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Backing up Spotify

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Re: Backing up Spotify

#661

Post by paraknight »

flxy wrote: post #75
Etheryte wrote: post #28

To put this into perspective, What.CD [0] was widely considered to be the music library of Alexandria, unparalleled in both its high quality standard and it's depth. What had in the ballpark of a few million torrents when it got raided and shut down. Anna's rip of Spotify includes roughly 186 million unique records. Granted, the tail end is a mixed bag of bot music and whatnot, but the scale is staggering. [0] https:…

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…

What.cd were extreme sticklers for quality! When you applied to get in, they did a live interview on IRC to test your knowledge of ripping, transcoding, and different kinds of compression, how torrents and private trackers work, and their code of conduct. I remember studying for it. They also had ways to make sure you weren't cheating like checking your screen, as well as very aggressive automated checks for VPNs and blocklisted IPs to prevent ban evasion and multiple accounts.

They also had good incentive structures for keeping the bar high -- you could get kicked out for having a bad ratio, so the easiest way to pump your upload up was to fulfil obscure requests for FLACs you could purchase online but were extremely difficult to purchase (if you're lucky it's just an unknown artist on Bandcamp). I discovered a lot of obscure music this way, some that I'm still looking for to this day after it shut down.

Because I cared so much about being part of that private tracker, this is what also prompted me to rent a seedbox for the first time. I paid in Bitcoin out of paranoia (I lived in Germany where the fines for piracy are HEFTY, and they actually do come after you) back when Bitcoin wasn't really worth that much, and later found that that old wallet suddenly had a couple thousand in it instead of the spare change I couldn't move!

Re: Backing up Spotify

#663

Post by _DeadFred_ »

komali2 wrote: post #601
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under the current system people can release everything they want as free use. How much media that the average person choses to consume is this 'free use' media? How much is media that artists chose to make money from?

This doesn't do much for the argument that artists only do art for money. Everyone knows what happens to free use art, same as what happens to FOSS: corpos bundle it up and sell it back to people. By the way, I do know a lot of artists that just give their work away for free. Hell, any Burn is just a bunch of free art that usually gets lit on fire or destroyed after a week. There's also graffiti art which is uncompen…

Great. So you already have a firehose of free art, no need/benefit to change copyright for those that want to release that way then.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#664

Post by performative »

this is a really incredible effort. but, for the developers and analysts currently working with music metadata in a world where so much of music is being consumed thru streaming services that keep a tight hold on how their metadata and album art can be used, i am constantly yearning for a way to link streaming releases to public metadata sources that can be manipulated, embedded, and queried. i've done my best to build my own w/o a background in data science, but it's a hole that desperately needs filling to enable the new generation of scrobbling/music listening habit exploration.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#665

Post by nsteel »

Retr0id wrote: post #592
grishka wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't looked at the code but I would be surprised if the premium account "requirement" is anything more than an if statement that can be commented out.

You are correct

I believe that changed recently and Spotify started blocking the key requests from free accounts.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#666

Post by MiguelX413 »

monerozcash wrote: post #529
alex_duf wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you need to rent a server without leaving any hint on your real identity. Which means going to some dodgy corners of the internet. I certainly wouldn't attempt

Depends on your threat model, you'd probably have to be scraping at a pretty large scale for anyone to try pursuing you through vpn providers.

This is unquestionably a large scale.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#667

Post by brailsafe »

themusicgod1 wrote: post #649
varenc wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is $12/month at most to get unlimited ad-free access to virtually all music. Until they decide to silence the artist you want to listen to because emperor god trump decides to unperson them. Putting what music you listen to in the hands of a US corporation is such a dangerously stupid idea that it is amazing to me that there are people here who are OK with it. >I think Spotify wins over pirating because of…

> Putting what music you listen to in the hands of a US corporation is such a dangerously stupid idea that it is amazing to me that there are people here who are OK with it.

Thankfully Spotify isn't primarily a U.S company.

Re: Backing up Spotify

#670

Post by justatdotin »

veeti wrote: post #391
justatdotin wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for me its the arms trade. Daniel Ek pours spotify wealth into next gen miltech. sometimes I worry that I don't know what music means to other people but I am certain that to me it is antithetical to war culture.

Actually there are a whole lot of musicians who find pride in "punching nazis" so to speak, but you are entitled to your Russian sympathies.

ok I think I remember this one where disliking war means I side with whoever you think your enemy is today.

I'm not american and I'm not interested in your ideas about who to kill.

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