It’s even worse, it also affects pre-orders. I had quite a bit of pre-orders and even for those I lost the ability to download. Through the usual Qobuz process of select a replacement…., it was somehow resolved, but very unpleasant. And it might happen more as I still have some open pre-orders. I am strong believer of owning stuff and don’t rely on a streaming service, this has proven to be the right approach. I have backups from everything I own and download.
By the way on limited scale this is even the case for books on the Amazon kindle. You only have right to use the book if Amazon still owns the rights, but they can take it off your kindle without even a resolution. This has happened with individual books for consumers.
I recall this happening many years ago for “1984.” If (vague) memory serves, Amazon thought it had the rights but had contracted with the wrong party. It caused quite a stir at the time, especially, given the book in question, the way Amazon simply yanked it from users’ digital libraries. I am unaware of it happening since, but there may have been other instances.
Part of what I was scratching my head over was the cost of entry to get to be able to purchase and download - there is a premium to pay (Sublime) to get to discounted purchase prices for downloads.
Access to re-download appears to be gated by the licensing, which kind of makes sense, if only in a landscape now frequently morphed by changes to licensing coverage. Hence, “download asap”.
Once downloaded, however, it’s your to keep and do with as you wish, in perpetuity, correct?
You can also download in a variety of formats/resolutions fro different purposes. Oh and did I say before that the artwork is sublime! I have some artwork at 4,000x4,000 resolution!
Sublime gives you discounts of up to 60% on hi-res purchases including some sale offers. Oddly it does not Gove you a discount when there’s only a CD quality version available so often it’s cheaper to buy the hi-res than the CD quality. Makes little sense to me.
You don’t need a streaming subscription to purchase AFAIK just an account, and even if you get a monthly basic subscription you can easily upgrade if you want to. Even if you cancel a subscription even purchases should still be available for download unless the labels/rights holders have removed the item you paid for (it may still be there with a new catalogue number).
It’s yours for perpetuity, just like a LP or CD. However you are limited by the terms of the contained media with what you can do with it, ie typically play back for personal consumer use only.