They have the characteristics of a lossy source and each rip is different because it depends on the recording equipment. And the only means to get those albums is to legally buy or stream them.
The database is there to represent the official album market. They don't serve any real purpose because they're not generally available to the public, which is also why there have been provided links to private downloads in the past. There will also be new rules regarding self-made 'remasters' or downmixes of albums. User accounts have to be created with a valid e-mail address via double opt-in. Therefore there will be a user account system with different roles and a backend to log in to for moderators where they can review change requests. The planned changes: All actions will be held in a moderation queue and selected members (moderators) have to confirm any changes before they are visible to the public. But you can continue scanning albums, just keep the logs on your hard drive for the time being.
This update will take some time as it basically means rewriting everything from scratch with a new framework and adding a lot of new functionality. After setting the database to read-only and hiding comments due to the DMCA notice as a first step to prevent further harm I have now decided to continue working on the project and re-enabling create, edit and delete functionality again in the future.
