[HN Gopher] Forget spaceships; I just want my music
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Forget spaceships; I just want my music
        
       Author : panzerboy
       Score  : 217 points
       Date   : 2023-12-12 15:10 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.jeffgeerling.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.jeffgeerling.com)
        
       | Syonyk wrote:
       | Yup. Sound right.
       | 
       | The time spent re-ripping my CD collection to FLAC, my DVD
       | collection to MKV, etc, has been well spent. I can rapidly enough
       | transcode from that to "Whatever I happen to need for where I'm
       | listening to it," and our vehicles have quite the range of local
       | music and audiobook content for road trips that doesn't rely on
       | streaming anything.
       | 
       | You can get CDs for (usually) very little on eBay, same for DVDs,
       | and I don't have to worry about the pissing matches between a
       | corporate conglomerate that views me as "a wallet with eyeballs"
       | and another one that views me as "eyeballs with a wallet" getting
       | in the way.
       | 
       | Meanwhile, vinyl sales continue to skyrocket, and more and more
       | people are interested in records, growing collections,
       | refurbishing old equipment (both to produce and play records),
       | etc. I expect these are rather heavily correlated, because in 50
       | years from now, _nobody_ is going to be able to play any of the
       | streaming  "content" that flows around. "This is my grandparents
       | favorite Spotify playlist" won't be a thing, but you can
       | certainly go cruising through old photo albums, old record
       | collections, etc.
       | 
       | I remain optimistic that we're in the starting phases of a
       | rejection of the online [handwaves at everything digital consumer
       | tech], and it's going to be aided greatly by stuff exactly like
       | this. Profits and corporate pissing matches over "actually doing
       | something people want to pay money for."
       | 
       | Google and Disney both seem to be demonstrating that once people
       | lose trust in you, it's basically impossible to get it back.
       | Nobody trusts a new Google product will last more than a year or
       | two, which leads to it getting killed off for lack of use, and
       | Disney/Pixar seem to have forgotten that the purpose of the
       | entertainment industry is to "entertain the people who might want
       | to see your movie." Other studios are doing fine, so there's
       | clearly a demand, but Disney has been dropping an impressive
       | string of box office bombs lately, because a lot of people _no
       | longer trust them._
        
         | taylodl wrote:
         | _I remain optimistic that we 're in the starting phases of a
         | rejection of the online [handwaves at everything digital
         | consumer tech], and it's going to be aided greatly by stuff
         | exactly like this. Profits and corporate pissing matches over
         | "actually doing something people want to pay money for."_
         | 
         | Your optimism is unfounded. Gen Z thinks it's cool to own an
         | album or two, but they're not building collections. Scrap
         | booking is popular right now, but it's not quite the same thing
         | as photo albums. Everything is ephemeral and by and large
         | they're just fine with that.
        
           | Syonyk wrote:
           | They're physical things, interacted in the physical world,
           | without any way for the companies involved to claw back the
           | content, or to data-mine the scrapbook, your albums, etc, for
           | listening data and such (though I imagine a smart TV with a
           | mic will try).
           | 
           | That's a good direction to see movement in. They're not doing
           | "online scrapbooks" or something. And given the long standing
           | records of "What you said 15 years ago online is used to ruin
           | you today," ephemeral, or "not online in the first place,"
           | makes a lot of sense.
           | 
           | I'm certainly glad my entire school experience wasn't logged
           | in great detail...
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | > They're physical things, interacted in the physical
             | world, without any way for the companies involved to claw
             | back the content
             | 
             | Oh, there's ways. In the 90s, there was a rental scheme
             | with sealed discs that would degrade in air to become
             | unusable within a week. (At least that was upfront, if
             | wasteful). I've had one at least CD rot from the inside,
             | and it's a major issue for LaserDiscs. Careful material
             | science could make this the norm.
        
           | deanCommie wrote:
           | Gen Z is young, have no money, have no optimism for the
           | future, are completely un-technical when it comes to
           | computers, but are EXTREMELY technical when it comes to
           | understanding apps, social media, and weird frustrations like
           | this one.
           | 
           | It remains to be seen once they enter the job market, and
           | despite the cultural perspective inevitably many do succeed,
           | and start making money.
           | 
           | I wouldn't be surprised if they absolutely do focus more on
           | physical media. They are rejecting Instagram look-obsessive
           | culture, and look fondly at what we did in the 2000s when
           | every Party meant a 50-photo Facebook Photo dump, 49 of which
           | would never be "good enough" to make it to Instagram these
           | days.
        
