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Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

arstechnica.com

131–140 of 166 posts

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that they think is related to some undetermined future nebulously bad thing I mean, Anna's Archive was pretty clear about the future bad thing. Spotify didn't "think", it wasn't just "related", nothing was "undetermined" or "nebulous". Anna's Archive explicitly announced they were going to start distributing Spotify's music files. It's not even a case of hosting links to torrents but not seeding -- no, they were go…

> Anna's Archive explicitly announced they were going to start distributing Spotify's music files. It's not even a case of hosting links to torrents but not seeding -- no, they were going to be doing the seeding too. You can't get more clear-cut than that. You can get more "clear cut" than that. You could rule when there were damages or law was actually broken. Committing a crime is not the same as saying you will co…

Depending on the jurisdiction, you can absolutely be punished even if you were only in the planning stage of the heist.

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fun theory but there's no evidence that was their intention with the name... From what they've said, it's about "spotting" and "identifying" music and music trends. But it seems like mostly it was just a somewhat nonsense word that was easy to remember and whose domain name was available. Especially since it's popular as a paid service without ads .

In finnish, if you google for "spotti", first hit leads to "MTV SPOTTI". MTV is local tv channel and "spotti" is their advertisement portal to purchase their ad services. Second hit leads to "crossword puzzle" site that lists the word "spotti" with multiple explanations that refers to advertisement. Of course spotti has other meanings but its a term used for ads.. I do not know the etymology of that word in finnish b…

Finnish and Swedish are totally different languages. They are not even in the same language group.

Swedish is Scandinavian/Germanic, close to Norwegian, etc (Finland is Nordic, but is not Scandinavian). Finnish is Finno-Ugric, close to Estonian and Hungarian (yes).

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#133
post #20

Pretty ironic considering they bootstrapped the service with pirated music. But they've never actually cared about music — they started as an ad platform and music was the cheapest option for them to attract eyeballs.

Wikipedia says Ek's initial pitch to Lorentzon was not initially related to music, but rather a way for streaming content such as video, digital films, images or music to drive advertising revenue. So yes, they were always intending to get revenue from ads. And yes, the initial pitch included other types of media too. But I don't think we can call Spotify "an ad platform" that "never actually cared about music" any m…

Did you know that Ars in Ars Technica stands for Ass, showing how badly they really thought of technology?

/s

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#134
post #51
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never START paying for Spotify. I like my music and so I like to know my music, I have no problem curating my collection, chasing rare works for artists I really like. I enjoy the process, I enjoy the result, I enjoy that I own it. I really don't see why I would rather spend hundreds a year for the privilege of owning nothing at all in the end, while being prescribed what I shall listen to, when and where.

My old mp3 collection is too big for my mobile phone and I did not set up a private streaming solution yet. So out of convenience, I also used spotify. Stream anywhere anything is nice. And I did enjoy finding new artists through the algorithm there .. but I do made up my mind about letting go of the concenience and owning all my music again. It is a big effort, though and I don't enjoy it so much like you.

I encourage you to have a look at subsonic-compatible servers (navidrome, airsonic & forks), that's a good compromise IMO/E when you've got to pick what music you want to carry with you.

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people are cancelling Spotify among my friends, even very "non-technical" folks. For me I've just gone back to radio or Youtube:ing a few songs for free here and there. Paying the cost of a lunch every month is just not worth it anymore for subscription services.

This is also a big party of why artists don’t earn shit. Spotify will never be able to pay out enough if people don’t think this music is worth paying for. They want access to every new album but refuse to pay how much a single new CD would have cost back in the day

If you get a Spotify subscription to support small artists, you'll be in for a rude awakening once you realize how Spotify allocates your funds.

Hint: Your subscription pays for the listening habits of free users. Who do those free users listen to?

The reason why Spotify is a raw deal for the artists you listen to is the same reason why it is possible to bot listens of your AI generated songs and get out more money than was paid for by the bot's subscription.

The entire Spotify business model is very peculiar in how stupid and wasteful it is and who the beneficiaries are.

What you should do instead is give yourself a fixed music budget, export your stream counts and subscribe to their patreons in proportion to how much you listened to them.

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#136
post #7

But you can't even download the allegedly infringing material from the .org site. You can just read about it? So they're abusing the All Writs Act to take down a site that they think is related to some undetermined future nebulously bad thing for their business. If I wasn't on Anna's side before, I sure am now.

> "think is related to some undetermined future nebulously bad thing" Anna's Archive made threats in writing to distribute, concretely and specifically, the plaintiff's copyrighted works as torrents.

Except spotify doesn't own the copyright to the music.

The record company plaintiffs make sense here - spotify does not.

They don't own copyright in anything here, including the metadata.

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#137
post #7

But you can't even download the allegedly infringing material from the .org site. You can just read about it? So they're abusing the All Writs Act to take down a site that they think is related to some undetermined future nebulously bad thing for their business. If I wasn't on Anna's side before, I sure am now.

> that they think is related to some undetermined future nebulously bad thing I mean, Anna's Archive was pretty clear about the future bad thing. Spotify didn't "think", it wasn't just "related", nothing was "undetermined" or "nebulous". Anna's Archive explicitly announced they were going to start distributing Spotify's music files. It's not even a case of hosting links to torrents but not seeding -- no, they were go…

"I'm not taking anybody's side here, as to what copyright law ought to be, but Spotify isn't abusing the legal process here".

Normally, only those who own one or more of the exclusive rights in copyright can actually enforce. Spotify does not own copyright in the music involved in the archive, unless they created some of it (which would be an interesting story, actually - spotify competing with its own artists).

So normally, they would not be able to sue for copyright related violations against anyone.

The other plaintiffs (record companies) are not abusing legal process, but it is unclear what spotify is doing in this lawsuit.

They almost certainly do not own meaningful copyright in the metadata, either, and that would be a bad precedent to see set.

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anna's Archive announced they intended to infringe on the label's copyrights by distributing their music without a license. The law allows the court "to prevent or restrain infringement of a copyright" (emphasis mine). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/502#:~:text=Any%2...

Spotify does not own that copyright, only a distribution license. How they can get away with it?

The plaintiffs are actually record companies, spotify is tacked on at the end for some reason, and the article decided to confuse matters :)

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify does not own that copyright, only a distribution license. How they can get away with it?

Apparently you can win anything you want in a default judgement, no matter how ridiculous. When you know the other side won't show up because they'd be handcuffed, this is a useful way to achieve your goals.

Nah - the plaintiffs include record companies, who do have rights here.

Re: Spotify won court order against Anna's Archive, taking down .org domain

#140
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any case they have an agreement with copyright holders. Anna Archive does not. IP laws are broken, keep extending protection, and do not prevent distribution exclusivity. I could sell a license to Bob who can sell my arts to you. But I won't give a license to Alice to even be able to enjoy the art for the fee I charged Bob, and I can tell Bob to do the same and not give it away to Alice at any cost. The law would…

Legality is not morality. These laws in particular happen to not only be harmful, but also in direct opposition to the ostensible spirit of this board

I thought of my comment aligning with that.
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