I think AA should have stuck to book piracy. Nobody really cares about that.
Internet archive lost a massive case about book piracy. Anthropic had to pay I believe 1.4 billion because they engaged in some book piracy.
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Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
191–200 of 470 posts
Re: Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
#192Re: Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
#193They will never see a single cent from that, AA will continue to rotate domains and nothing was accomplished, except for spotify's legal team which earned easy money arguing against empty chair in court. BTW, you can donate and get faster downloads: https://annas-archive.gl/donate Just donated in honor of this. Up yours spotify!
I don't know how to feel about any of this. First and foremost, I feel like Spotify is scummy. I don't like what they did when they were founded, I don't like what they do to artists. I hate the hyperscalers being in this business (Google, Apple, Amazon) as that's another thing they do that devalues an otherwise healthy market. Bringing in outside business division revenues to dump on another market's prices is ecolo…
> why then switch to a mode that pays artists nothing at all? Do Bandcamp. Buy merch. Do something to support the artists.
I don't like this perspective because it puts the onus on the individual consumer. Many people who listen to music struggle to make ends meet. They do not have the extra money to afford buying albums off of bandcamp, yet they are contributing members of society and they deserve to be able to listen to music.
Meanwhile there are billions of dollars floating around in the music industry. Spotify absolutely has the spare cash to pay their artists more; they just choose not to.
As much as I love the idea of Gabe's "piracy is a service issue" philosophy, I think the real truth is likely that piracy is an issue of capitalism and wealth inequality.
Re: Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d love to see a streaming service where my payment goes to artists I listen to. Spotify pays 70% of their music revenue to publishers based on the total number of listens. All revenue is put together and split based on the global numbers. Which means that niche band I like will get next to nothing. Instead if they account for 50% of my listening time in one month, they should get 35% of what I paid to Spotify that…
To play the devil's advocate, if we do this, your favorite artist will get paid less if you listen to others using Spotify radio shuffle feature vs if you stay on the artist page and only listen to that one artist? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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Re: Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
#195Not sure how I feel. Anna’s Archive turned into a profit-seeking beast a long time ago. They’re also rolling in it thanks to he massive deals to “license” the content to AI companies.
Libgen was a much better option.
Re: Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
#196I hope AA will make an onion version in addition to the unstable domain switching.
Re: Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know how to feel about any of this. First and foremost, I feel like Spotify is scummy. I don't like what they did when they were founded, I don't like what they do to artists. I hate the hyperscalers being in this business (Google, Apple, Amazon) as that's another thing they do that devalues an otherwise healthy market. Bringing in outside business division revenues to dump on another market's prices is ecolo…
people that get their music from AA would never buy it or pay spotify for it, so the "loss" is completely imaginary. same goes for movies, videogames etc
This is bad epistemology. Incentives change the behavior on the edges.
Re: Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d love to see a streaming service where my payment goes to artists I listen to. Spotify pays 70% of their music revenue to publishers based on the total number of listens. All revenue is put together and split based on the global numbers. Which means that niche band I like will get next to nothing. Instead if they account for 50% of my listening time in one month, they should get 35% of what I paid to Spotify that…
But, unless they put some thresholds on minimum listens, isn't basically the same thing what they do and what you propose? 35% of 1 is the same as 0.000000035 of 10.000.000
Not all listens show the same intention. If I go to the barbershop and they're playing Spotify top-40 playlists running all day long, that is very different from me actively choosing what I want to listen to for a few hours a months while I'm listening in my car, or putting on Friends Per Second while doing the dishes.
My $7/mo should be going to the artists I actually chose to listen to, not the stuff that droned passively for hours in background environments. Particularly when I'm actually a high margin customer for Spotify; the cost to them of my subscription is low since I spend so little time on the service. That makes it all the more galling that my subscription cost is mostly going to Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.
Re: Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
The laws of the US have always been crafted to protect the interests of the elite, not the industrious.
Sure has. And even policing protects local monied interests. One case was someone who used their bike as their vehicle put a tracker on it. Was stolen. Tracker dutifully said where it was. Went to police station, they did absolutely shit. They were handed the bike receipt, token receipt, and realtime log. They DGAF. Years ago, worked at Walmart. They illegally edited my hours and thieved $100 and change. Put in polic…
Realistically, what did you want to happen? The cop to check the computer logs and see who changed your hours? Was it even someone in the store, or from corporate? Jurisdiction can get messy...
Proving someone intentionally changed your hours as opposed to a mistake or software bug is not the police's job. It quite literally is a civil crime and belongs in civil court, not criminal. I don't even think most police are trained in civil laws. (Atleast, not in my state?)
Catching someone who takes money out of a cash register is their job. That's textbook theft, a criminal activity.
I hate cops as much as the next guy, possibly more, but that just doesn't seem like their area
FWIW, the government is still (supposedly) working to resolve your issue...your tax dollars are still at work. Judge, Public Defender, blah blah blah....It's just not the job of a first responder
Re: Anna's Archive loses $322M Spotify piracy case without a fight
#200They will never see a single cent from that, AA will continue to rotate domains and nothing was accomplished, except for spotify's legal team which earned easy money arguing against empty chair in court. BTW, you can donate and get faster downloads: https://annas-archive.gl/donate Just donated in honor of this. Up yours spotify!
I don't know how to feel about any of this. First and foremost, I feel like Spotify is scummy. I don't like what they did when they were founded, I don't like what they do to artists. I hate the hyperscalers being in this business (Google, Apple, Amazon) as that's another thing they do that devalues an otherwise healthy market. Bringing in outside business division revenues to dump on another market's prices is ecolo…
> I don't like what they do to artists
Not sure if you're aware, but it's the labels, not Spotify:
> It pays roughly two-thirds of every dollar it generates from music, with nearly 80% allocated to recording royalties and about 20% to publishing, though how much artists and songwriters ultimately receive depends on their agreements with rights holders, which Spotify does not control. [0]
Spotify is frantically trying to escape the record label's death grip (hence podcasts), because they know they can squeeze it for just about anything with licensing deals. It's a terrible business model! Spotify keeps a third for their costs (& finally some profit in the past year or two), ie. about the same that Apple takes from App Store for basically nothing[1].
How the record labels convinced the world that Spotify is the bad guy here is beyond belief.
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[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/sofiachierchio/2026/01/28/spoti...
[1] Certainly app store costs are nothing when compared to the infrastructure that Spotify needs.