HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music • Hacker News Board

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#121

Post by Argorak » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 12:57 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #109

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 hate the "have your cake and eat it too" mentality. If you want to control distribution don't put things on the Internet. This isn't 1999, what happens when you put stuff on the internet is well-known at this point. If you're unhappy with it, start a new network that has DRM baked-in so this isn't an issue.

Much of the music available of on youtube was not released by the artists.

If the statement were "we want to make access to freely available music easier" (and we cannot police how it got to our sources) - sure. Go with it!

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#122

Post by RankingMember » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 1:00 PM UTC

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 assume they mean "bear a cost", unless this is some UK/US spelling disagreement.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#123

Post by kuschku » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 1:02 PM UTC

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.

>there are services like Spotify, Rdio and many more that offers painless listening.

Sadly most of these are only available in the US – and there are ~500 million people in the EU without access to most of these services.

Luckily it gets better nowadays, Spotify exists in most countries here, iTunes in contrast to Google Play actually sells everywhere (GPlay only in some countries here) and with Netflix coming to Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France and some other countries from 2015 on movie piracy will also go down.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#124

Post by chimeracoder » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 1:03 PM UTC

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #100

locksley wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not many musicians expect to make money from selling records. It used to be "do free shows to sell records". Now it's completely reversed to "do free records to sell shows".

And that's actually been the industry's best response to it all - move the monetization to the thing you can't copy. My concern is for authors, game designers and others for whom there is no such substitution possible.

I don't know about the gaming industry, but most authors make the bulk of their income off of speaking gigs, book signings, readings, etc.

Actually, most are unsuccessful and make their entire income off of a second job, but most successful authors make their income from the above.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#125

Post by conatus » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 1:06 PM UTC

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.

As I said below, if this is backended on YouTube artists will collect royalties provided they are collecting them.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#126

Post by runeks » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 1:08 PM UTC

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.

> 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.

Have you tried performing an A/B test to see if you can tell the difference between lossless CD audio and 192 kbit AAC (the format used for 720p video on YouTube)?

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#127

Post by SyncTheory13 » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 1:25 PM UTC

Since this whole post seems to have turned into a debate on supporting artists, etc... I'd like to add the idea of going to as many concerts as possible and supporting local/small music at a mich higher rate thannational/international acts. Even when attending a major concert, a higher percentage of the merch and ticket sales, etc. reaches the actual artist.

I understand this isn't an option for everyone but I think more people should consider it.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#128

Post by brentm » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 1:28 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #112

Mikushi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always has to be free with you people... You don't want adverts? Pay for the service. Spotify is well worth the money, £10/month is almost giving it away.

Artists make nothing from Spotify, so why is it so much worse to use a service that is completely free?

Spotify has paid artists more than $1B to date, $500 million in 2013 alone.

source: http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#129

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 1:28 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #124

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's actually been the industry's best response to it all - move the monetization to the thing you can't copy. My concern is for authors, game designers and others for whom there is no such substitution possible.

I don't know about the gaming industry, but most authors make the bulk of their income off of speaking gigs, book signings, readings, etc. Actually, most are unsuccessful and make their entire income off of a second job, but most successful authors make their income from the above.

Are you sure?

I know a friend who is a published, relatively successful author (makes a solid but not spectacular living from it) makes most of his money from the old fashioned business of selling actual books.

Re: HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music

#130

Post by j_m_b » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 1:33 PM UTC

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.

> but this is the artists decision and not some programmers

I think you meant to say "it is the copyright holders decision and not some artists"