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Music Piracy Is Back, Baby

"Muso, a research firm that studies piracy, concluded that the high prices of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music are pushing people back towards illegal downloads. Spotify raised its prices by one dollar last year to $10.99 a month, the same price as Apple Music. Instead of coughing up $132 a year, more consumers are using websites that rip audio straight out of YouTube videos, and convert them into downloadable MP3 or .wav files.

Roughly 40% of the music piracy Muso tracked was from these “YouTube-to-MP3” sites. The original YouTube-to-MP3 site died from a record label lawsuit, but other copycats do the same thing. A simple Google search yields dozens of blue links to these sites, and they’re, by far, the largest form of audio piracy on the internet."

The problem isn't price. People just don't want to pay for a bad experience. What Apple Music and Spotify have in common is that their software is bloated with useless shit and endlessly annoying user-hostile design. Plus Steve Jobs himself said it back in 2007: "people want to own their music." Having it, organizing it, curating it is half the fun. Not fun is pressing play one day and finding a big chunk of your carefully constructed playlist is "no longer in your library." Screw that.

SuperSpruce , (edited )

If I download music, I have access to a larger music library, the ability to change the pitch, speed, and equalizer of the music, and the freedom to choose the player that I want. Can't do that with a streaming service.

I try to support artists if I can still download the music in a DRM-free file. Just this week I made a purchase, and late last year I bought an album and a midi file to support two artists.

And this is for personal listening. I make sure to follow royalty laws and attribute the artist when the music ends up in something I publish to the Internet.

Joelk111 ,

For anyone who's a music enthusiast, having the files makes more sense. Poweramp is a way better experience than Spotify or YT Music. I loved being able to set the EQ on an album or song basis.

That said, YT Music comes with YT premium, and I'm lazy, so I do that for now. I also haven't got much of a commute right now, so I don't listen to music near as much.

Kecessa ,

PowerAmp is the only thing I found that could replace Google Music in my heart!

Garbanzo ,

Over 20 years ago, the internet was revolutionized through free music file sharing. Today, Napster’s legacy lives on through websites that rip YouTube’s audio.

Is this guy a boomer or a zoomer? It sure seems like he doesn't know that what made Napster great wasn't really the downloading so much as how it facilitated discovering new music. Looking through other people's collections while the thing you came for downloaded was amazing.

Edit: I looked it up, Zoomer

RobotToaster ,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

Is this guy a boomer or a zoomer? It sure seems like he doesn’t know that what made Napster great wasn’t really the downloading so much as how it facilitated discovering new music.

Like most journalists, probably a millennial former spoiled rich kid.

deranger ,

Napster was not great for discovery. These were the days of 56k modems. Even with 128k mp3s it took a while to download a song. Idk, maybe I used it differently, but Napster was definitely a “look for specific song” application.

Discovery came later with Kazaa and DC++ and the beginnings of broadband.

bilb ,
@bilb@lem.monster avatar

The way I remember "discovery" working on Napster was when someone incorrectly labeled unrelated music as by an artist you searched for. Wow, new music!

Garbanzo ,

Once you found the song and started downloading it you had plenty of time to browse the rest of the library of the person you were downloading from. That could lead to finding stuff you never heard of that you would like. The only catch was that you couldn't listen to it immediately, but you could Google what you found to get an idea of what it was and go from there.

deranger , (edited )

Google was not really popular in 99-01, nor did modems have the bandwidth to do two things at once effectively. How would you “get an idea”? Streaming audio barely existed outside of some RealPlayer things.

If your comment was about Kazaa, I’d agree. It’s about Napster which puts it about 5 years off imo.

Garbanzo ,

Nah, Google was a thing by the time Napster was around. If you were hip enough to know about one you probably knew about the other. You'd get an idea by figuring out what genre the artist was, reading reviews, just seeing where discussion was taking place. Not by listening to it, you'd have to queue it up to download and wait while hoping your source didn't go offline before it downloaded. And yes, even at 56k you could load and read text while downloading MP3s, it was just slow.

deranger , (edited )

I dunno, I was active in piracy at this time and many, many more people knew about Napster than Google. Napster was news worthy in 1999; Google was not. Google is much more of a 00s phenomenon. You’ve got 9/11 between the two. Napster happened before all that.

It could be all in how I used it, but I’d herald the beginning of discovery right there with the widespread availability of 5Mbps cable broadband in the US, so early 00s, right there with the rise of Google. Napster is a bit early for that IMO. I understand you could but most people didn’t as 56k speeds really limited discovery by library browsing, not to mention poor tagging / file name etiquette.

