Or sometimes we see ID questions where the track to be IDed is on a page where the legality is doubtful (like Song on the documentary G-Funk) or where we need to have an account and to be logged in, like :
Do we allow this?
I suggest we restrict the hosts to a limited list (Youtube, Soundcloud...?) and ask users to change the host of their content, then eventually close the question.
I vote no. If the link isn't publicly accessible to a non-logged in user, it should be removed.
There's always the approach used on Music Practice & Theory, which is to have 'allowable' links automatically embed, e.g. SoundCloud & YouTube
That also puts the onus on policing for illicit material on those bodies, not on us.
If it won't embed, it's off-topic.
We've never discussed this to my knowledge. At the moment we're allowing identification questions, so I'd say it's allowed. However, I never click on any link that doesn't go to Youtube, because of my own personal paranoia. Not even bit.ly, even if it's stated that it goes to Youtube. So, if you want an ID question to be looked at, I'd discourage anything but Youtube. It's safe, and it's public.
I don't think linking to a page where you need to be logged in to hear or view the file content should 'count' towards our assessment of the question's answerability.
That is to say:
If there's sufficient further information to identify the song, the question may be allowed, but we should still encourage the asker to link to somewhere accessible anonymously.
If there's not sufficient further information to make the question answerable, I think we should vote to close until the asker changes the link to somewhere accessible anonymously.
