Classical crisis: Qobuz goes into receivership

Classical crisis: Qobuz goes into receivership

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norman lebrecht

November 12, 2015

The French streaming and download service, a huge player in the classical market, was placed in receivership on Monday by the Commercial Court of Paris. The company had been forecasting turnover of 7.4 million Euros in the current year.

Its founder Yves Riesel says there is no Plan B and he’s looking for a buyer before November 16.

He has issued the following reassurance message to subscribers:

L’équipe de Qobuz est confiante quant au fait qu’une solution sera retenue suite à la présentation d’offres au Tribunal, dont les animateurs auront à cœur de respecter les engagements pris par Qobuz envers ses clients.

Read more assurance here and reportage here.

qobuz

Qobuz: holed in the heart

 

Comments

  • Alvaro says:

    Those arts administrators are – literally – killin’ it!

  • Hugh G. Rection says:

    No-one understood what the name meant, still less how to pronounce or spell it.

  • Oliver Khlozov says:

    I find that prices for WAV or FLAC download purchases on sites like these (as opposed to streaming with monthly subscription charges where you never own the tracks) are 2-3 times higher than just buying the CD, ripping it myself with a software like itunes, and consigning the discs to the trash afterwards.

    • Neil says:

      Oliver is talking nonsense. Dowloads at Qobuz priced similarly to the CD equivalent. Show me a CD quality download ‘2-3 times’ the price of the CD ?!

  • Graham says:

    Qobuz is the only streaming service that understands the needs of classical music in terms of sound quality, meta data, texts / libretto / documentation. Will be a disaster if no solution is found

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