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npreining
Avid Contributor II
December 20, 2022
Answered

TIDAL cannot be linked to Sonos in Japan, but works

  • December 20, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 530 views

I am a European citizen and have a Tidal account, which works. After this I moved to Japan, but I am still paying to Tidal with my European payment method. (Please don’t ask whether Tidal works in Japan, of course it works, it is a streaming service over the Internet and Internet is available in Japan. The whole point is that you cannot purchase Tidal subscriptions with a Japanese payment method, that is all, because Tidal does not have a legal representative here.)

I can use Tidal without any problems in Japan.

But I cannot link it to Sonos - why?

I think it is NOT the job of Sonos to check for availability in a country, but Sonos should allow legit account users of Tidal to use Tidal with their Sonos products.

We are in the 21st century, people are moving between countries, and it is not up to Sonos to restrict this. If Tidal wants to restrict access to its service from Japan, then they will do it.

 

So please stop playing police without the need for it. Thanks

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Best answer by Airgetlam

I think all that Sonos does is filter what they present to you in the available services, based on the location in your account settings at www.Sonos.com

I don’t believe Sonos does any “blocking”, all of that is handled, to my knowledge, by the individual streams, although I’m not sure I know exactly how they do that, if it’s by IP, or some other system. 

I suspect there’s some sort of legal agreement between Sonos and each streaming company, and would expect that there would in fact be a clause, most often, asking Sonos to do everything possible not to break applicable laws around copyrights, including streaming in areas where the license for the streaming company doesn’t exist. 

Unfortunately, in many cases, Sonos has apparently not been given clearance by the streaming companies, even when the streaming company has received the necessary local approvals for streaming rights. This could be just a lack of follow through (why think of Sonos when it’s not your focused on the streaming company you work for, not all ‘associated’ possible ways to stream your companies content). This is even more evident now in the areas serviced by the various voice assistants, but has always been a small issue. 

I’ve done some work (likely thousands of hours) in getting clearances for streaming music in various locales, all for an ultimately unpublished game, and I certainly feel for the hoops that Sonos needs to jump through, with each individual streaming company they have to deal with. And frankly, with the streaming companies themselves, having to jump through various hoops set up by copyright laws in each country, and often requiring special permissions from the various governments.  

It’s easy to point the finger at Sonos, they’re the end point in this long chain. As an example, I suspect Sonos will likely get blamed for the upcoming BBC fiasco, when the BBC pulls their feed from TuneIn and by extension, Sonos Radio, although Sonos has absolutely no control over that. 

4 replies

Airgetlam
AirgetlamAnswer
December 20, 2022

I think all that Sonos does is filter what they present to you in the available services, based on the location in your account settings at www.Sonos.com

I don’t believe Sonos does any “blocking”, all of that is handled, to my knowledge, by the individual streams, although I’m not sure I know exactly how they do that, if it’s by IP, or some other system. 

I suspect there’s some sort of legal agreement between Sonos and each streaming company, and would expect that there would in fact be a clause, most often, asking Sonos to do everything possible not to break applicable laws around copyrights, including streaming in areas where the license for the streaming company doesn’t exist. 

Unfortunately, in many cases, Sonos has apparently not been given clearance by the streaming companies, even when the streaming company has received the necessary local approvals for streaming rights. This could be just a lack of follow through (why think of Sonos when it’s not your focused on the streaming company you work for, not all ‘associated’ possible ways to stream your companies content). This is even more evident now in the areas serviced by the various voice assistants, but has always been a small issue. 

I’ve done some work (likely thousands of hours) in getting clearances for streaming music in various locales, all for an ultimately unpublished game, and I certainly feel for the hoops that Sonos needs to jump through, with each individual streaming company they have to deal with. And frankly, with the streaming companies themselves, having to jump through various hoops set up by copyright laws in each country, and often requiring special permissions from the various governments.  

It’s easy to point the finger at Sonos, they’re the end point in this long chain. As an example, I suspect Sonos will likely get blamed for the upcoming BBC fiasco, when the BBC pulls their feed from TuneIn and by extension, Sonos Radio, although Sonos has absolutely no control over that. 

Bruce
npreiningAuthor
Avid Contributor II
December 22, 2022

Sorry, I have do disagree completely with your interpretation.

TIDAL is not available in Japan. It is not a question about streaming permissions or so.

It is the assumption Sonos takes that a user with Sonos address registered in Japan cannot have a proper TIDAL account. This is wrong. I have a proper TIDAL account, and TIDAL does NOT (note note note!!! TIDAL DOES **NOT**) block access to their service in Japan for registered users.

So, even if this is a legal problem, it is one of TIDAL, and not of Sonos.

As a software engineer I see what is going on:

  • user tries to register new service
  • filter available services by country of user
  • display filtered list to user

Unfortunately, this is just plain wrong. The region check should be done at the source, that is when one logs into the respective service, and not on the selection level.

Airgetlam
Airgetlam
December 22, 2022

I think if you reread my post, you’ll see that I only suggested that Tidal may not have yet authorized Sonos to carry their stream in Japan, not that Tidal was not available in Japan. 

As a software engineer, you may be better off discussing your concerns directly with Tidal. Or perhaps convincing Sonos that the ‘filter’ they applied is not what they should be doing.
 

Since I don’t work for Sonos, nor am I a lawyer of any type, I can only explain what I perceive as occurring, without direct code or legal knowledge. 

Bruce
Outburst
Enthusiast II
December 22, 2022

Just out of interest: What do you think is the benefit for Sonos doing this? Why would they do it?


Anyways… just check this page: https://developer.sonos.com/build/content-service-get-started/submit-your-content-service/

You’ll see that any service can set the available regions themselves. 

    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement