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Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library

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Re: Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library

#11
post #3

I wish Spotify welcomed or collaborated with these archival initiatives. Anna's Archive does not compete with Spotify in any way.

Simply sharing metadata, related artists, genres, etc would create a pretty interesting ecosystem[1]. [1]: https://everynoise.com/

Every Noise was created by a former Spotify employee.

Re: Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library

#12
post #4

Anti scraping measures are making it more difficult to use the web. I can't load a single GitHub pull request without being accused of botting.

> I can't load a single GitHub pull request without being accused of botting.

The only time I encountered this was after a power outage when my ISP's DHCP server handed me a new IP that was tainted. It felt like every major website was suddenly full of captchas.

Eventually I had to unplug the router for 24 hours until the ISP let go of my DHCP reservation. When I reconnected it gave me a new IP and the problems went away.

Re: Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library

#13
Convenience won.

How many people are actually going to download a torrent client, navigate through some massive torrent file collection to check the files of the artists they want to download so they can upload mp3s to their phone over a USB cable like it's 2004 again, just so they can avoid paying Spotify?

Re: Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library

#14
post #9
post #3

I wish Spotify welcomed or collaborated with these archival initiatives. Anna's Archive does not compete with Spotify in any way.

Not even in the “providing a way to get music” way?

A big database that contains every song is pretty different from a recommendation system, web streaming, playlists, etc. Someone could use the dump to create something like that ofc, but the database itself isn't really the interesting thing Spotify offers.

Re: Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library

#16
post #3

I wish Spotify welcomed or collaborated with these archival initiatives. Anna's Archive does not compete with Spotify in any way.

> I wish Spotify welcomed or collaborated with these archival initiatives.

Spotify licenses the music in their library under specific terms. They don't own it. They can't just decide to give out freely on their own terms.

> Anna's Archive does not compete with Spotify in any way.

I think HN often underestimates the breadth of casual piracy among the general public who want to avoid paying $10/month for a service. There are already numerous tools to stream TV shows and movies from torrents on demand. I have no doubt the same will appear for a giant archive of Spotify music. A lot of people will jump at any chance to cancel their Spotify subscription if they can get close to the same access for free.

Re: Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library

#17
post #3

I wish Spotify welcomed or collaborated with these archival initiatives. Anna's Archive does not compete with Spotify in any way.

Spotify's (and the other huge streamers) main selling points are its catalogue, it's recommendations/auto playlists. Other features like steaming quality, UI, and network effects are also at play.

Even the metadata is a huge proprietary data dump. Not sure how you think apple, Google, Amazon or an upstart budget streaming service couldn't use this to better compete against Spotify.

Re: Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library

#18

Convenience won. How many people are actually going to download a torrent client, navigate through some massive torrent file collection to check the files of the artists they want to download so they can upload mp3s to their phone over a USB cable like it's 2004 again, just so they can avoid paying Spotify?

[dead]

Re: Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library

#19
post #10

wasn't spotify started out as a collection of pirated songs? somethings go in full circle I guess.

And also being the successor to Napster, the irony is thick with this quote:

"Since day one, we have stood with the artist community against piracy"

Funny thing, I've met a lot of independent artists who don't care about piracy one bit. I have a feeling it's the record labels and large corporations, not the artists, making the biggest fuss over piracy.

Re: Spotify reportedly investigating Anna's Archive's scraping of their library

#20
post #3

I wish Spotify welcomed or collaborated with these archival initiatives. Anna's Archive does not compete with Spotify in any way.

> I wish Spotify welcomed or collaborated with these archival initiatives. Spotify licenses the music in their library under specific terms. They don't own it. They can't just decide to give out freely on their own terms. > Anna's Archive does not compete with Spotify in any way. I think HN often underestimates the breadth of casual piracy among the general public who want to avoid paying $10/month for a service. The…

I doubt such a tool would be allowed in the major mobile app stores. The library of music isn't the product.
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