             | cellwebb wrote:
             | Gen Z is already in the job market. The eldest are in their
             | mid 20s.
        
           | jerf wrote:
           | "Everything is ephemeral and by and large they're just fine
           | with that."
           | 
           | Today.
           | 
           | Young people being fine with that when they are still in flux
           | is not a new thing. A 21-year-old being nostalgic is almost
           | the basis for a comedy sketch more than a serious concern.
           | I'm not yet convinced they've broken any human patterns when
           | they're still fitting fairly comfortably into the existing
           | patterns on that. If anything I'd bet they're going to
           | discover a larger desire for a foundation than anyone else
           | because the "default" ones have been ripped away and they
           | can't just sort of settle into an existing one easily.
        
       | Semaphor wrote:
       | At least so far, Bandcamp has not changed after the sale (neither
       | sale). You can still buy music, and try it out for multiple album
       | streams before buying (unless the artist or label disable it,
       | which is rare), and download as FLAC.
       | 
       | Granted, not always useful if what you want is from major labels,
       | but still, keep in mind that there are options.
        
         | Syonyk wrote:
         | Wasn't there some recent article about how Bandcamp got
         | acquired by a competitor and is more or less being left to rot
         | on the vine?
         | 
         | I agree, the FLAC downloads are a major perk of it, and I'll
         | happily buy music there. But I wouldn't trust it to be around
         | long term at this point. It's too consumer-friendly to exist
         | long term in this modern world we live in. :(
        
           | JohnFen wrote:
           | In the long term, everything is temporary. Enjoy the good
           | stuff now while it's here!
        
             | Syonyk wrote:
             | In the long term, yes.
             | 
             | In the human lifespan terms, our digital stuff is a lot
             | more stupidly temporary than it has any good reason to be,
             | and physical media (especially in the realm of music) has
             | rather outlasted it.
             | 
             | Records (vinyl) from 60 years ago still play perfectly fine
             | with a cleaning, and CDs are holding up quite well too in
             | general. Because my ability to play a record from the 1960s
             | or 1970s is not dependent on the company that created it
             | still being around, and being willing to license it to the
             | company that delivers it for me to play it, at favorable
             | contract terms, etc, etc, etc.
        
               | JohnFen wrote:
               | All true -- which is what makes Bandcamp such a treasure.
               | Download the flac and you have it forever (or a
               | reasonable approximation of that).
        
             | rakoo wrote:
             | That's the thing: everything is temporary, but who gets to
             | decide how temporary it is ? If it's you, fine; if it's not
             | you for totally avoidable reasons, that's a problem.
        
           | Semaphor wrote:
           | Bandcamp doesn't need to change, it can just keep going.
           | That's what I meant with "neither sale", because there were
           | also some (if fewer) doomsayers for the epic sale.
           | 
           | It got sold. Nothing changed. And again, you own the music,
           | if it stops existing that sucks, but only for the future,
           | everything you bought, you still have.
           | 
           | And fwiw, I don't think anything for Bandcamp will change.
        
             | pavel_lishin wrote:
             | > _And again, you own the music, if it stops existing that
             | sucks, but only for the future, everything you bought, you
             | still have._
             | 
             | Only if you downloaded the mp3s/flacs, and also backed them
             | up.
        
               | Semaphor wrote:
               | Do people use BC in other ways? I mean, I guess
               | technically, you could just keep streaming, but do people
               | do that? I'd assume anyone using bandcamp cares about
               | having the music actually available.
        
               | pavel_lishin wrote:
               | I think some people assume that it'll always be there to
               | re-download. I certainly download things immediately, and
               | stick it somewhere where it'll be backed up nightly.
        
           | xerox13ster wrote:
           | Bought by EPIC, conducted layoffs to crush unionization
           | attempts.
        
             | vanchor3 wrote:
             | Bought by Epic Games then Epic sold to Songtradr, which is
             | when the layoffs happened.
        
