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The lost joy of music piracy

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Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#341

Post by MilkLizard »

xaitv wrote: post #225
pjc50 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We forget that the labels also consider that piracy. For a while there were attempts to make CDs un-rippable. Streaming (which pays labels and artists much less) only exists because it's the compromise that solves the "service problem" side of piracy.

> We forget that the labels also consider that piracy. For a while there were attempts to make CDs un-rippable. One of these attempts that I assume most people are familiar with but is an interesting read for those that aren't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

And of course Sony was involved

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#342

Post by PaulHoule »

piker wrote: post #206
CTDOCodebases wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think algorithmic music discovery is overrated. Back in the day I used to use Audioscrobler which was an audio plugin for Winamp which was basically a recommender system for music. I discovered some interesting music through that but nowhere near the amount of music I later discovered through hypem which was a music blog aggregator.

Does anyone in 2026 rate algorithmic discovery for music? Or is it widely perceived to be the engagement-reinforcement mechanism that it is?

There are many different "algorithms". YouTube has an algorithm that gets a very high hit rate because it plays music you've already proven that you like. That's good and bad.

I listen to the "Deep Cuts" recommender on Plexamp a lot, it uncovers a lot of good music that I haven't heard before out of my large collection, I've got no idea how it works.

One funny thing about it is that I do not play it through the speakers at home because my family tends to find anything selected by a recommender really provocative, not necessarily in a bad way, but the last thing I want to do is answer questions about music I didn't select myself. I mean I can play through a Charlie XCX or Tyler the Creator or rock-opera phase Kinks album and nobody says anything about it but if they do I have a good story to tell about it, but it's too annoying to get hassled about some UB40 track I never heard before that's between a BTO and Olivia Newton-John track.

(Generally I find that recommender selected content is "provocative", like if anyone is looking over my shoulder, they are very unlikely to see what I am actually interested in and working on but instead they want to ask me questions about things on my screen that I'm either just a little warm or totally cold to)

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#343

Post by [deleted] »

nirvael wrote: post #218

I'm confused, surely there's a contradiction between "piracy was so good, we had this panacea of completely open, free, infinite music" and "streaming is bad even though it's the same infinite music library but we charge a small subscription". I get that artists aren't paid enough, but it's better than the $0 they get from piracy.

[deleted]

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#344

Post by philamonster »

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…

Exactly this. There were even curated collections on Oink/what.cd of these lists which is where I obtained a large portion of my collection. Those days were the end of the era for me. I still had access to an FTP-ish site that was an offshoot of Something Awful Forums but that decayed probably 10-12 years ago.

I still have a turntable/cd-changer in my living room which is used monthly at least, but it is mostly a social thing (kids, friends etc). For mobile digital, I had been using Subsonic and subsequent forks since 2010 but self-hosting is too much work with real work and life taking a front seat, still have iSub on my phone with around 4k songs cached which is all I listen to in the car, no paid streaming services at all for over 2 years now. There is a 5k song limit for my car but the plan is to dump my whole collection into multiple USB sticks and rotate as I see fit.

I'm constantly reminded of those past days when certain songs roll through of my youth (90's, 2000's) and the who, when and where of it all. I also get to pass it on to my kids as they discover this musical past in real-time next to me which makes it even sweeter.

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#345

Post by account42 »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #234
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a shitload of valuable vinyl records that don't have any art at all or even any cover. Paper and cardboard doesn't last as long as the record itself. No, the reasons for this are entirely technical.

de gustibus non est disputandum Look, I am telling you about my own lived experience with collecting vinyl. You can speak for yourself, but I carefully stored all my items in archival sleeves, and the jacket, art, and inner sleeve were often just as important as the disc and the music encoded on it. There was a real thrill and reward that came from collecting LP albums in particular, and that meant 12" discs, and I a…

Interestingly the higher-end physical movie releases have moved to metal cases and/or paper sleeves to hide the plastic. Perhaps that's also what digital music would have moved to if the physical market didn't get eaten by streaming. The artwork would still be smaller than vinyl but if you have broad tastes and limited space that may actually be a feature.

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#346

Post by jMyles »

nirvael wrote: post #218

I'm confused, surely there's a contradiction between "piracy was so good, we had this panacea of completely open, free, infinite music" and "streaming is bad even though it's the same infinite music library but we charge a small subscription". I get that artists aren't paid enough, but it's better than the $0 they get from piracy.

> I get that artists aren't paid enough, but it's better than the $0 they get from piracy.

No it's not. We'd _much_ rather you steal our music if it means we are part of a free, permissionless, seeking-to-be-comprehensive library of the traditions of humankind.

We don't give a fuck about whether you get our music according to the prescribed notions of some particular state or corporation.

I'm a bluegrasser, so maybe my lens is pretty shifted (given that our tradition is one of passing on copyright-unencumbered tunes from time immemorial). But this view is very widespead - essentially universal - in bluegrass. There's a reason that every IBMA and bluegrass grammy has gone to a drm-free record the past bunch of years.

https://pickipedia.xyz/wiki/DRM-free

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#347

Post by shawnhermans »

mghackerlady wrote: post #316
account42 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a while there were attempts to make CDs un-rippable. The movie industry unfortunately never gave up no matter how vain the attempts are.

Still why I like DVDs. Smaller in size, easy to rip, and 480p is good enough that I don't mind the quality loss. Blu-ray is great, but if I'm buying something I'm not sure about or just want to have because it's worth having, DVD all the way

I recently started collecting Blu-ray because of thrift and second hand stores. In a few cases, I was able to purchase some of my all time favorite movies unopened in the original retail packaging for a dollar. Not to mention my local library has a larger Blu-ray selection than my local video rental place did before they closed.

Re: The lost joy of music piracy

#350

Post by GuB-42 »

losvedir wrote: post #215

Heh, blast from the past here from the "information wants to be free" and "you wouldn't download a car" days. Sometimes HN feels unrecognizable with how much the comments I read are pro- intellectual property. But these days, I do wonder how much 90s / early 2000s time was any better or if all of us who had experienced them are just getting older and nostalgic for our youth.

AI changed the perception of the "information wants to be free" idea.

In a sense, AI companies did a lot to "free" the information, they took everything they could, including pirated data, and put them all into a model, which you can then query to get something similar to "not free" information, but clean of copyright.

But now that information is actually free (or at least, freer than before) people realize that it didn't come out of nowhere. People worked to produce that content, and many of them are people like you and me, not billionaires and faceless corporations, and it is affecting them and their ability to produce more content.

That part didn't change, what changed was that before, piracy was a rebellious act, done by poor teenagers, something easy to sympathize with. Now, it is done by trillion (!) dollar companies on an industrial scale, not much sympathy to give here.

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