Visits to music piracy websites went up more than 13 percent last year, a new report says. The majority of those visits were to sites that allow users to download the audio from YouTube URLs.
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I never stopped but i started buying music too from small artists
I feel like Bandcamp’s biggest fans are prolific pirates with a conscience who just want to see their favorite artists actually get paid.
EDIT: Don’t forget it’s Bandcamp Friday today.
bandcamp sold out
look forward to its demise
But we’ll still need a proper place to support our favorite creators (where the artists actually receive some of the money). I wonder where people will migrate next.
Haven’t heard about that one, thank you for the heads-up.
First impressions:
- From top 10 artists i follow:
- 5/10 have profile and uploaded at least one song on Bandcamp.
- 3/10 have an account on Audius (possibility to donate).
- 1/10 has uploaded at least one song on Audius.
- One MUST upload a profile picture to create an account.
- About 1/3 of proposed artists during account creation have uploaded <5 songs, most seem to be remix and cover artists.
- Didn’t figure out how to search for artists during account creation, ended up choosing 2/3 artists I’ve never heard of.
- Not immediately apparent whether I can download bought music to a lossless format.
- Not sure how to buy album or individual song at first glance.
- LOTS of remixes and covers, not so much original songs (this is both good and bad).
- Nice that you can donate arbitrary amount without buying anything, in case you already got the music from… other places…
- I didn’t find anyplace where “$AUDIO” is explained, how much the artist receives, or what you receive if anything.
Less relevant observations:
- weird pause/play button, sometimes there’s just a loading wheel spinning where it’s supposed to be, not really functional.
- Slightly intrusive, had to disable some plugins (Javascript (obviously it’s playing music) and fingerprinting (cloudflare?)) for the site to load. Not relevant to music, but just a general observation since we’re in the piracy community.
Not much going on by now, but it probably just needs some time to grow and assimilate the likely soon-to-be-migrating Bandcamp user base. I’ll keep an eye on it, and probably revisit it once more artists have migrated to it.
Thanks for the detailed obesrvation! Yeah unfortunately it still has some technical issues and shortcomings but imo this platform has some great potential.
- From top 10 artists i follow:
The economics with the artists haven’t changed. Until they do I’ll still use them to pay artists a living wage.
That’s super based. Pirate whoever’s stuff you want, but small artists usually depend on that income.
Small artists depend on their income from their 9 to 5 jobs. The music is a bonus
Source - been there
I listen to hundreds of small artists. I can’t buy every singles albums they have.
You don’t have to. Buy the ones you think are worth it, attend shows and maybe buy merch. Like we used to do before leechify
Same issue, I don’t have enough money to support everybody
I never stopped either, but i buy vinyl…slowed down since my turntable only spins at 33.3 in special occasions when the spirits shine upon it.
Belt driven? May need new belt.
Its a technics DD. I think its a mk 2 or 3 model. When its off its consistently off. Like it still locks into a speed its just the wrong speed.
I think its an electrical issue and im too afraid to take it apart while it still works sometimes. I probably couldnt fix anyway
Oh yeah that’s way out of my wheelhouse too lol. Hopefully someone online has or posts a video on fixing it (or at least a similar table with the same issue)!
That could be simple to fix. I bought a used SL-1500 which had the issue that it’d only spin at 33rpm. 45rpm didn’t work. I opened it up and with some tuner spray I washed the switch (spraying it, switching it back and forth). Now as good as new. These things are built like tanks
I have never pirated music more in my life as I do now.
I have never purchased as much music as I do now.
I used to do lots of piracy back in the days. I am so glad those days are behind me and have not been big on the scene. What would be some sites to avoid to not fall in the trap of being a criminal. I love giving companies all of my money and do not ever want to go back to my old ways. Please help me with a nice list of things to avoid.
You want a good paid VPN first. Mullvad is amazing.
VPNs see everything you do, and you pay them for it. I don’t understand how people don’t see the irony there.
they in theory see everything someone does, but in the case of mullvad they have no idea who you are
Could you say how Mullvad differs from ProtonVPN? I have it with my mail subscription and it seems pretty good. I don’t know much about vpns though
haven’t looked into protonvpn much, but it’s more or less a different company providing the same service. I imagine the differences aren’t too significant if you trust both companies
You totally don’t want to just learn Linux command line and how to use the youtube-dl/yt-dlp packages through WSL or a Linux distro, that would deny corporations all of your money and be way too convenient. Thankfully it’s not intuitive to learn or there would be so much more piracy!
