to be easier for us too.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:46 pm Quote
@Abdel: You are right that proxies are a major security risk! But Beatport is served via HTTPS (”secure” HTTP) which as far as I understand it encrypts the traffic between browser and host server. So are you saying that the proxy server (or any server inbetween the client and server) read that HTTPS data unencypted?
I thought that on HTTPS any data you send cannot be read by any server the traffic goes through on it’s way to its destination. Am I wrong?
April 13th, 2009 at 8:02 pm Quote
Wha Big Al, you are right! I disregard the HTTPS protocol… So I think, the proxy variant is an good possibility. I have to think about it ;)
April 13th, 2009 at 11:29 pm Quote
I think for all the money I give Beatport etc. If they want to be stupid enough to territorily restrict a track here and there, I’ll grab the damn torrent.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:34 pm Quote
@Rick: clearly you aren’t reading the comments to this article so you aren’t making an informed commment yourself. Beatport is not to blame for territory restrictions – the labels are. Beatport opperate within the law so they have to conform to the legal requirements of the music industry or they won’t be allowed to distribute the music. If they ignore this they will just be another illegal music site. In which case this whole discussion becomes a moot point.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:00 am Quote
Finally!!! So glad to have a way around these territory restrictions. Time to go buy some tracks!
April 14th, 2009 at 1:31 am Quote
Proxies in this case seems ok. Watch what you are doing, and make sure you DISABLE IT after the first logon. Beatport is HTTPS for the whole session so you should be safe. Watch out for certificate errors or warnings when you have DISABLED the proxy. SSL CAN be subject to a man in the middle attack, but the bad guy will throw you an untrusted (bogus) certificate, and complete the connection to the upstream server. If that is the case you should see the certificate doesn’t match beatport.com.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:34 am Quote
Thank man, this worked perfectly!!!
April 14th, 2009 at 6:33 am Quote
Wow I didnt realise that proxy servers worked for Beatport restrictions! I thought they were just good for Facebook at work! This is really cool for me as I live in South Africa and there are just too many teritory restrictions, it looks like 90% of Ferry Corsten tracks are blocked for me. Ferry Corsten!!! Are you telling me that such a big international artist is restricted so much? Jeez!
An alternative that I’ve found in the past though, before going through so much proxy schlep, is that a nice google search for a hard-to-get song does some real wonders. If I cant get a track legally from Beatport, then I just check other pay sites like JunoDownload or DJDownload. They might not be as easy or fast as Beatport but hey if I can still buy my track then I’m happy at the end of the day.
April 15th, 2009 at 4:44 pm Quote
hi guys ! great article! im living in China now , and 2 weeks ago goverment was blocked youtube , i try to hide my id , but its doesnt work ! pls help me , thanks
April 16th, 2009 at 1:33 am Quote
An alternative way is to use a VPN-service instead of a proxy. Should be a bit more practical than a proxy (and more secure?) however it will come at a cost.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:44 am Quote
Ultrasurf may work in this scenario as well.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:37 am Quote
Or you could just go to another shop other than beatport. I hate that territory restriction but I’ve noticed that different shops have different restrictions, so a work-around is to try to buy it in another shop like junodownload.com, djdownloads.com, trackitdown.com, traxsource.com, etc…
April 16th, 2009 at 2:59 pm Quote
When I ran across the same problem several times I bought the same tracks off junodownload with no restrictions!
April 17th, 2009 at 9:00 am Quote
Fine solution, BUT – it is violating BEatPort rules and so it is ilegal … :-(
April 17th, 2009 at 4:51 pm Quote
So what?
First of all, just because Beatport says something in their terms and conditions doesn’t make it law. And second, how is Beatport and the artist served better? Are they better served by having someone bypass a territory restriction but BUYING the track, or by pushing someone off to a blog page to get it for free?
Let me address something else that I see thrown around alot in these discussions. The whole “the artist doesn’t need my money” argument. Anytime I see someone say this, I always see it coming from someone who hasn’t ever been an artist themself.
