A lot of vinyl records you buy these days come with a code to download the mp3 version of the same album. It’s the perfect marriage, you get the vinyl to play at home, a (sometimes) well designed cover to drool over and digital files of the same album for your mp3 player or computer. It hasn’t swayed my decision one way or another yet when I’ve been faced with choosing between two different albums, one offering an mp3 download and the other not, but it sure is a nice bonus.

Leave it up to record companies to mess this up too, however. As I tried to download the mp3 version of my newly purchased Modest Mouse album, No One’s First and You’re Next I was told the download was only available in the United States. To be fair, it says as much in small print on the sticker on the outside of the record, but I can’t help but feel slightly disappointed. It’s not just an artificial geographical division in a world where I can order almost whatever I want from abroad, but an even more artificially created distinction between different distribution formats.

Bad practice, Epic – and Sony. Not the way to make your international customers happy.

Might I add, the album is readily available from distribution channels that are simpler to use than the download page of record companies.