441–450 of 732 posts
I just found out that https://annas-archive.li/ is masked by my German internet provider (SIM.de/Drillisch). I usually use a VPN but I had it switched off temp. to watch Fallout (Prime Video won't let you watch through a VPN). Only when I switched Mullvad back on could I open the site. I didn't know German providers do this.
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True but What.cd had a tremendous amount of notable music not available on Spotify though because it was also sourced from cds, bootlegs, vinyl, tape etc whereas Spotify only includes music explicitly licensed for streaming.
Which also means almost always limited to the latest, almost always crappy (or blind to the original ambiance) remaster! One of the main reasons why I don't bother with streaming, really. (And because they lack much obscure stuff and I don't like being dependent on the Internet and a renter's whims for something as essential as music, I guess)
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I think the negatives for artists are minimal while the benefits of preserving a annotated snapshot of contemporary music for future generations is very valuable.
Anna’s Archive has largely flown under the radar by focusing on books. Even perceived involvement in music piracy puts a much bigger target on their back from far more aggressive actors (RIAA, major labels)
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Probably not down, but blocked by your ISP. Try a VPN. Same thing happens here.
Yes, blocked. This is what I see in germany without a VPN https://notice.cuii.info/ "Their buisness model is based on copyright infringement" Well, where to complain that Anna's Archive ain't a buisness?
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Spotify is $12/month at most to get unlimited ad-free access to virtually all music. To get access to "all" TV content legally would be hundreds of dollars a month. And for many movies you must buy/rent each individually. And legal TV and movies are much more encumbered by DRM and lock in, limiting the way you can view them. (like many streaming apps removing AirPlay support, or limiting you to 720p in some browsers)…
Spotify used to be good, but have enshittified their UI past the point of usability for me. It really wants to play me tracks that are profitable for Spotify, not tracks I want to hear. What you say is still true of the Amazon and Apple offerings, though. Haven't tried Youtube Music, so can't comment on that.
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> Infra isn’t free. There is a certain irony in people providing copyrighted works for free justifying profiting from these copyrights on the basis that providing the works to others isn’t free.
Cost recovery isn’t profit. Copyright is just a shared delusion, like most laws. They’re just bits on a disk we’re told are special for ~100 years (or whatever the copyright lockup length is in your jurisdiction), after which they’re no longer special (having entered the public domain). I think what is more ironic is we somehow were comfortable being collectively conditioned (manufactured consent?) with the idea that…
Calling such things "shared delusions" is missing the point...it's not that it's wrong, but it is not a very useful way to look at it.
There is such a thing as intersubjective (as opposed to objective) reality. Physically it exists as a shared pattern in the brains of humans, but that is seldom useful to reflect on. Language wise much more convenient and useful to talk about copyright as something, you know, existing.
Everyone knows these are just human agreements... it is not exactly deep thinking to point it out.
You may not agree to some laws. You can then seek to have the laws overturned (I agree patents and copyright are... counterproductive, at this point). Luckily many parts of the world have democracy to decide what laws to force on people, as opposed to a dictator.
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> Instead of finding ways to improve the market such that the control of content isn't siloed in monopolistic corporations I always assumed the "Anna" in the name was for "Anarchist." My assumption about the archive is that they don't believe there's an ethical solution to the restriction of access to data that involves a capitalist market.
I get your point but then let's not complains if creativity dies and things all look the same. Creative people don't have motivation to produce if they can't make a living out of it.
That is simply not true. Most artists do what they do without ever seeing any money for it.
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I'd have a lot more sympathy if the music industry didn't try all of the worst available options to handle piracy for years and years. They had many opportunities to get out ahead of it, and they squandered it trying to cling to album sales where 11/13 tracks were trash. They are in a bed of their own making.
You have been able to buy DRM free digital music from all of the record labels since 2009 from Apple and other stores.
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Music piracy is already a thing, not to mention you don't even need to torrent nowadays when music is available for free on YouTube. Those who don't want to pay already don't pay so nothing changes there. The value of Spotify is the convenience, and this collection does not change that in any way. Your argument would apply if someone were to make a Spotify clone with the same UX using this data.
At least pirates provide some value from curation usually. In this case the leak is just all of Spotify. It makes it really easy for a competitor to just duplicate the Spotify service without paying licensing fees. Tbd what happens.
Spotify itself started with pirated music.