By the time DC++ had risen in popularity, around 03-04, this was prime time library browsing piracy times.

Eh, whether or not we agree or disagree, it was fun to recall the early days of my journey. Have a good one.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I wanna know what is so different from my experience with Spotify. Because as far as enshittification goes, it hasn't really changed since I first began using it almost a decade ago aside from the price going up a little last year. I mean, I constantly see people saying it has ads even with premium but I have not once ever heard a single ad for anything, even for Spotify's own services on the platform, that was put there by Spotify and not simply already in a podcast that would be there from any source of listening to said podcast.

Maybe it's because most of the artists I like are fuckin dead so their shit never gets removed 🤷🏻‍♂️

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Yeah I've been using Spotify for about 15 years now, since i first had to pretend I was German to access it. It along with Steam have always been the only two services I'm happy to pay for with zero issues.

As far as my experience has gone, nothing has changed for the worse in all that time.

ShepherdPie ,

Agreed. I'm a frequent sailor of the high seas with TV and movies but I actually pay for a Spotify family plan because it's so convenient and I love the features they have like being able to use my phone app to cast music to any available nearby source or having a party and allowing multiple people to input songs to a shared playlist. I do encounter frequent bugs with all their updates but that hasn't risen above the level of mild annoyance yet.

Pirating music is such a pain in the ass these days since there is no standard naming conventions like with TV and movies and there can be multiple sources for the same song (single, album, compilation album, web rip, etc) so even tools like Lidarr don't make it easy and most public/private torrent trackers are pretty sparse when it comes to music outside of the most mainstream of mainstream albums.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Pirating music is such a pain in the ass these days since there is no standard naming conventions like with TV and movies

Things haven't changed much since the days of Limewire and Kazaa in that regard. I remember when System of a Down did that Zelda song! 😂

Buddahriffic ,

That one got properly labeled when I was going through a "add all the data" phase. The Rabbit Joint turns out to be the ones that made it, but that singer did sound a lot like Serj.

ShepherdPie ,

Back in those days there was a lot of options which meant you could typically find what you're looking for with the right search terms and knowing what to avoid so you didn't download an MP3 of Bill Clinton talking about Lewinski. Its definitely a lot more challenging these days since the quantity of files is lower while naming hasn't gotten any better.

XeroxCool ,

I haven't enjoyed possessing music since my phone replaced my ipod. Maybe I didn't try hard enough, but the seamless* updating of my library and playlists on iTunes and iPod was great. The poor format of the music I did pirate off limewire wasn't as big a deal - partly from the smooth UI of iTunes, partly due to lower music acquisition. I say seamless* because it was problematic when my iPods got full, having to cull the library, but I do beleive it was simple enough to drag selections and individual playlists.

But now what? I don't have a program to load my pc and phone, I never liked what I found for music management on windows, as you said formatting isn't consistent on torrents, and my phones fill with pictures faster than music. So, in comes Spotify. Anything I want on a whim, shared playlists, I do enjoy not storing music myself, the social aspect of public playlists, and an option to store things offline. It's similar reasons Netflix curtailed my pirating. But, as a warning to Spotify, if music streaming services break up content like Netflix, I won't wait to cancel my subscription. That'll be my push to start whatever suggestions I imagine I'll get here in the replies

Appoxo ,

Getting back to CDs after about 10 year hiatus.
Discogs is usually very neat.

BigPotato ,

I mean, you just have to learn everything mp3 formats and go pass the What.cd test and you're good.

ShepherdPie ,

What.cd shut down almost a decade ago.

LainTrain ,

Are there standard naming conventions for movies and TV? Where?

ShepherdPie ,

Yes, pretty much everywhere which is why you see files named something like: Forrest.Gump.1994.1080p.Bluray.DTS-MA.5.1.mkv. Movies and TV have databases like TVDB and TMDB which don't really exist for music. There are things like MusicBrainz but it's a crapshoot in my experience.

nevetsg ,

Spotify was OK back when I used it after Google Music died. YouTube Music's algorithm sucked so I used Spotify for about a year. Then I installed Plex for movies and TV but also found it was also great at streaming music. PlexAmp gives me access to a good suggestion algorithm. I made the decision to give them my $$ instead.
Now with lidarr+scripts I can have any music I want with almost zero effort. Plus, as the OP said, I get the fun little side hobby of music curation.

GhostTheToast ,

I'm curious about where you find your music. When I looked into an indexer for music ~3 years ago, it was slim pickings. I recently found that there a method to download from Spotify, but haven't had a chance to try it out

BigPotato ,

Even the Spotify downloaders are meh. I get so many errors on the few I've tried.

If you get any good recommendations, let me know.

nevetsg ,

Not sure if you mean find recommendations of new stuff to listen to, or the download source?
Recommendations from Last.fm
Download source is currently Deezer. Lidarr+ scripts has a bit of a learning curve
https://github.com/RandomNinjaAtk/arr-scripts

LainTrain ,

Man piracy is so complex nowadays with this script and Plex stuff, all I know is downloading .flac of albums from rutracker haha no docker container home server required

Black_Gulaman ,
@Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I second this. Once I see plex and lidar and self hosting . My attention wanders. Then snap back and my mind says "torrents, got it. Thanks"

nevetsg ,

Torrents are all well and good until you want an album from more than a couple of years ago.

My current workflow. Find a band that I like. Add it to lidarr. Wait 10min. All of their albums are in Plex and can be streamed from anywhere in the world.

Spuddlesv2 ,

Really? Their made-for-you playlists are nowhere near as good as they used to be. The discover playlist is now ass. Radio plays the same 20 songs over and over and over again.

Right now the app is suggesting a Classical Piano playlist to me. I have never listened to classical piano. Ever. Most recently I’ve listened to Tool, Rage Against the Machine and a 90’s metal playlist (I’m on a 90’s kick). Why on earth would it think I want classical piano?

Proof! https://imgur.com/gallery/e0N5sE3

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Possibly because some of those bands are influenced by classical music (though I mean it's rather broad; you could probably trace most musical influences back to the classical period).

I listen to the same kinda shit as your most recent stuff and I don't have much issue with most suggestions. I don't really like the modern pop stuff, but I still get why it serves it up (most of the best 90's alternative stuff was technically pop and I like one Taylor Swift song).

Spuddlesv2 ,

If only it were that clever. I think it’s because their algorithm sees: person listens to 90’s music so person = old, old people like classical piano.

In the same way that I very occasionally play Jason Isbell and after I do so it starts throwing yeehaw-big trucks-and-gurls-in-cutoff-shorts country music at me for months afterwards.

Passerby6497 ,

person listens to 90’s music so person = old, old people like classical piano.

Oh fuck my hip, 90s is old now?

Spuddlesv2 ,

I died inside when I saw stuff I listened to in high school on “classic rock” playlists.

raynethackery ,

Wait until it hits "soft rock."

Plopp ,

I died when I saw my old video game console in a museum.

ThePowerOfGeek ,
@ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world avatar

"Radio plays the same 20 songs over and over and over again. "

So just like traditional radio stations then. ☹️

I swear, we are stuck in a loop where shitty solutions just get reinvented over and over again. And most times when sometime comes up with a genuine improvement, those in power say "oh no no no! That won't do!" and kill it. I'm Gen-X and it's been this way all my life. And probably for many generations before that too.

mint_tamas ,

For me, it’s neither the price nor the quality of apps (idgaf, it plays music in the background). The thing that pushes me towards piracy is the same as for movies and TV shows: disappearing content. Because of content licensing deals, every piece of media is temporary on a service. I do rewatch movies from time to time and it’s infuriating if it’s gone (or rather would be, if I was still paying for any streaming service). This is especially true for music. My Spotify favorites list has a huge percentage of greyed out entries (and I’m pretty sure there are things that were outright deleted).

AVengefulAxolotl ,

I still use spotify as well. It works for me, i just found like 10 new songs last week. At the same time, last year i listened 2hrs/day on average.

BUT at the same time, every few months i export my whole playlists, just in case, using this site.

criticalimpact ,

I think it was maybe 4 or 5 years ago I started noticing the greying out in spotify
Minute that happened it was back to the high seas

Oha ,
@Oha@lemmy.ohaa.xyz avatar

I fucking love my selfhosted flac collection! 250gb and growing

VOwOxel ,

I don't want to run a server for selfhosting, so I just have my library (about 300GB of mostly OPUS files)
On my pc and on a 512GB microSD card in my phone.

I use Foobar2000 on PC and Poweramp on Android.

banneryear1868 ,

Yeah sometimes with this self hosting stuff, it's like wow it organizes my music, lets me play it, makes it available to other devices... so does my operating system.

Allero ,

There's no need to run a server if you can do the same locally.

Server is useful when you have a lot of devices with limited memory, or want to take advantage of some specific functionality server software may offer.

PilferJynx ,

Wow, this is my exact setup. Except I have auxio exclusively for audiobooks to keep them away from my random shuffle.

ZiemekZ ,

OPUS files

Ah yes, a man of culture

yamanii ,
@yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

What are you saying OP? You don't want video and paid, exclusive podcasts on your streaming service? /s

BonesOfTheMoon ,

What you don't want to pay for the streaming service that brings you Joe Rogan and his disinformation? Why not?

Jknaraa ,

I found some of my favourite bands by downloading mislabelled songs on limewire.

Mr_Blott ,

The strange bit is, even in the 80s,I was paying waaaay more than that per year for records and tapes.

It's only the fact that someone suggested I had to pay them a subscription that causes me to download illegally

Don't fucking tell me I need to keep paying every year for something I don't own, I'm not buttoned up the back

flintheart_glomgold OP ,

Yah, I remember paying like $10-15 mid 1990s for a single CD album. And we liked it! Easily spent a few hundred bucks a year on music.

I swear if these stupid music labels just switched to 5 cents a song, no DRM, own it forever, global distribution, bill you once a month to manage transaction fees -- they'd make more money than god.

1050053 ,

I'm kinda waiting for this bad boy to come out so I can put into it all the songs I legally acquired all these years...

Prethoryn , (edited )
@Prethoryn@lemmy.world avatar

The problem isn't is price. "People just don't want to pay for a bad their software is bloated with useless shit and endlessly annoying experience. What Apple Music and Spotify have in common is that user-hostile design. Plus Steve Jobs himself said it back in 2007: "people want to Own their music (reuters.com)." Having it, organizing it, curating it is half the fun."

Fixed the post for you. I am not trying to be an ass and stated this in a previous post but people's push to piracy is almost always to obtain what is believed to be what is becoming or is unobtainable. Price is and availability is almost always the driving force of piracy because price plays a part in availability.

I was all on board with the post until I saw, "people just don't want to pay for a bad software that is bloated with useless shit and endlessly annoying experience. What Apple Music and Spotify have in common is the user-hostile design." This to me is so far from the truth that I like to call statements like this the Lemmy or FOSS mentality that I see on here and it isn't meant to be insulting. I have defined it that way because I think Lemmy users get just as wrapped up in their own opinions and personal belief system that they forget they are also in a bubble and their opinions steer far off course to justify some personal idea or hope about what is actually pushing "mainstream" people to make choices that just aren't why average consumers are making choices.

People will 100% buy and use bad products user experience does only go so far though. I would say Spotify is as popular as it is because of its design as well as Apple Music. The features and design layout are what make their music services easier to use for most consumers that and they are popular services by word of mouth and are commonly used on the most popular devices because they are pre installed. Why have 5 music apps on an iPhone when Apple makes a music app that is already there. Point being design isn't the issue. The issue is competition, choice, and price. There really aren't a whole lot of options, popularity wise, outside of Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube music. These users aren't flocking to open source apps they are going straight to Piracy by ripping the content from YouTube directly and it is absolutely almost in direct relation with the increase in price increase. The "mainstream" user which I call the average consumer isn't worried about Spotify's design they want it to just function and play their music and be available and popular by design.

HipHoboHarold ,

The apps is definitely a part of it for me. One if my friends got YouTube Premium, and since he has 3 profiles he can attach to it, hrs letting me use it. It's nice for the ad free videos on my TV. But it also comes with YouTube Music. It's honestly kind of annoying at times.

Like yesterday I wanted to listen to an album by a band, and they only have like 2 of 3 albums. The one I wanted to listen to is the one they didn't have. So I had to make a Playlist by finding videos of the songs.

And thats for a band that's not super underground. I listen to a lot of grindcore and black metal, and a lot of that isn't even on there.

And when you download things, you can only have it organized by albums. I can't organize it by band and then have all the albums.

It's also sometimes slow to load up stuff I've downloaded.

Over all its not the greatest experience. I'm currently looking at getting a mobile game device for my emulators so I can free up space on my phone, and then I'm thinking about just going back to having all the music on files on there and using an music player app. And like you said, I can have it organized how I want and customize things a bit more. Especially since I no longer have Comcast, so I can use Soulseek again.

Wasabi ,

Just a small tip with yt music if you are not aware, you can upload your own mp3s (50k files iirc).
It's the main reason I use it since so much dnb is missing from all the streaming platforms.