           | solarkraft wrote:
           | Nothing, neither for good nor for bad, has noticeably changed
           | about Bandcamp in the 5+ years I've been using it. I'd call
           | that "leaving it to rot" - but hey, at least it hasn't gotten
           | any worse. If the new owners keep the course, it'll be okay.
        
         | chimeracoder wrote:
         | > At least so far, Bandcamp has not changed after the sale
         | (neither sale)
         | 
         | The second sale was just a couple months ago, and while you can
         | still buy music and download it, it's not true that "nothing
         | has changed" since then. There have been quite a lot of
         | changes, just not on that one front. And it's only been two
         | months, so it's way too early to conclude that Songtradr won't
         | gut it more thoroughly.
         | 
         | Not much changed during the time Epic owned Bandcamp, sure, but
         | that's because Epic only bought it in order to gain standing
         | for their lawsuits with Apple. It didn't fit into their
         | business strategy otherwise, so they had no need to mess with
         | it - they literally just needed it to be a legal subsidiary as
         | a pawn for an unrelated legal battle. The same is not true with
         | Songtradr, which has its own motives and objectives that relate
         | to Bandcamp's actual operations and business.
        
           | Semaphor wrote:
           | I know. Still don't expect any changes. Nothing has changed
           | for any part of Bandcamp I cared about.
        
         | bloomingeek wrote:
         | For what's it's worth, I use mp3caprice.com to download zipped
         | music. The prices are pretty fair and I don't have to store
         | another CD on the shelf. The bitrate is decent and I can find
         | albums that aren't available anymore. The bonus for me is,
         | since I subscribe to Mojo magazine, I can Youtube new artists
         | and if I like them, go download the music.
        
           | Semaphor wrote:
           | That looks like piracy, but paying someone for it? Thanks,
           | but I actually prefer to support the artists I listen to, and
           | when I can't afford to, or it's impractical, to not pay those
           | who prevent artists from getting money.
        
             | bloomingeek wrote:
             | Where's your proof? Show it and I'll gladly quit buying
             | from them.
        
               | Semaphor wrote:
               | If you think bands actually sell albums on one site for
               | $2 that they sell for $10 everywhere else, then I guess
               | you can just go and keep believing.
               | 
               | I just think it might be better to not support sites like
               | that and instead torrent directly for free. No need to
               | sealion.
        
               | averageRoyalty wrote:
               | > No need to sealion.
               | 
               | I'm lost. What do seals have to do with this? Is this a
               | typo, or a turn of phrase I've never seen?
        
               | Semaphor wrote:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
        
               | Freak_NL wrote:
               | It's not too hard to figure out that this one of those
               | cowboy sites operating from Ukraine1 with quite dubious
               | claims as to their legality:
               | 
               | https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/2412fb/the_
               | web...
               | 
               | https://torrentfreak.com/riaa-and-mpaa-report-notorious-
               | pira...
               | 
               | The gist seems that buying stuff there may be legal if
               | you are Ukrainian or are actually in Ukraine, and quite
               | probably isn't if you are anywhere else.
               | 
               | The RIAA certainly considers them shipless pirates. You
               | are probably paying criminals, and almost certainly are
               | not paying artists.
               | 
               | 1: There seem to be a bunch of them, which smells a bit
               | like a coordinated effort.
        
             | soylentcola wrote:
             | Yeah, I never understood this sort of thing.
             | 
             | I get paying to support artists and stay on the right side
             | of the law/ethics.
             | 
             | I get downloading a copy of something without paying for a
             | license because it's easier/unavailable to purchase/want to
             | check it out first/it's free!!
             | 
             | But why pay for a bootleg copy?
        
         | bee_rider wrote:
         | Bandcamp has remained amazingly functional throughout all their
         | ownership drama. I hope they somehow hold it together.
        
       | spicyusername wrote:
       | It seems that we've entered the rent-seeking phase of corporate
       | capitalism.
       | 
       | Why spend any extra time, money, or energy making new products or
       | services when you can instead make more money doing nothing but
       | using your outsized political and economic power to coerce and
       | extort consumers instead.
       | 
       | At this point it's impossible to see how any new merger or
       | acquisition isn't just another step in the wrong direction,
       | handing over yet more power to a small few.
       | 
       | At what point is a company too large to effectively serve the
       | public interest? How can we turn this process around and
       | redistribute the economic power of these gigantic corporations?
        