Yt-dlp is also available on Windows. No reason to spin up wsl or a Linux distro. There are also plenty of yt-dlp apps with GUI for those who don’t want to use a terminal.
Didn’t realize, good to know, thank you!
Downloading YouTube isn’t piracy lol it’s time shifting.
TiVo has entered the chat.
What’s that?
Mfw the kids don’t know about TiVo
TiVo was an early digital video recorder that dominated the market for a while. Broadcasters brought lawsuits against the company saying the recording of videos was violating copyright laws, and advertisers hated it because you could skip commercials. TiVo argued in court that they weren’t pirating, but just time shifting the content. Similar arguments were used for people who ripped rented dvds and so on.
They really went hard on VCRs before all of that for the same reasons. Fortunately the time shifting argument was able to be backed by the courts. Otherwise TiVo and so many other formats would’ve basically been banned from the general public being able to have anything nice. Was especially important rulings for forcing most content providers and/or studios into using new ideas and technologies. They are the ones that hold back on everything that could actually make it easier to legally enjoy content.
They make things require so many hoops to go through and like a punishment for wanting to enjoy anything legally. While also making it cost more on their end overall. If these companies were to embrace stuff like torrenting tech, then it would mean less overall costs needed to always be running. We have so many ways of getting stuff from here to there and making sure media is not lost. Copyrights should at best last like 10 years imo. These companies still can’t even be bothered to allow me to buy movies and shows digitally that maybe got a DVD release. So if they won’t give options, then they forfeit the right to claim any “damages” or “lost sales.”
Oh god, I’m old…
If I cannot buy on Bandcamp or Boomkat or directly from the artist then I sail the high seas, proudly.
I refuse to stream.
I want to counter that buying individual songs and albums would get too expensive compared to streaming, but then I realized I’ve been listening to the same set of playlists in the past few years and the total cost of streaming subscription in those period is probably more than enough to buy those songs.
My current favorites playlist, accumulated over 15+ years, is 4,235 songs. I don’t think I can afford to buy that.
Looks like you’ve paid 15 years * 12 months / year * $10 / month = $1800
Seems like you’re getting a pretty good deal!
Assuming each of those tracks is about 3.5 min long, that’s about 250 hours of music. Given your numbers they paid an average of 7 bucks per hour of music.
For context, 25 years ago a typical 45 minute album would fetch 15 bucks. And that’s not accounting for inflation adjustment.
I’m sure that’s totally sustainable for those artists…
One, this is just my favorites list, not every album I’ve listened to. And I’ve listened to my playlists on random quite a few times over the years.
Two, I don’t listen to pop music, so the average is probably closer to 4-5 minutes per song. (About 362 hrs of music on the playlist, if you must know.)
Three, you can’t just plug in a yearly rate, convert it to hours, and use it in any meaningful way.
Your first two paragraphs make the picture worse, not better.
As for your last, I’m not writing an economics thesis. It was a quick analysis to illustrate a problem no sane person disputes: streaming services have substantially driven down revenue for artists, to the point that for many it’s genuinely impossible to create their art while making a living wage.
Is it better than piracy? Sure. At least the artists are getting something (well, unless you drop below Spotify’s streaming cutoff, in which case you can get fucked). But it’s still a shitty deal and gives consumers someone else to blame as artists slowly bleed out.
Heh. I never thought about it this way. I just need to finish downloading my Spotify playlists I guess, then plexamp l the way
I know this does not make me look good - but I am a YouTube Premium subscriber. I had Spotify, but they jacked up their family plan rate, and it was only a few bucks cheaper than Premium, then I got the ad-free (without adblockers). I mostly did it to help my kids avoid the toxic ads that are littered into the kid content. The main reason I stick with some of this stuff is for the discovery. Pandora was great, Spotify is ok.
