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Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

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Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#161

Post by meowface »

pojzon wrote: post #125
dalbasal wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtube's ContentID If true, this is worrying. It basically gives a handful of companies a monopoly over a potentially wide range of things. It is unreasonable to require everyone to meet a standard that relies on cutting edge technology.

If Im not mistaken, youtube contentid filtering is not working as good as Google hoped it will. People find more and more backdors or workarounds for it. Google hires like thousends of editors to watch youtube content and filter out stuff. That was one big defeat of Google. The same way they fail to filter kids content. Im yet to see a filtering mechanism for a platform like ytb that works.

It's a very tough problem, with thousands (or more) of smart people constantly trying to circumvent it every day. But I think YouTube has the upper hand at this point. You hear way more about false positives than false negatives, and every single successful circumvention I've found is barely watchable/listenable. >50% cropping, rotation, major pitch shifting, color shifting, speed changes. They're getting by, but really just barely.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#162

Post by swiley »

circlefavshape wrote: post #22

Most likely explanation - nobody was using it. They only introduced it as a beta feature recently, and you have to use a distributor like CDBaby or distrokid to get your music onto other streaming sites anyway, so unless you were only interested in Spotify there was no point

As someone who helped an artist get their stuff onto spotify a couple years ago and has started writing music I was pretty confused by the headline, I didn't even know this feature existed (otherwise I might have actually used it.)

It's a shame it disappeared before I even heard about it.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#164

Post by rectang »

neka wrote: post #150
rectang wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TuneCore changing its pricing structure a number of years ago is probably the classic example. An artist can jump ship to another distribution broker, but there are a lot of downsides such as losing play counts and breaking links. Can any of the distribution brokers be trusted to act in an artist's interest indefinitely? There's just an inherent problem with that.

If you retain your ISRCs and UPCs when moving from one distributor to another, links and stream counts will remain as is. Surely that's an issue solved by the market, if there is a distributor that is reliable & fairly priced then people will move to use and stay with them. I think the current issue is that a lot of the big name distributors are marketers first, distributors second.

Since when are non-profits not part of the market?

No commercial distributor can hold out forever against the temptation expanding into marketing. That's as hopeless as wishing that ISPs would stay as dumb pipes.

There should be more competition: a non-profit which offers fewer features but which you aren't constantly wondering when it will flip and screw you over, versus more featureful and slicker commercial competition.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#165

Post by zimpenfish »

wolco wrote: post #112
sk0g wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd definitely be keen to hear more about this at least! I've been thinking about hash values for song sections, and then proving ownership by claiming a sequence of hashes. Could help ensure you aren't subconsciously ripping other music off, and make finding 'related' songs easy (covers, remixes, etc).

But changing some aspect would change the hash value

That, there, is the hard part of the problem. You can go with acoustic hashes (like Chromaprint[1]) but even that's not 100% reliable in the face of small changes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AcoustID#Chromaprint

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#166

Post by [deleted] »

swiley wrote: post #162
circlefavshape wrote: post #22

Most likely explanation - nobody was using it. They only introduced it as a beta feature recently, and you have to use a distributor like CDBaby or distrokid to get your music onto other streaming sites anyway, so unless you were only interested in Spotify there was no point

As someone who helped an artist get their stuff onto spotify a couple years ago and has started writing music I was pretty confused by the headline, I didn't even know this feature existed (otherwise I might have actually used it.) It's a shame it disappeared before I even heard about it.

[deleted]

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#167

Post by steve-benjamins »

pcsanwald wrote: post #136
circlefavshape wrote: post #22

Most likely explanation - nobody was using it. They only introduced it as a beta feature recently, and you have to use a distributor like CDBaby or distrokid to get your music onto other streaming sites anyway, so unless you were only interested in Spotify there was no point

+1. I'm a musician who has released albums and I'd never use something like this, because who wants to manage distribution for every platform? DistroKid/CDBaby are a much better way to do this.

As a fellow artist I disagree :)

I’d totally use this. Spotify and Apple Music are 99% of my plays. The other services don’t matter.

(Youtube and Soundcloud are uploaded separate from Distrokid / CD Baby.)

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#168

Post by ptd »

creaghpatr wrote: post #133
njl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify has internal fingerprinting stuff that can handle this easily enough. The shutdown is entirely due to pressure from the record labels. It's a shame; this was a surprisingly difficult product to get off the ground, and a lot of folks put in heroic efforts to make it work.

Apparently not, because it's number one streamed track "Old Town Road" never cleared the Nine Inch Nails sample it used. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/05/29/lil-nas-x-sample...

Think about it from the artist's point of view. What financial incentive does an unknown artist have to clear samples?

On one end of the spectrum, you create a song using an uncleared sample and it goes nowhere. Nine Inch Nails never hears about your song, and neither does the public.

On the other end of the spectrum, your song goes viral and makes you one of the most popular artists in the country.

Even if Nine Inch Nails claims every cent you make from the song, you have already accomplished your goal. You're a popular artist and now have a platform.You can sell merch, sign sponsorship deals, and get paid to advertise for brands on social media. You can put out new music with all your ducks in a row and go on to have a very successful career.

Why go through the trouble of clearing your sample when the chances of your song becoming popular are very slim, and even if it does become a hit, the reward far outweighs the risk?

Outside of ethics, there is no reason for an unknown artist to clear samples when they are trying to make it in the music industry.

It should also be noted that both the creator of Old Town Road(Lil Nas X) and Nine Inch Nails are currently under Columbia records.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#169

Post by geden »

ptd wrote: post #168
creaghpatr wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently not, because it's number one streamed track "Old Town Road" never cleared the Nine Inch Nails sample it used. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/05/29/lil-nas-x-sample...

Think about it from the artist's point of view. What financial incentive does an unknown artist have to clear samples? On one end of the spectrum, you create a song using an uncleared sample and it goes nowhere. Nine Inch Nails never hears about your song, and neither does the public. On the other end of the spectrum, your song goes viral and makes you one of the most popular artists in the country. Even if Nine Inch…

There are theoretical risks, depending where you are based: Court costs Injunctions Risk of Punitive damages

They may share a record label, but do they share the same publisher?

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#170

Post by nicky0 »

Nightshaxx wrote: post #41
sk0g wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really wish Spotify did the Google Play Music thing of letting you upload a few thousand songs to fill in the gaps in their library. From what I can tell, they sorta do - they let you add songs on your device, but I haven't been able to find them in my app sooo :|

The way they impliment it is pretty bad. Basically you have to add a local music folder on your PC, then you have to use the search tool to find it (on PC) and add it to a playlist. Then you have to go onto your mobile while on the same network as the PC, and download the playlist. Spotify doesn't store your song at all on their servers (unlike google) and if you want to re-download the files on a new device, the ori…

It's clumsy but you can see why Spotify don't want anything to do with handling uploaded music on their servers. I wonder how Google treats it from a legal/copyright perspective. I suspect they are just too big to care.
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