         | Syonyk wrote:
         | > _It seems that we 've entered the rent-seeking phase of
         | corporate capitalism._
         | 
         | Doctorow's word "Enshittification" (which, amazingly, has a
         | rather filled in Wikipedia page now -
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification ) captures it
         | quite well.
        
         | dirtybirdnj wrote:
         | > At what point is a company too large to effectively serve the
         | public interest?
         | 
         | I use the term "maxium tribe size" to describe the human
         | capability (or incapability) of extending compassion and
         | understanding to a group. Companies don't fail. People fail
         | within companies. People fail other people and hide behind
         | "limited liability" and the sham that is corporate personhood.
         | 
         | Every person has a different MaxT. You may not feel the pain of
         | violating this constraint yourself, but lots of people under
         | you will suffer. You may actually feel GREAT, look at all the
         | respect I have gained! I can make things happen, people listen
         | to me... or now I can just ignore them...
         | 
         | You don't care because you are blinded by success.
         | 
         | Money and power are the worst poisons this world offers. It
         | turns otherwise intelligent and caring people into awful piles
         | of human effluence. It is IMPOSSIBLE to gain sufficient power
         | to drive a company and not lose your sense of humanity. The
         | idea that you will not violate your maximum tribe size in this
         | exercise is insulting. You will quickly be insulated from the
         | consequences of your actions, and no matter how depraved your
         | behavior there will be a line of people congratulating and
         | cheering you on because they desperately want to be the next
         | person in line to enjoy the ride you are on.
         | 
         | The people driving enshittification are not human. They may
         | share our genes but they are not part of our society or species
         | anymore.
        
           | bitwize wrote:
           | The sociologist's term for this is Dunbar's number:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
           | 
           | It's about ~150 with some variance between individuals.
        
             | rglullis wrote:
             | I'm developing this theory for a while now that we should
             | break all corporations that are bigger than Dunbar's
             | number: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317641
        
         | llm_nerd wrote:
         | A tiny musician withdrew their music, so I'm not sure how
         | relevant breaking up mega firms is.
         | 
         | In cases like this, a creator puts their own music on a service
         | like Amuse. They or that service (acting as their "publisher")
         | removed it, which removes Apple's right to stream it.
         | 
         | Apple didn't take away this guy's Ladybug Music.
        
           | cowsup wrote:
           | > A tiny musician withdrew their music, so I'm not sure how
           | relevant breaking up mega firms is.
           | 
           | The later half of the post is about Sony's deal with
           | Paramount ending, resulting in paid content being revoked
           | from Playstation consoles.
           | 
           | Whether Sony refused to pay the previously-agreed upon rate,
           | or Paramount decided to unreasonably increase what Sony was
           | paying, we may never know, but both of those are definitely
           | large enough for the commenter's remark to be relevant.
        
           | vimax wrote:
           | But Apple sure did market iMusic as a legitimate replacement
           | for owned physical media while never mentioning the the fact
           | you don't own it and it may disappear at any time. That fact
           | is only mentioned buried somewhere in the EULA, and only
           | popularized by people like the EFF and the victims.
        
       | JohnFen wrote:
       | Music is very important to me. So important that I never dared to
       | trust streaming services. Not only do they require an internet
       | connection (something that is not always available), but if the
       | service experiences downtime, license changes, etc., that music
       | is not available.
       | 
       | If I'm going to spend my money on music, I'm going to spend it on
       | music in a form that isn't reliant on the ongoing operation of
       | some service somewhere. I want to add it to my collection so I
       | can actually listen to it anytime and anywhere.
        
         | LiquidPolymer wrote:
         | I collect portable music players and hi-fi gear. The music
         | gives me great joy, but the hardware also gives me joy. I'm
         | likely an outlier in this realm.
         | 
         | I pre-ordered my new Peter Gabriel I/0 album two months ago on
         | CD and enjoyed the anticipation of waiting. I steadfastly
         | avoided his digital pre-releases. I was not disappointed! It a
         | great album and a beautiful sonic experience.
         | 
         | I took a couple of my favorite tracks and mixed it into my
         | Peter Gabriel minidisc mix-tape. I have numerous portable
         | players to choose from in my collection to listen on the go
         | including a few beautifully designed personal CD players.
         | 
         | I travel internationally frequently and I've noticed TSA
         | occasionally doesn't know what a CD player is. At least the
         | younger agents.
        
