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

The lost joy of music piracy

pigeonsandplanes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 637 posts

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#461

Post by baliex »

PaulHoule wrote: post #317
devonsolomon wrote: post #112

The thing I miss most, and the thing we’ll never get back was the cultural buy-in and network effects. My music discovery then was different friend groups incrementally amassing large collections of albums in whatever sub-culture that friend groups had doubled down on. My iPod would be the culmination of my friendships. I would then fall in love with bands and albums and tracks on these albums without any influence b…

One strategy is to look at the records on pitchfork's top 100 lists, say https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/1-pitchfork-highest-r... and listen to the discography of those artists. You will find some stuff you liked there. I had another round of adventures when I plugged in a Sony 300 disc CD changer into my home theater and loaded it exclusively with DTS Music CDs https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/1-pitchfo…

I made a thing for this https://dailyalbum.art/

12 random albums every day, picked from a list of curated lists that I've curated over the years; some of which are pitchfork lists

I'm an active Spotify user, with increasing tendencies to find a more sustainable alternative, but the inertia is real

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#462

Post by wk_end »

thirtygeo wrote: post #373
devonsolomon wrote: post #112

The thing I miss most, and the thing we’ll never get back was the cultural buy-in and network effects. My music discovery then was different friend groups incrementally amassing large collections of albums in whatever sub-culture that friend groups had doubled down on. My iPod would be the culmination of my friendships. I would then fall in love with bands and albums and tracks on these albums without any influence b…

"(I’ve got a song still stuck in my head from a Canadian indie band that made its way onto my iPod via via and I’ve done all the searching in the world for the lyrics I remember and have never found the band. I love this that I’ve never found them!)" Try the HN hive mind! Can you remember a year, +/-? I'm hoping it will turn out to be Metric or The Murder Plans or The Constantines or.... Some other great 2000s Canadi…

The Constantines are amazing!

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#463

Post by socalgal2 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #400
socalgal2 wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't had much luck with LLMs. I can guess it works with famous artists but lots of other things work with famous artists. I asked it to find more tracks like "Hey Baby" (Deadmaus, Mellifresh) and they completely failed to even come close. I couldn't even get a similar vibe.

I asked Google's AI mode "a friend of mine likes "hey baby" by (deadmus/mellifresh) and wants to find similar tracks" and mainly suggested other deadmau5 and Melleefresh tracks (corrected our spelling) -- did recommended "Internet Friends" by Knife Part and "Exceeder" by Mason. I thought the first was a direct hit, the second is a little different but "sick" in a good way... It starts a little slow but the groove get…

Thanks but neither of those fit the criteria I was looking for. In particular the both the same style/energy of music and the explicit suggestive lyrics. Those recommendations fit the first, not the 2nd. And yes, I gave the LLM those criteria. Maybe one of them is better than another.

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#464

Post by jrowen »

ghaff wrote: post #211
jrowen wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used ourTunes in the dorms, people just sharing their entire iTunes with the network. I've always been more of a solo digger, but I never liked Spotify. I have specific dance/electronic tastes so I browse and purchase music on sites like bandcamp or beatport, though actually these days it's strictly junodownload. I do wonder though how much of what you describe, or some form of it, is still happening in dorm rooms.…

There's probably some truth in that although, if you didn't have to collect a large volume of music whether purchased or copied in some form, I'm not sure the incentives are there to get started in any serious way. It is also true that, for me at least, I purchase very little music these days and basically don't pirate at all.

That is a good point. I’m not old enough to care too much about physical media but I do take pride in “my collection” which I would guess is less prevalent in Gen Z. Everything is on demand in the cloud now.

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#465

Post by kmeisthax »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #199
bugufu8f83 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, vinyl is still relatively niche in absolute terms. Second of all, the popularity of vinyl, such as it is, has absolutely nothing to do with availability. It's largely driven by a kind of retro nostalgia (as the technology itself is, of course, inferior from a technical sense of faithful reproduction) plus a desire for personal physical ownership of something.

> It's largely driven by a kind of retro nostalgia Incorrect. The reasons why vinyl specifically is still relevant (as opposed to any other "retro" audio format) are technical. Vinyl avoids compression issues by design. (Compression both in the computer science sense and in the audio engineering sense.)

You are correct that you can't lossily compress a vinyl, but you absolutely can master a vinyl for maximum loudness. It's harder to do, and some of the techniques are different, but it can be done, people did it, and this was actually where the loudness war started. And notably, unlike digital, vinyl does not impose a maximum loudness wall. If you find a way to make the groove wobble more than before, the player will absolutely produce a louder signal than before, whereas with digital you have a strict limit to your levels at +/-32768.

To make matters worse, people aren't doing separate masters for audiophile formats anymore, so vinyl is getting the ultra-compressed, low-dynamic-range master anyway. That is because the vast majority of people buying vinyl were doing so as merch, not so much as a way to buy better-mastered albums.

