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Backing up Spotify

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Re: Backing up Spotify

#181

Post by troupo »

crazygringo wrote: post #11

This is insane. I definitely was not aware Spotify DRM had been cracked to enable downloading at scale like this. The thing is, this doesn't even seem particularly useful for average consumers/listeners, since Spotify itself is so convenient, and trying to locate individual tracks in massive torrent files of presumably 10,000's of tracks each sounds horrible. But this does seem like it will be a godsend for researche…

Just like with anything digital you (and Spotify) are fully at the mercy of the rights holders. When (not if) they pull their stuff, or replace their stuff, or change their stuff, you can never get the original back unless you preserve it.

Largest example: a lot of Russian music is not available on Spotify because of the Russia-Ukrane war, and Spotify pulling out of Russia. So they don't have the licneses to a lot of stuff because that belongs to companies operating within Russia.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#182

Post by cj »

cm2012 wrote: post #179
chrneu wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this argument is so tired. most artists dont really care about streaming or selling their music. most of their real money comes from touring, merch, and people somehow interacting with them. most musicians just want to make music, express themselves, and connect with folks who enjoy their stuff or want to make music with em. Even some of the largest artists in the world only receive a few grand a year from streaming.…

Spotify paid out ten billion dollars to artists in 2024. This is not small potatoes - total 2024 music industry merchandise sales was around $14b. Youtube also paid out literally 50x more to creators in 2024 than Patreon had total subscriptions on the platform. These big platform payouts matter a lot.

Some quick Googling shows 1 million streams pays approx $2000.

You'd need 40,000,000 streams to earn $80,000.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#183

Post by earthnail »

chrneu wrote: post #159
cm2012 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This leak will also be really useful to bad actors who will resell the music from this list without paying royalties to the artists.

this argument is so tired. most artists dont really care about streaming or selling their music. most of their real money comes from touring, merch, and people somehow interacting with them. most musicians just want to make music, express themselves, and connect with folks who enjoy their stuff or want to make music with em. Even some of the largest artists in the world only receive a few grand a year from streaming.…

Touring makes almost no money. Only concerts with >1000ppl make money. Below that you can assume not even the sound engineer gets paid.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#184

Post by david_p »

some-guy wrote: post #104
flxy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what earned what.cd that title wasn't necessarily just the amount but the quality, as you mentioned, as well as the obscurity of a lot of the offered material. I remember finding an early EP of an unknown local band on there, and I live in the middle of nowhere in Europe. There were also quite a few really old and niche records on there which possibly couldn't be put on streaming services due to the ownership…

I’m still using the “successor” to what.cd and I usually discover artists through random lists, “related artists”, among other things on the platform. One interesting way of discovering artists is finding an artist that I already like on a compilation CD, and then seeing what else is on the CD.

Would you share the name of that successor? I miss the old internet and would love to take a look.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#185

Post by 1dry »

Yuck. Just to make it easier to train slop machines. The point of art is not to have completionist archives of EVERYthing that’s ever been made! Let it die. Death is the most natural part of life. Art is about the human experience, not “for researchers”.

The point is human connection. Art is a living reflection and record of human experience. Art will persevere- the kinds of folks who prioritize what they like based on popularity were never the supporters artists (contrast with craftspeople trying to make a buck) counted on in the first place. Enjoy your derivative slop - we’ll continue on our imperfect, messy, individual, human artistic lives.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#186

Post by karamanolev »

some-guy wrote: post #101
leetbulb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. RIP a ton of very rare material. What.cd has a special place in my heart.

Redacted.sh is a worthy successor, but the average person just doesn’t care about “which release is best” anymore. I use YT Music as a backup but Redacted is my main source of music these days.

Don't you consider it best to ... redact ... your post, as it's the only one mentioning it by name?

Re: Backing up Spotify

#189

Post by 1dry »

crazygringo wrote: post #11

This is insane. I definitely was not aware Spotify DRM had been cracked to enable downloading at scale like this. The thing is, this doesn't even seem particularly useful for average consumers/listeners, since Spotify itself is so convenient, and trying to locate individual tracks in massive torrent files of presumably 10,000's of tracks each sounds horrible. But this does seem like it will be a godsend for researche…

Thank god we are taking care of the “researchers working on things like music classification and generation” ! As long as we can convince ourselves we have a sound analysis of it, no need to support and defend people making actual art right. So much already made, who needs more?

This is not to defend Spotify (death to it), but to state that opening all of this data for even MORE garbage generation is a step in the wrong direction. The right direction would be to heavily legislate around / regulate companies like Spotify to more fairly compensate the musicians who create the works they train their slop generators with.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#190

Post by thaumasiotes »

charcircuit wrote: post #176
thaumasiotes wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume in most cases they're literally the same files. Youtube runs "topic" channels for music that distributors have sent it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYOa-hi751OKY2zGJJv6V2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSSxnv1_J2g (same thing, but on an official channel instead)

You can load any youtube music song on youtube by just removing the "music" subdomain.

Then why do you say they might not be the same files?
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