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Comment by zormino | Hacker News Reader

That already happens with Bandcamp. If the artist removes a song/album, you have no way of downloading it again even if you've purchased it. You only get a license to download the music while it's still available on the website. I've lost a few tracks/albums this way, thankfully I had local copies already.

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Although, oddly, I do have one album which is no longer available for streaming in the web client, but remains intact in the Android app.

I haven't had this problem, unless artists can do something that looks identical to this on the face.

I had an artist take "Album 1", "Album 2", "Album 3", and "Album 4", which I purchased through a whole-discography purchase, and merge them into "Album 1-4". It turns out I was able to download the originals anyways.

It's definitely possible. Bandcamp will even warn you before deleting something.

I purchased a few albums from Ghost Mice, who deleted the albums or their account (and made a new one?). They are no longer downloadable. In the entry in my purchases history, it says:

> Deleted Artist

> Sorry, Strays by Ghost Mice is no longer available. Please contact Ghost Mice for more information.

I haven't had this happen with albums that I can verify are currently unavailable on bandcamp, but I have ran into an issue before where an Artist updated the album with more tracks and a "remaster" which means I couldn't get the originals anymore. Luckily I usually buy the CD and keep it in storage as a backup I can rip from.

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