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#466

Post by teach »

charcircuit wrote: post #442
eisa01 wrote: post #51

It's important to remember that to this day, streaming sites do not have a full archive of the music out there. There is still a need for music piracy Even albums mentioned in the Norwegian business magazine D2 can be impossible to find in legit channels. Your only option is to buy used CDs on Discogs for 50-100 USD, or know your way around the successors of these sites These CDs weren’t even on Oink or What (or did…

Just because you can't stream it, that doesn't justify piracy. I buy the CD for music I want to listen to but can't stream. The idea that you are forced to pirate is made up.

I agree with you that you are never "forced" to pirate; you can simply not listen to the missing album.

But many many many many excellent albums are not available for sale anywhere at any price. They essentially do not exist, except in the hands of a few collectors.

The bands themselves, the creators of said music, want their music to be heard.

The fact that they aren't available for sale or streaming is often because a rich bureaucrat can't be bothered, not for any legal reason.

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#467

Post by diseasedyak »

JohnBooty wrote: post #302
devonsolomon wrote: post #112

The thing I miss most, and the thing we’ll never get back was the cultural buy-in and network effects. My music discovery then was different friend groups incrementally amassing large collections of albums in whatever sub-culture that friend groups had doubled down on. My iPod would be the culmination of my friendships. I would then fall in love with bands and albums and tracks on these albums without any influence b…

My iPod would be the culmination of my friendships Hey! You can bring this back in 2026! In a fit of random inspiration (possibly inspired by a glass of wine or two) I began a new practice. If I'm hanging out with somebody who's passionate about music, I pull up Spotify (or Apple Music, whatever) and create a blank playlist. I hand them my phone and ask them to add some tracks for me. Here's the trick that makes it w…

This is a fantastic idea, and I'm going to start doing this immediately!

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#468

Post by kmeisthax »

damienmeur wrote: post #193

I think what the article is missing is that main issue with streaming platform (for music and videos) is that it reshapes completely the business models of the music/movie industry. A CD or DVD was maybe a bad product, but it allows not "TOP" artists/production to still get ROI without needing to be viewed/watched by audience of billions. The music/movie industry is now way less diverse, because smaller actors cannot…

What you are getting at is that discovery platforms do not give attention for free anymore and you are expected to pay for it. In the radio era this was called payola, it was illegal, and people did it anyway because radio was the gatekeeper to financial success in the medium. Payola isn't even restricted to streaming services anymore. For example, Amazon expects you to buy advertising on their own platform if you publish a Kindle book.

The fact that home video would provide a second boost of cash for a production was important, and I do mourn the slow death of physical media. But it is not directly connected to the discoverability problem we have. Even when people were buying CDs and DVDs, you still had to contend with a distribution system that largely had already decided what you could and could not buy. Midlisters still made shit money, because publishers do not actually care about their midlist and they don't want to sell you originality. They want to sell you IP they already own.

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#469

Post by kipchak »

socalgal2 wrote: post #463
PaulHoule wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked Google's AI mode "a friend of mine likes "hey baby" by (deadmus/mellifresh) and wants to find similar tracks" and mainly suggested other deadmau5 and Melleefresh tracks (corrected our spelling) -- did recommended "Internet Friends" by Knife Part and "Exceeder" by Mason. I thought the first was a direct hit, the second is a little different but "sick" in a good way... It starts a little slow but the groove get…

Thanks but neither of those fit the criteria I was looking for. In particular the both the same style/energy of music and the explicit suggestive lyrics. Those recommendations fit the first, not the 2nd. And yes, I gave the LLM those criteria. Maybe one of them is better than another.

For the lyrics/vocals, the closest I can think of is Brat by MoxiFloxi though the genre isn't quite a match, the lyrics/vibe is sort of their "thing". Maybe one of the Benny Bassani Satisfaction remixes or Halogen - U Got also that but they're further.

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#470

Post by VladVladikoff »

sexy_seedbox wrote: post #292
emsixteen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really loved OiNK and all of that era. Was genuinely gutted when it all fell apart, as it was also about the community of it all. Always wanted a tee - I'm envious. When waffles and What.cd appeared it seemed to me like waffles would be the long-term successor, but definitely didn't work out that way. Neither ever felt the same, and I wasn't engaged with them like I had been on OiNK. Nowadays I'm just another strea…

I've been on OiNK, went through the waffles and w.cd era (which had the best forum community, collections, invite forums to other private trackers, Userscripts to enhance Gazelle), now on RED and OPN, it's just not the same, gets worse abd worse with each generation.

Been on Orpheus since it started, I loaded about 800GB of my music collection from what onto that site, but could never find an invite to RED, if you can share one I would love a chance to check it out.
Post reply on HN