Regardless - the smart playlists, and AI stuff on YouTube music is AWFUL. I cannot put into words how bad it is. Spotify got it right about 1/4-1/2 of the time. YouTube, maybe 1/100. Constantly recommending a country, which I cannot stand. When it isn’t doing country, it recommends hard rock/metal which I also do not listen to. I feel like I need a new way to find music, then I could sever ties with all these trashy subscriptions.
I have started buying vinyl with the digital downloads when I find a great album. I feel better doing it this way. Most of my music is not super big name artists.
deleted by creator
Soulseek if you don’t mind data hoarding.
I have yt premium for the same reason. Toddlers have little patience for ads on their Kindle fire, and they get upset when they click one to buy a luxury watch and can’t figure out how to get back to cocomelon.
I actually like the service and feel it’s fairly priced. So I don’t mind paying for it. I stream yt music all day at work.
Same boat here. My God it’s unbearable how bad YouTube premium is.
I just listen to playlists that people make or youtube videos of song genres or artists that I like.
Not been my experience. Yt music playlists are really good for me and I’ve discovered a lot of new music through it.
That surprises me, but I suppose it had to work for some listeners or they wouldn’t have gotten it past testing. I have even tried clearing my listen history and starting over - still comes up with country and (going to clarify) ‘metal’ . I like rock and alternative and some forms of pop, as well as a bit of hip hop. cannot fathom why it suggests what it does.
Do you ever thumb down anything, or do you just skip the stuff you don’t like?
Every time. I am not sure it actually changes anything. I have submitted feedback and bug reports to YTM as well. Just generic replies.
I feel you. Feels like the algorithm just does whatever now, on main YouTube and Shorts it is awful as well, constantly showing me the same 5 shorts and recommending me channels I have asked to “not recommend” multiple times. No amount of disliking and clicking “Not Interested” seems to help, at least not for longer than a day.
I still havent found anything can match the experience of finding music from online discussions or list hopping on RYM.
What is rym?
Last fm users with similar taste can be a gold mine
A few notes:
Own music, do not rent.
I’m buying CDs from smaller labels directly. Cheaper than Scamazon sometimes. A couple examples: https://metalblade.indiemerch.com/collections/cds https://metalonmetalrecords.com/shop/
My library has loaned me many CDs over the years. I still have an external CD burner I can connect to my PC. Thank you, library.
Used media stores are awesome. Give them your business.ETA: Corrected link to Metal On Metal records shop.
Wow so we call downloading YouTube piracy?
I guess most content creators are pirates.
Wow, that’s stupid. I consider ripping songs from YouTube to be the modern equivalent of taping songs off the radio. The quality is poor.
if there was a way to get spotify with at least CD quality and the artists getting the rest of the money that spotify doesn’t already take, more people would probably pay for it.
i am in a spotify family plan already, but i get that paying 12 bucks a month for 320 kbit/s and getting the artist fucked over is too much.
it’s a thing of morals for many people, like with steam. steam doesn’t actively fuck both the developer and the user over, they just take a 30% cut. you could argue about if that’s too much, but i’m fine with it.
In terms of cents per stream, Tidal definitely compansates the most at 4x more than Spotify and 10x more than Deezer. Plus if you VPN to Nigeria on account creation, it’s only $4 a month. You can then use tidal-dl to download music and you can use *arr Scripts to download music using Lidarr.
Does this vpn trick really work? I tried it on some other things and it never worked. It takes the location from the credit card.
Yes, you only have to turn it on for account creation. Turn it off when inputting payment details.
Soulseek for life! There should be a documentary about this because…. how? How has this been able to go this strong for so long? One of the first installs on any new OS I spin up. And when it comes to supporting the artists? Live shows and merch, when possible.
Yes, word of mouth. I love my band shirts. It’s always a great conversation starter. I have SXM, that’s how I learned about Motionless in White, Beartooth, Starset, and Ice Nine Kills.
But I also have my own collection on my 1tb sd card in my phone.
Because they dont advertise the fact that theyre a music sharing platform. Its the most basic possible p2p platform that can exist and they dont seek the laws attention like Napster did.
They also comply with requests to blacklist certain artist search results. Try searching for the Beatles on slsk, you dont get any results.