Maybe it’s a little more true if you’re talking about someone big in the mainstream music scene, but there are very few people in EDM that fit that bill. Most of the music you buy now is middle or low income guys that have a minimum of gear and are struggling to make ends meet. I know lots of these artists, and they’re normal people like most of us. They produce in their bedrooms, and work day jobs. For every Paul Oakenfold, there’s thousands of others who just want to get their music heard and move some asses on a dance floor. I know headliners that are VERY big names in EDM right now that live in condos and end up putting most of what they make back into their music.
If your purpose is just to listen to the music, that’s one thing. I personally draw the line at making money from someone else’s art. If you’re using the music so generate income for yourself, then that should be trickling up the chain. If it’s good enough for YOU to make money off of, why isn’t it good enough to pay for?
April 17th, 2009 at 5:00 pm Quote
Yep, I think “DJ LWQ”’s choice of the word “legal” wasn’t quite what he meant :) It’s certainly not against the law to violate Beatport’s T&Cs but they would be in their rights to close your account if they found out, but I imagine that’s unlikely to happen.
Here! Here! My sentiments exactly.
April 17th, 2009 at 5:07 pm Quote
In deed :-) I ment that this bypass can be violating our Czech “super” laws about protecting authors. I am producer also, so I very understand “where the money appears” …
Well, sorry for misunderstanding … :-)
April 24th, 2009 at 8:15 am Quote
this is one god damn good article, very useful, thank you!!
April 25th, 2009 at 12:44 pm Quote
April 25th, 2009 at 7:04 pm Quote
While territory restrictions are painful to many buyers, they are actually good news for both Artists and Labels. The digital distributors recognize the practice and must accommodate it.
Lets say you are an artist in the US with a song creating a bigg buzz in Europe. You don’t wish to do the selling yourself. Label A in the UK says, Hey I’ll be able to sell your song in Europe, I’m well set up here. Fine, you say, but then label B from Germany says, wait, we love your song too, we are better set up in Europe to sell your track, we have a big network and strong promotional possibilities on the mainland.
Great you say. I’ll let label A sell my track in the UK, and label B in Europe. You get (hopefully) two advances for your track (rather then one) and two unique promotion campaigns.
Then when your track does well in Europe, a US label approaches you to the rights in the US. Bonus #3!
In reality of course, few releases see such action, but even in the digital age, there is good reason to occasionally enforce territory restrictions for those people who pay for music.
Although I used the example of an artist here, it could be the label who also decides to market and release a single on this basis.
Best to you all.
April 25th, 2009 at 9:56 pm Quote
Sorry “Label Person” but that was a really weak justification for territory restrictions. No one has a problem if the licenses are divided up between different labels as long as the consumer has at least some option to buy the track in their respective territory. But to refuse to accept money from all other territories outside of of the UK, mainland Europe, and the US(the countries you listed in your scenario) is just ridiculous! I challenge you to give one realistic scenario where it would be MORE profitable for the label and the artist to give the consumer from a certain territory NO legal option to buy the track.
I read an article somewhere that said the average DJ/EDM consumer is actually MORE likely to buy a track instead of illegally downloading it than the average music consumer in general!
I wonder if people really realize how much more potential money there’s to be made producing EDM if you just…(now here’s a radical revolutionary business concept………… ready?) LET YOUR CUSTOMERS PAY YOU FOR YOUR PRODUCT!!!
Its just amazing how so many labels spit in the face of a huge percentage of their customer base and then in the same breath complain about illegal downloads!!!
I can’t think of any other industry that follows the business model of punishing the customer for having the audacity of trying to give you money for your product!!!
June 8th, 2009 at 2:46 pm Quote
Thanks for the tutorial on this. I can’t believe there are such restrictions for digital downloads, especially when the customer is actually looking to pay money for it! This indeed will turn people to alternative methods in getting the tunes they want which is a real shame.