HipHoboHarold ,

Oh shit. I didn't know that. Might be able to get some other albums on there then. Thanks for the heads up.

Wasabi ,

No problems, it's the only reason I stuck to yt music when Google play music died.

v4ld1z ,
@v4ld1z@lemmy.zip avatar

What DnB artists/tracks are we talking about here?

Wasabi ,

A large portion of the metalheadz back catalogue is missing, and also an absolute shitload of jungle is absent

v4ld1z ,
@v4ld1z@lemmy.zip avatar

I also thought that jungle was a tad lacking on Spotify, but overall, I've been happy with it thus far. Definitely enough to not have to listen to the same 5-10 songs on repeat lol

anarchy79 ,
@anarchy79@lemmy.world avatar

It's a whole torrent of alternatives, that's for sure.

jack , (edited )
@jack@water.house avatar

@HipHoboHarold @flintheart_glomgold

Yes, I have noticed a trend of homelab hobbyists going back to something like this:

  1. Soulseek -> Nicotine+ for plentiful, lossless content
  2. Jellyfin for self-hosting
  3. Infuse for streaming the content remotely to save storage on your phone.

I don't endorse piracy for ethical reasons, but I get why this is trending up:
-Increasingly aggressive pricing models
-Service quality and content accessibility going down

Really makes it hard for consumers...

AlexWIWA ,

Songs disappearing, pushing podcasts, and raising prices. That's why I went back to buying music. I salute the sailors

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

Qobuz ... check it out

Emerald ,

how does qobuz pay artists? does it much at all?

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

For streaming they pay out the most of anybody last I checked.

For DRM free purchases I'm not sure, but it's almost certain the lions share goes to the record labels and then goes to the artist (or directly to the artist if there's no "record label").

KpntAutismus ,

i'm a big fan of music streaming, the way i listen to music only really works with a discovery algorithm. but the way streaming services and labels have been unnecesarily fucking over the customer as well as the artist is getting ridiculous.

qobuzz could be a possible alternative, with them providing FLACs and/or CD quality tracks to purchase and download, but also having a subscription plan. they say more money is going to the artist. the only thing missing is the algorithm.

go ahead, tell me i'm "corrupted by capitalism" or whatever. this is the way i want to do it. there's no point in building up a collection worth hundreds and thousands of euros now, apart from FLACs being gigantic files and taking up all of the storage on my phone. plus i would cut myself off from being able to discover good artists the way i'm used to.

deranger ,

the way i listen to music only really works with a discovery algorithm

People have been listening to music without an algorithm for hundreds of years. Even digitally, algorithms for discovery are fairly new. What’s so different about how you listen to music?

KpntAutismus ,

i have more than 10 playlists for different genres and occasions, the ""smart"" shuffle helps pad those out since otherwise the playlist would be like 20 songs long.

the recommended songs at the bottom are often pretty bad, but for every 10 shitty songs there's one worth adding to the list.

occasionally i also listen to full albums, often only from bands i really really like.

i get that spotify influenced how i do it, and i don't have a problem if people do it differently. but an algorithm is a major plus for any music platform (from my perspective)

i probably won't start pirating music, but if spotify continues to enshittify itself i'm gonna have to look for alternatives.

deranger ,

I get it. I really enjoyed Spotify’s recommendations, but I had to quit as part of my “fuck streaming” pledge. My questions were genuine, I hope they didn’t come off as antagonistic.

I switched to Plex / Plexamp, and I have to say whatever algorithm they’ve implemented has greatly helped me discovery things in my local library. It does a great job at “vibe mixing”, by that I mean you’re not going to shuffle from rock to classical to electronic. It’s even nailed some transitions that were both beat- and keymatched.

Might be more than you’re willing to undertake, but it allowed me to drop the Spotify sub.

esc27 ,

I doubt spotify's small price increase mattered as much as the big increase in overall living expenses. If the choice is between paying for services like spotify or paying rent, then it is a lot easier to pirate music than housing.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I don't know, waiting for the day your favorite tracker goes down unexpectedly and either never comes back or is replaced by an FBI seizure warning is at least kind of like waiting for the day the cops finally show up to kick you out of the building you have been squatting in.

AnonWyo ,

I agree conceptually. Experientially, I would say losing housing (legally occupied or not) is far more dramatic and life changing than being inconvenienced over the loss of a torrent tracker.

Source: In my drinking, I've found myself homeless (due to choices I made, no doubt). Wildly, losing access to torrents (which I've also done) is somewhat less consequential than being on the streets.

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