My searches for Michael Jackson also gets zero hits which I thought was bizarre. This explains it
Search for album names
The majority of those visits were to sites that allow users to download the audio from YouTube URLs.
This is not piracy. We’ve always been allowed to record e.g. radio and TV for personal use.
I think the RIAA has a different view on that. Huge push backs against recordable cassettes and VHS tapes when they were introduced.
They def would’ve done radio drm if possible
I could be wrong but didn’t a cut from blank tapes go to the industry tp ‘make up for the losses’?
The Netherlands had a tax on blank CDs to “compensate” authors, essentially legalizing piracy (until the EU changed the rules).
My dad always got a huge kick out of VHSing NFL games to watch later lol.
Is t it funny how this seems to be happening in every industry possible? And it’s always reported with sUcH sURpRisE!
Like, we are being abused by capitalists. It feels good to steal. Because they can’t stop taking more and more from us, squeezing us harder and harder.
When you present us with ease of use and a reasonable price point, we are happy with the trade. But they need their returns to keep growing, so they keep squeezing us harder. Their investors demand the line go up. So they squeeze us harder. They need to cut costs, so they squeeze us harder.
It never stops. So we turn to theft. Because they’ve literally left us no choice.
To be fair we’ve never had more choice, and music has almost never been more affordable. We used to buy singles for like $10+. Albums for $20+. Now there are several competing streaming services where we can listen to almost unlimited music each month for less than the cost of one album. Hell, YouTube Premium includes unlimited music steaming for free. Being an independent artist has never been easier, and you can find and pay for any music you like directly with millions of your favourite artists all over the world. The industry used to be entirely controlled by large labels. Honestly, I consider the industry far healthier than it used to be.
I pirate movies and shows because they refuse to create a Spotify-like service. Content is fragmented across a dozen services, they’re infested with ads, content quality keeps declining, the interfaces suck, and prices are outpacing inflation. I pay for Spotify because it’s still a good service for a reasonable price.
on top of that music streaming services dont have exclusives like tv/film so you aren’t forced to get multiple
Soulseek
Or Nicotine+ (a great Soulseek client)
What are the two things?
Share your music library, download directly from other users library. Both are compatible, just different clients.
It’s a direct p2p connection to a single user for downloads. It’s not swarm style like bittorrent. It’s also a great resource for really rare / out of print stuff.
I used it without a vpn for years and never got a single nastygram from my ISP. I think I started with a beta release back around 2000 because I used to be cool like that.
Weird… yt-dlp -f “ba” url
Never need to use one of those horrible malware laden download sites again…
That’s not how I would get a discography, a non YouTube artist (some international ones), a whole album or lossless though - or am I mistaken?
I think he is talking about this
The majority of those visits were to sites that allow users to download the audio from YouTube URLs.
Makes sense, thanks for pointing it out!
apple killing ipods and deprioritising the itunes store probably contributed to this more than anything ironically
I WISH I COULD HEAR YA OVER THESE HERE BANGING TUNES! 🏴☠️
But are they lossless 96kHz+? Only reason I use qobuz.
Tidal? You can even download all your music in lossless flac format
Can’t play music without the tidal client I think
You can extract an API key and use other players that support it like Strawberry.
I forgot that they had an API, but I don’t think you can download music without drm afaik
Did I misread 320bps mp3?
