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HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

gethiphop.net

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Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#71

Post by krig »

louhike wrote: post #68
krig wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm interested to know what people think about this. Do people think that the end (taking power away from big music industry) justifies the loss for those small-time players, or is it something that simply hasn't been considered at all? My opinion: The end justifies the loss. Secure and private file sharing is going to be essential for ensuring liberty in the future. I am absolutely convinced about that. You can't…

Why is it essential? And why is this liberty? People may disagree with you and tell that musicians must have the liberty to get money from their music through sales. Can we really force them to give it for free? Music production cost a lot of money and involve a lot of persons to work on it. Musicians already have to do a lot of gigs to cover the cost of recording music. Even artists like Jeff Buckley had to work a l…

It has nothing to do with music. The sharing of music is only a side-effect of free and private sharing of digital information in general.

There are a number of drawbacks with enabling private digital communications: It makes the sharing of copyrighted works possible without the possibility for law enforcement to intervene, it enables the spread of child pornography or other criminal and morally unjustifiable information, etc.

The thing is, that is a price that is worth paying, because the alternative is a complete loss of liberty. If the government can prevent you from sharing music, it can prevent you from sharing anything. This may not be a problem for you personally right now, but it is a huge problem for people living in North Korea or Syria, for example.

Besides this, it is not at all clear that private sharing of digital information is automatically detrimental to musicians. While it is easier to share music for free, it is also easier for the musicians themselves to reach out directly to their fans. Whereas it used to be the case that you needed a record deal signed with a major label to have anyone even hear your music, these days you can become a major star, making a comfortable living off your music without ever signing a contract with a major label.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#72

Post by zxcdw »

d135_1r43 wrote: post #17

As a part time musician who needs to spend around 10k for a new album I find this frustrating.

Why? Is your income limited by lack of discoverability or lack of people willing to put in money for it?

First you need the audience. Without big marketing budgets free sharing of music is the best you have. Even if people were willing to pay for good music, many would prefer to just browse the free alternatives because there are tons of good musicians willing to race to the bottom.

It's not like you are alone. There are tons and tons of struggling musicians out there, but you compete aganist each other. Not only that, bur you also compete against other forms of entertainment too. How can I, as a consumer, get to listen to your music if not for free on YouTube?

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#73

Post by thaumasiotes »

papa_bear wrote: post #8
rjtavares wrote: post #3

The name is really confusing. A music app called HipHop that isn't focused in hip hop music in particular? That's like naming a bookstore "Comics" and selling all kinds of books. Rapgenius may be branching out (and I have the same doubts in them keeping the rapgenius name), but at least they actually started with rap.

In your example, I'd argue that hip hop is a more dominating segment of music than comics are of books. Maybe a book store called "Novel" that sold all kinds of books, which sounds less far fetched for some reason.

"Novel" is the medium. It'd be more like calling a bookstore "Chick Lit" and selling all genres.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#74

Post by DCKing »

sudhirj wrote: post #25
daGrevis wrote: post #5

The main selling point of Popcorn Time is that it allows to watch movies more easily than solutions that asks money for that. I don't think music industry has this problem — there are services like Spotify, Rdio and many more that offers painless listening. That aside, the app looks really polished and I'm glad it has Linux support backed in.

Only in the few first world countries that these services operate in.

You only need to register "in" one of these countries. Spotify works everywhere with an internet connection after that.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#75

Post by thaumasiotes »

aaren wrote: post #66
angusb wrote: post #58

I know that there's a kick to be got out of circumventing the draconian rules big music/film industry lobby into law, but what do the writers think about independents that they effectively take down in the same blow? This is a genuine question, not an attack. I've spent a lot of time studying/writing/playing music and through that have got to personally know many of the most talented and versatile musicians I've ever…

Musicians have only recently been able to make money from recorded media. I see this as a temporary anomaly allowed by the state of technology in the 20th century (i.e. existence of mass media as a physical product). Musicians (and other artists) can still make money from e.g. performing live - which I'm assuming was their dominant form of income before the 20th century. I don't believe that a monetary incentive is n…

It's a little-known fact that before the 20th century there was no artistic production of any kind. ;)

In more seriousness, I'd guess that the traditional dominant sources of income for musicians were (a) patronage and (b) being independently wealthy; I doubt giving performances mattered all that much.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#76

Post by sschalk »

duiker101 wrote: post #26
lawl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify randomly deleted my offline library on android. Of course when I was traveling and didn't have a data plan. Canceled my premium subscription a month ago or so. This happened multiple times to me. Yup I'm at the point again where maintaining my own library is more convinient again. It's exactly the DRM shit I won't put up with. Also spotify, rdio etc. Are exactly the same price with the same restrictions per p…

Spotify did the same to me, multiple times. Last time yesterday when my pc randomly lost permissions for offline storage. But that is not an excuse. The music industry in trying to provide alternative ways, and I extremely appreciate it and think that we need to be supportive. Only by supporting this changes we will ever see any improvements, we need to find a middleground that can satisfy both parties. Spotify offer…

On the contrary. As long as something like the "Music Industry" exists, there seems to be too much money going into the wrong hands (e.g., people apart from artists & sound engineers).

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#77

Post by kruk »

Argorak wrote: post #69

> We believe that listening to music should always be free and available to everyone, and that only owning it should bare a cost. I hate this entitlement. As if it was their decision. As if they were running a social movement. I am all for open access to arts, but this is the artists decision and not some programmers, just because they can.

I absolutely agree. Plus how is 'owning music' different from being able to always listen to it for free?

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#78

Post by bmaland »

giulivo wrote: post #51
tpio wrote: post #48

It seems the quality of many of the songs are sub-optimal. Would be nice to have some sort of bit rate indicator in the GUI so that I could skip the 128kbps songs. Other than that it seems to have everything I've looked for

quality indeed is my main concern too ... I haven't started using any of the cloud services simply because none (that I know) provides lossless music.

WiMP recently launched a lossless streaming service (http://wimpmusic.com/). It's not available in the US though.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#79

Post by louhike »

krig wrote: post #71
louhike wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it essential? And why is this liberty? People may disagree with you and tell that musicians must have the liberty to get money from their music through sales. Can we really force them to give it for free? Music production cost a lot of money and involve a lot of persons to work on it. Musicians already have to do a lot of gigs to cover the cost of recording music. Even artists like Jeff Buckley had to work a l…

It has nothing to do with music. The sharing of music is only a side-effect of free and private sharing of digital information in general. There are a number of drawbacks with enabling private digital communications: It makes the sharing of copyrighted works possible without the possibility for law enforcement to intervene, it enables the spread of child pornography or other criminal and morally unjustifiable informa…

I totally agree that we do not know if it has effect on musicians. But I do not think we should ignore it and just move. We need to find solutions if it is bad for them before breaking the whole system down.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#80

Post by jdswain »

This kind of app appears to be prohibited in the YouTube terms of service https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms :

II. Prohibitions

Your API Client will not, and You will not encourage or create functionality for Your users or other third parties to:

8. separate, isolate, or modify the audio or video components of any YouTube audiovisual content made available through the YouTube API;

9. promote separately the audio or video components of any YouTube audiovisual content made available through the YouTube API;

So I can't imagine it lasting long.

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