It kind of contradicts what a digital download and the internet is supposed to be about. Being able to download a track online is supposed to be easier and more convenient for everyone and it’s actually reducing the PR work for labels/artists etc. that they had to do to promote a single/album in the vinyl and cd days. So why even bother releasing something to a select audience? Surely this will cost the label more time, effort and money promoting a track a multiple of times rather than just the once? It’s nonsense in my opinion and only adds to illegal downloading…
On a more technical note… I’ve managed to use this proxy foxy to get a couple of tracks i’ve been after for a while but i’m struggling getting one particular track. It is on a german label and i’ve used a german proxy to enter the site but there is still restrictions on this track. I’ve also tried other country proxy’s but still no joy. Is it possible that the label also has restrictions of tracks so that only named people can download them? (i.e. big name djs/producers). The annoying thing about this is that i can get the track on itunes but refuse to pay money for a compressed file, i’d rather get the wav version.
Any ideas???
Cheers
June 9th, 2009 at 10:58 pm Quote
Addressed to Consumer & Artist: As a product owner/distributor, I should have maximum flexablity to sell how and well I see fit. Of course all labels and artist wish to maximize profits and sales and territory restrictions make sense. What I’m really doing is allowing each territory to put in maximum effort with the advantages of multiple promotion campaigns.
The fact that you know of my track and want to buy it even tho outside the territory is unfortunate, but in this day of virtual borders, maybe you can ask one of your buddies in the said territory to buy it for you, file share and then you pay him.
Anybody who says that they are punishing the consumer by territory restrictions has never been in the position of trying to make money from selling music.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:23 am Quote
You’re not doing any local promotion when the track is on Beatport. The track is on the worldwide internet, and its presence there is doing your job for you.
The fact that we know of your track and want to buy it is NOT “unfortunate,” it’s THE WHOLE OBJECT OF PUTTING A MUSIC STORE ON THE %!&** INTERNET.
The “get someone you know overseas to buy it” suggestion is idiotic. It’s basically saying “get someone to access the UK version of the internet, then send the file over the inter-internet to the US internet.” It’s all the same goddamned internet, and this reverse-DNS BS is a total hack designed to get you to shup up long enough for Beatport to make you money despite yourself.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:54 am Quote
I Think we need to get a little more info than that Mr. Label Person, while I completely respect the business model I am not completely clear on the pro argument from the point of promotion. Perhaps we can interview a few labels on the topic to shed more light.
We understand your pumped up about the issue but I have to ask everyone to not turn this blog into a you tube comment thread with endless expletives.
Thanks for the good dialogue though.
September 25th, 2009 at 2:57 pm Quote
Thanks Ean this is awesome!
Finally got around to trying this. Works great so far. I even set it up on my pc at work here, and so far no problems (including IT coming down hard on me).
So how would you decipher between restricted tracks that are restricted because they are only available on releases vs. territory restricted tracks? Is there any way to tell off the bat on beatport? I just don’t want to spend too much time looking for the right country for the released i can’t get normally.
September 28th, 2009 at 10:44 am Quote
I am using a macbook, and it is quite hard to do this way… And I don’t understand too much, so after completing this step, I could download all songs at Beatport I like without money… free !!!
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:06 am Quote
this is all bs ;this is human expression were allowing to be censored,in order for for a dealer to get his cut!
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:58 am Quote
Bug: images aren’t displayed. You should have accidentally deleted them.
January 2nd, 2010 at 5:00 pm Quote
Wow, it worked! Although I had to activate FoxyProxy AFTER Beatport had loaded, because otherwise it wouldn’t even connect to the site.
February 8th, 2010 at 5:04 pm Quote
What did you do? Let beatport load on the your normal connection then switched proxies, then reloaded? Can you give a step by step. I finally found a working Spain proxy but takes for ever for beatport to load.
March 6th, 2010 at 10:42 am Quote
territory restrictions sucks ! nice article !
Just a RIMENDER ! any proxy is able to get the information that you are transmitting, so if you type your passw or your credit card number, the proxy can see all this information and can store it, in special de FREE ones, because them are just a good place to steal all passw of anybody that use it , and the bad guy the only thing he needs to do it, is open and an proxy for someone like us to use it !
Beware of it, change you passw and dont use any credit card number to buy the tracks ….
cheers