It's not so much a matter of choosing the big businesses over an alternative service offered by smaller labels in the interest of more personal gain, as it is a matter of there not currently being many (if any) real alternatives to the big boys for this particular kind of arrangement. If there were such alternatives, I'd rather see the site support the more obscure, small-time operations over the shiny commercial heavyweights, as well.

not really a big fan of this idea. who's going to constantly update these as the selected distros run out of copies? it seems like a lot of trouble for something that is borderline-pointless.

the links section on every band page can be used for distro links and its debateable whether this is even worthwhile (seeing as most people are already aware of the most well-known distros and err... google?)

A lot of places leave albums that are sold out in their database, so users can still see places where the album might be available.

I have the impression that good-sized label X contacts the MA and arranges some exchange of revenue for links to their site on particular album pages. If this is correct I would not be in favor of the idea. If it cannot remain a user submitted feature it would show a degree of bias and spoil objectivity that I think the site should have.

I'm another one in the like it but likely wouldn't use it (pretty much all I buy is local or mail order nowadays). Droneriot's bringing up the possibility that it would leave smaller labels out in the cold makes me wonder a bit about the possible ramifications.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Very unobtrusive, out of the way, and from what I've read, it will help pay for the site. Also, I would probably use this fairly regularly.

While I don't agree fully with this post, it brings up a good point about finding CD's. There are some CD's from medium popular bands that I could find NOwhere (Root, Torture Squad, et al...), but finally after loads of searching I got them from some small shop (Czech and Brazil wepshops, respectively). You could even award points to users who found reasonably priced legit-sales stores for hard-to-find CDs (this, however, would undoubtably lead to widespread point-whoring).

It's funny, as I had this same idea (litteraly, it was identicle, only I had placed the "buy from" at the bottom of the main band page rather than the individual album title) not 1-2 years ago.

www.metal-observer.com does the same with End Records, and I found it very useful.

Not that you care, but you have my backing 110%.

But there won't actually be any links to places like Amazon, right?

Good idea -- it will definitely expand the usage for the site, no?

No, this will be staff only. Possibly admin-only, not sure yet. To whoever thinks it'll make things "biased" - um, hello, the staff already moderates every band and review entry. If anything, this sort of work (entering the links) would be -less- biased, since it's just mechanical.


As Nightgaunt explained, only distros with affiliation programs would be integrated in this scheme. So, any other distro or merchandise site that has no affiliation, can still have a link with all the other links, just not a direct link to the album page.

Are smaller distros penalized? I don't think so. Merchandise links won't disappear, after all. Also, if small distros are interested in having their links on M-A, they can just start their own affiliation program - though I don't suppose that there's any free affiliation platform/software out there... then again, I don't know.



I don't see why not.

I don't have a problem with Amazon being on there. It's somewhat of a last resort, sure, but still useful. Particularly when the only place you can find an album for a decent price/any price is the band's own page and they have an unreliable distributor or something.

Well i guess my argument is, what about the bands that want to keep their music exclusive? Certain bands, if they know about the website, might feel violated by their material being easily accessible. I might use the feature, but i think that there would be objections from, maybe not the record lables, but some of the bands themselves. In these terms it is a privacy issue, and i think it would be illogical to ask the bands individually. I understand that the record labels want to get their acts heard, but still it seems a little sell-outish to me. I wasn't (and didn't) going to vote for the poser vote in the voting box because this issue seems a bit more complicated than that.

Also if you are interested in a band enough, then you search the web or go onto the links on MA, or go to the bands myspace, or contact them directly, etc. There is no need to put this stuff in the fast lane. If you are aspiring to be a fan, THEN DO WHAT FANS DO!!!

I fail to see how bands will find their mateial to easily accesible. If a band doesn't want to be accesible then they will limit their releases to 50 copies or so. I also fail to see how this can be sell-outish.

I don't see why not. As long as this is something that ONLY mods/admins can edit, and we don't go overboard with adding links for albums that can be found just about anywhere (I mean honestly now, who the fuck would need help finding a copy of 'Number of the Beast' or 'Painkiller' or whatever?) I think this would be quite useful. It would be a nice feature for those having troubles hunting down certain albums and the revenue I'm assuming you'd be getting from this would no doubt be quite helpful (ZOMG MOD SALARYZ PLZ ), I say go for it.

I said "might," doesn't mean it will happen. Anyways, the idea is ok i suppose. I don't really support it one way or another.

I suppose that makes some sense, but I'd postulate that most bands concerned with limiting distribution of their material to special channels are not apt to be working with big-name labels running affiliate programs. If a band is signed to a particular label, one can reasonably assume that they're comfortable with that label disseminating their material. This doesn't take possible legal disputes (between band and label) into account, of course, but that's a primarily human factor that it would be unreasonable to expect us (or anyone) to foresee/control.

....What?

I don't think you understood ANYTHING that myself and Nightgaunt have said in the thread. At all.

If a band wanted to keep their music "exclusive" (whatever the fuck that means), they wouldn't be signed on a label in the first place, and certainly wouldn't have their material sold on an online store, much less one that ran an affiliation program. This is simple logic. Have you even thought about what you were going to write before you did? Did you even read the thread?

Please, people. Asking questions and posting your thoughts are fine, but refrain from commenting on things you really have no clue of...

totally agreed. The same thing cropped up with the update that someone (probably you Morrigan) posted a while back about the TR00 GRYM NEKKRO KvLT bands that didn't want to be on Metal-Archives because that meant more than 12 people found out about their band, and that's totally not tr00.