Hopefully it’s Kbps, otherwise…
Ç̶̡̡͙͖̝͙̩͖͈̣͚͓̹͇͓̲͈͔̤̭̳̘̤̖̰̟̱̱͙̓̒̍̿̀͗̏̒͒́̑̇͗̅̈́̈̉͊̂͆̔́͂̓̒̔̎̂̂́̌̀̄͑̀̆̽͒͆̕͝͝͝͝͝͝͝ơ̴̧̢̢̨̫̻̗̲̪͓̫̝̪̬͔͖͙͇̰͉̤̺̲̲̦̱͕̤͍̜̬͈͇͖̯̺̤̱̜͚̗̺͍̠͙̬̋̂̊͆̈́̐̓́̉̃͊̒̈͂̚̕ͅͅm̷̧̡̢̡̛̜̮̗̩̩̫̬̰̳͕̖͓̦̼̘͉̫̖̳͔̻͍̟͕̫̺̦̬̖̹̞̞̫̝̗̥͇̳̯̈́̈̔̎̈́̅͐̽̀͋̄̈́̾̆̄͆̋́̀̆͗̓́̌́̀̓̐̉͂̽̂͑͜͜͝͠͠͝ͅͅͅp̵͍̅̍̾͛͘͠r̵̨̡̡̧̧̢̨̙͔͓̦͕̻̻̣̭̮̝̼̦̹̰̗̬͓̺̤̱̤̖͖̻̙͖͖͔͎͓̮̟̝͈̭̠̮͂̾͊͋͐͊͌̏̇͋͗͜ě̵̡̨̩͖͖̻̗̞̘̮͈̾̓̽͋̎̈́͐́̀̀̈́̿̈̾͐͐̽̔̍̀͗̓̂̐̏̓͐̋̆̒͑͊͒̀̓̆̋͒̌̽̆͐̓̚̕͝͝ͅš̴̢̧̹̩̟͉̠̞̣̺̻͔͎͕̯̳̝̬̳̻̹͚̰̠͍̲̬̺͙̹̘̥͉̣̻̳͉͇̗̦͓̻̱̻͈͎̠̫̌̒̀̀́͒̊̍̋̚͘͜͜ŝ̷̡̨̫̙̯̠͖͔̫̰̯̹͉̱͈͚̩͐̐̈́ͅì̴̢̢̡̢̡̧̲̦͉̝͚̦͍̜͔̭̝͕̩͎͓͖̬͍̹̘͎̲̦̰̹̪̣̺̮͓̘̺̗̥̦̙̞̙͈̤͉͖͍͋̀̅͐͌͒̆̂̍̊̔́̌͛̈́̒̍̓̒̀͑͂̇̚͝͠͝ͅò̷̢̢̝͈̪̹̰͙̲̦͔̞̼̳͚͙̘̦̖̼̺͖͖̹̤̻̪̝͉͙̯̖͔̖͓̩̗̖̪̜̰͍͖̎̈́́͛̋̂̓̏͆̀̑̉̋̿̑̄͑̇̂̊̇̆̄͗̊̇̿́͘͘͜͝͠͝͠͝ņ̶̛̤͓̘̘̻͔̝̥̲͈̖̖͍̲̮͖͙͚͔̭̳͉͓͍́̉̿̉̒̍̈́̒̈́͂̉́̂̐͗̆̄̅̇̽́̇̉̑́͊͋̕͝͠͝ ̶̧͛̾̿̽̓̎͆͗̊̽͝g̶̡̨̢͚͈͔̹͚̳͎̩̝̜̦̖̬͉̙͖̜̪̖̟͚̯͔̟͉̮͖̻̮̺̼͓̰̱͈̪̟͈̺̲̘̅͒̉̈́̊̍́̈́̈͛̿̽́́̐͊̄̍̒̊̉̀̔͐͗̕̚̕͜͜͜͠ͅö̶̢̨̧̡͕͙̳͈̩̱͍̼͇̖̤̹̼́̈̓̓̏͊̅̿̽͝͝͝ͅ ̸̡̢̨̧̢̛̛̩͙̘̼̻̺̯̭̣̫͈͔̥̟̼͙͚̭͎̩͓̻̘̯̩̳̺̤̠̦̦̟̳̦̥̹̟̺͔̮͍̇̎̀́͌͛̂͌͜͝b̸̨̮̝͚͚̯̬̦̲̫̯̝̱̺̬̣̝̠̞̼̜̠̟̟́r̵̛̛̺̠̟̤̙̱̯̭̃̓͌̀̓̋̑͐̈́̿̾̒́̿̿́͊̉̏͆̓̿͌̅̈̐̀̒̐̽̀̕͝͝ͅṛ̸̢̢̡̧̨̛̫͈̲̜͍̥͇̩͉͚̳̝̼̪̬̯̗͍̗͙̦̭̠̻̯̹̮̺̻̳̹̠̟̪͍̬͓̝͙͗̏͌̀͌̈́͒́̐͗͌͗̈́̓̊̄̋̈̐́͌͘͜͜͝͝͠͝
Flac and opus on soulseek?
