Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

altpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 200 posts

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#151

Post by doh »

jasode wrote: post #14

The submitted article doesn't mention it but my guess at connecting the dots is that it's related to EU Article 13's stringent requirement of "upload filters"[0]. Yes, Spotify's direct uploading "gave opportunity for small artists to share their talent" -- but that same mechanism also made it too easy to upload copyright infringing content. Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtu…

This is most likely not related to the Article 13 (now called Article 17) as they are still most likely to be considered to be a UGC platform.

The directive [0] says:

"The services covered by this Directive are services, the main or one of the main purposes of which is to store and enable users to upload and share a large amount of copyright-protected content with the purpose of obtaining profit therefrom, either directly or indirectly, by organising it and promoting it in order to attract a larger audience, including by categorising it and using targeted promotion within it."

Considering that Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Pandora, ... get their catalogues from services like CD Baby or Tunecore, they are very likely to meet the condition above.

So my guess the shutdown will be related to some external pressure, from the major labels and/or the partners mentioned above.

[0] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-8-2018-0245-A...

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#152

Post by magduf »

sorenn111 wrote: post #83
dalbasal wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtube's ContentID If true, this is worrying. It basically gives a handful of companies a monopoly over a potentially wide range of things. It is unreasonable to require everyone to meet a standard that relies on cutting edge technology.

It is very worrying. It is like regulatory capture, but not implemented at the request of the company. It was done purely by the EU. By requiring cutting edge and practically non existent technology, it somewhat requires a monopoly by the one company that can do it (YouTube, or do it the best because there is no perfect filter). And the EU will then turn around and fine them for being too big. I believe in well regul…

>By requiring cutting edge and practically non existent technology, it somewhat requires a monopoly by the one company that can do it (YouTube, or do it the best because there is no perfect filter). And the EU will then turn around and fine them for being too big.

It doesn't really require a monopoly or any advanced technology at all in fact: there's nothing requiring anyone to offer music online in digital download form. They could just go back to only distributing it on CD, or even cassettes or vinyl. The rules are all because some parties really want to distribute music over the internet, and lots of consumers want this too. Remember, as someone else here said, the politicians are mostly dinosaurs, and to them, you don't need to download music when you can just go to a store and buy it.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#153

Post by magduf »

criley2 wrote: post #20
toxik wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good job, EU! Squelch your citizenry in the interest of the copyright industry. Content filtering is draconian and fundamentally opposed to a free and open society.

It keeps happening with their draconian regulations. After the privacy/data protection bill, I hear that the european market for online advertising imploded trying to meet regulations and Google Ads gobbled up some 30-40% more market share in Europe. It came down to the fact that Google was able to meet the regulations fastest, and achieve informed user consent across a wide userbase dramatically faster than small lo…

Yep, we see this in government contracting too: selling stuff to the government, or bidding on government contracts, means jumping through all kinds of crazy hoops. So small firms for the most part don't bother, and the only companies that do are ones (usually large ones) that are specialized for that task, but can't compete in the private sector, so people wonder why toilet seats cost $600. The only companies willing to sell toilet seats to the government and deal with the regulations are going to charge a fortune for it, and American Standard or Home Depot just don't bother.

(With the US government, it isn't just behemoth corporations; there's big incentives for some small firms too, so there's a bunch of tiny companies that are highly specialized in milking that gravy train.)

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#155

Post by magduf »

criley2 wrote: post #102
jonathanstrange wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I generally agree with your sentiment, please don't forget that, unlike the US, the EU also has antitrust and anticartel laws with teeth and has applied them in the past against large quasi-monopolists like Microsoft and Google.

With all due respect, America has a long history of busting monopolies, and while we haven't gone on a busting spree this generation, we're awfully close to doing the one thing that Europe would never, ever be able to accomplish: Break up companies like Google and Facebook. (As this thread demonstrates, Europeans would potentially be against us doing so, and would be pro-monopoly?) I actually think the Google reorgan…

1) There's nothing the EU can do besides fine them. They're foreign companies; they have no power to break them up, only to fine them or prevent them from operating there. They probably decided that getting billions in fines is better than just shutting them out and hoping local companies can somehow come up with similar services.

