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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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Ya know what stops piracy? A better service than what piracy provides.
It's funny how we see totally different effects there in regards to music, as all apps have almost all of the music. Spotify e.g. is so popular here that noone streams or downloads music illegally anymore. And you only need Spotify.
The solution is simple. Cave to the labels in power and be ruthless to anyone else. This way you can have the whole catalogue of music in your app while surviving economically. Until.. the enshitification becomes too strong again and we'll have a piracy revival. And then a new service pops up again, etc..
The circle of life of pop culture under capitalism.
The really stunning thing about music piracy was it was incredibly easy to do, and your entire catalogue could very easily be taken with you in your pocket and to new devices.
It’s a miracle we all decided streaming was worth it, they really did make it a better experience than pirating.
I have yet to listen to all the music on my SD card in my phone. I will get around to it eventually.
After that I will test out Spotify.
I mean now you don't even need your device anymore, the data is available from everyone's device.
I have an enormous music library on a USB drive in my car. Granted, most of the songs weren't pirated, they were ripped from thrift store CDs, but you can do the same thing with piracy
Can you imagine if you needed to subscribe to a different service just to listen to a single band? Hell right you'd be back on the high seas.
I really enjoyed "The Strike" when I discovered them on Spotify, but all of a sudden I noticed all their best songs were gone from my playlists and I found out they made specific albums/songs exclusive to their Bandcamp/physical copies, so I bought them off Band Camp.
I've always been kinda mixed on that move like, they clearly know which of their songs people really wanted, and decided to paywall them outside of a service I already pay for, which feels bad in principle. But at the same time, I like their music and I agree with them getting paid what they think they're worth.
I hove no clear cut thoughts or conclusions, but I can totally imagine different bands/artists trying to find the monetization strategy and platform that works for them and leading to bad experiences for consumers.
I think artists shouldn't primarily see Spotify etc as a source for monetization, but a way to market their music. Like putting it on YouTube. Most money comes from tours and merch anyways.
And that's where Netflix etc went wrong. They still think it's optional to offer the whole catalogue, but long-term it's the only way these services can survive. Either via this or account sharing.
Netflix was kind of not at fault in this. After they pioneered the streaming industry, proving it can be massively profitable to the very resistant studios, the studios yanked their licenses and content off Netflix and spun up their own crappy service, charging just as much as Netflix did for everything. Paramount with Star Trek is a great example of that. Oh, but that wasn't enough. After getting everyone who was going to subscribe to Paramount for Star Trek to actually subscribe, then they sold the rights to HBO. They'll slice the pie as many times as they can, selling the ever shrinking pieces for the former price of a whole pie. Netflix saw this coming years ago, which is why they tried so hard to create their own quality content, but it's just not enough, and usually not good enough to stay subscribed.
Which is why you have to lick the boots of the studios as a streaming service. There's not much more you can do if you want the whole catalogue. But mb that's sth that's just not profitable at this point. Because their cut would endanger your economic sustainability.
But fucking over streaming services is also not a long-term successful strategy for studios if they want to battle piracy.
So either they find enough common ground or illegal streaming etc will grow.
Plus I can integrate Tidal with my local collection as if I had downloaded it and combine it all on any device wherever I am with Plexamp
nah local files with mp3s and sync it with preferred cloud services is the best
Except when the ID3 tags get all messed up and you spend a whole Saturday afternoon fixing your entire library. Granted that's how I taught myself how to program, so it's a win/win I guess.
I support piracy because it's educational. We need to invest in the future of technology by encouraging people to pirate. To that end, I propose more anti piracy ads.
Depends on your usecase. I would never go back. Spotify has release radar etc. It's so much more convenient to find new music by your favourite artists or similar ones now.
They had it. They decided three yachts aren't enough.