Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music Tidal MQA albums found so far

Yes, I'm aware about the hi-res audio websites, which is why it's a pet hate. Much as regional encoding on DVD/Bluray is.

If you're making a release available at all in a particular market, it makes no sense whatsoever not to release it in a particular file format when the work to create that format has already been done. That process will have cost money, so surely you'd want to make the most of recouping that extra money as widely as possible? It's essentially like saying 'Oh, we'll release the CD in France, but Germany will have to make do with MP3'. But to the artist the rights in the song won't be format specific, they will be the copyright and publishing rights, and possibly performance rights, so I can't see it having anything to do with licensing?

Can't see that being a label decision, as was suggested above, unless, e.g., MQA are charging Tidal an extra fee per region, which Tidal passes on to the label, and then the label have to make a judgement call about whether to pay the extra to release MQA for a particular market, based on projected demand for the format for that artist, etc. With respect, if MQA are licensing in this way, I suggest their dream of becoming a de-facto standard is doomed from the outset.