2) When your country hasn't done something in over a generation, you need to stop touting it as something your country is good at. Just like we don't continue to criticize Germany for some terrible things they did 75 years ago, we need to stop thinking we're so great because we managed to land some people on the moon 50 years ago.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#156

Post by intricatedetail »

jasode wrote: post #14

The submitted article doesn't mention it but my guess at connecting the dots is that it's related to EU Article 13's stringent requirement of "upload filters"[0]. Yes, Spotify's direct uploading "gave opportunity for small artists to share their talent" -- but that same mechanism also made it too easy to upload copyright infringing content. Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtu…

You can still upload content that infringes copyrights via various services, you can also register such content in "contentid". It is a more hassle than a direct upload but not too much and has been happening. E.g. an independent artist uploads his song to YouTube. A thief makes a copy and sends to Spotify etc and then requests take downs of original work.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#157

Post by cwkoss »

njl wrote: post #113
jasode wrote: post #14

The submitted article doesn't mention it but my guess at connecting the dots is that it's related to EU Article 13's stringent requirement of "upload filters"[0]. Yes, Spotify's direct uploading "gave opportunity for small artists to share their talent" -- but that same mechanism also made it too easy to upload copyright infringing content. Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtu…

Spotify has internal fingerprinting stuff that can handle this easily enough. The shutdown is entirely due to pressure from the record labels. It's a shame; this was a surprisingly difficult product to get off the ground, and a lot of folks put in heroic efforts to make it work.

Music labels are strangling culture in America. Please pirate music to avoid funding music industry lobbyists in their efforts.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#158

Post by cwkoss »

jasode wrote: post #145
njl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify has internal fingerprinting stuff that can handle this easily enough. The shutdown is entirely due to pressure from the record labels. It's a shame; this was a surprisingly difficult product to get off the ground, and a lot of folks put in heroic efforts to make it work.

>Spotify has internal fingerprinting stuff that can handle this easily enough. I'll admit I don't know about Spotify's inner workings but my understanding is that Spotify itself does not have its own fingerprinting algorithm. Instead, they rely on their distribution partners like DistroKid and CD Baby to use fingerprint services and prevent copyright violations. (DistroKid and CD Baby license the fingerprint algorith…

Record labels are gatekeeping and defending their moat. The existence of their industry relies on friction in the music distribution system - the easier it is to release music own your own, the less money they will make.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#159

Post by SeanAppleby »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #92
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there another plausible reason for Spotify shutting down direct uploads that's unrelated to copyrights? It's a service very few people use that costs them money to maintain and support. You already need to go through cdbaby and similar services for all other distributions and being just on spotify instead of all of them is not very appealing.

"Very few people" used it because it was a beta service that was only ever available to a small number of artists. Opening it up to everyone would have transformed the industry. Spotify could absolutely own the small artist space in the same way that Amazon owns the self-publishing space for unsigned authors, but it chooses not to for political reasons. This has nothing to do with copyright issues. Spotify already ha…

Yeah, as someone who has resisted paying for spotify, I was considering switching when they launched this service.

I make music as a hobby, and I only really use soundcloud as a result, since the barrier to entry to posting on spotify is annoying, and resultingly a pretty decent chunk of the pretty obscure stuff I like isn't on spotify, only soundcloud.

When I go to spotify right now it feels like this weird corporate arm of the archaic record industry that I view as more or less a parasite on musicians in this day and age. It lacks all of the weird community character and fluidity that I want out of a music platform, and I resist it for that reason.

Opening the gates would change the game and let it exist as a real creative community rather than just a soleless distribution platform for corporate artists and their masters.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#160

Post by oldgregg »

neka wrote: post #141
oldgregg wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter. Do they provide line-level accounting for ad revenue? Do you know what percentage of TOTAL revenue gets paid to artists?

No because Spotify pay the rightsholders who may or may not be the artist.

You're missing the point. Let's say Spotify pays rightholders 20% of gross revenue for streaming. Then they take another 40% of the gross revenue and pay the major labels for advertising, marketing... whatever. That's hollywood accounting-- it's not streaming revenue so they don't have to report it. Ever notice the labels don't complain that the streaming rates are so notoriously low? Why don't BMG/UMG/WMG just band together and demand an increase in streaming revenue? Because they WANT to keep it low so they make the real money on non-streaming revenue that doesn't go to rightsholders. Maintaining control is the issue and that's why they forced Spotify to make people work through their "partners"
Post reply on HN