         | hatthew wrote:
         | I wish I could do that, but unfortunately my music taste is so
         | varied/fluid that it would take thousands of dollars and a full
         | day's work to purchase and download all the music I listen to
         | these days. And a couple years from now I'd need to do it all
         | over again to update based on my new taste.
        
       | advael wrote:
       | There's like not one but multiple microgenres of music you could
       | likely cobble together just out of working musicians' songs
       | complaining about the music industry. In the modern world,
       | probably the by-the-numbers majority of working artists in every
       | medium can effectively self-publish to some degree or another, so
       | as the intermediaries have grown more and more demanding and both
       | creator- and consumer-hostile, they have also become less of a
       | necessary evil for our ability to engage with the works creative
       | people are putting out into the world. Piracy is the most natural
       | and reasonable way to use current technology to consume media,
       | and the massively successful propaganda campaigns to instill a
       | folk belief that it's somehow wrong or doing harm are incredible,
       | given how much quality of life for both the producers and
       | consumers of the actual content is lost in the name of marginal
       | gains in profitability and massive gains in control by
       | intermediary conglomerates that are increasingly unnecessary. It
       | is only by a combination of this mythology and the ever-tighter
       | industry collusion with an increasingly authoritarian
       | surveillance state to make laws to terrorize people who just want
       | their music that this parasitic shape the industry has taken is
       | surviving
       | 
       | To me, the notion that a transferrable market-monopoly ownership
       | of intellectual rights to a creative work was ever about helping
       | creators is the kind of ridiculous farce that people like
       | economists can get away with because we've been trained to
       | believe that fancy experts saying counterintuitive things about
       | "incentives" must know something we don't, but even if you
       | believe intellectual property has value, it is not of value for
       | massive corporations to sit on a chokepoint between human beings
       | and their access to their own cultural touchstones
        
       | widowlark wrote:
       | Capitalism responds to demand. We have to stop paying for
       | convenience and start demanding better. Save your money from
       | Streaming, purchase used and physical only. Force the market to
       | adapt to you.
        
         | advael wrote:
         | The more power companies have to regulate their consumers, as
         | well as the information available to them, the less responsive
         | to demand they have to be. We are in a monopolized enough
         | environment across multiple industries that we can't assume the
         | dynamics of supply and demand work anything like an idealized
         | "free market", if such a thing has ever existed
        
           | widowlark wrote:
           | As an addendum to my statement: If the changes in demand do
           | not result in a change in supply, then piracy is justified.
        
             | pierat wrote:
             | Soulseek STILL WORKS
             | 
             | igg-games.com
             | 
             | eztv.re
             | 
             | 1337x.tw
             | 
             | sci-hub.se
             | 
             | libgen.rs
             | 
             | torrentfreak.com
             | 
             | opensubtitles.org
             | 
             | nyaa.si
             | 
             | So is thepiratebay.org .
             | 
             | Search using yandex.com they dont filter torrents like
             | scroogle or bingbong
             | 
             | Pirate libraries are this generation's libraries.
             | 
             | Brought to you by DaShareZone!
        
               | azzentys wrote:
               | Thanks, that's valuable
        
               | pierat wrote:
               | i expanded it for ya :D
               | 
               | Sharing is caring!
        
               | teddyh wrote:
               | More: <https://old.reddit.com/r/Piracy/wiki/megathread>
        
         | isoprophlex wrote:
         | The causative factor behind Doctorow's enshittification is
         | these asshat companies controlling both the demand and the
         | supply side.
         | 
         | Disintermediation killed the mom and pop music stores,
         | streaming outright killed physical media. Kids starting
         | university don't understand the concept of a file system;
         | documents just live in the docs app, right?
         | 
         | Maybe we end up in a situation where there's no escape because
         | the median user is held hostage by the lack of knowledge how
         | the internet should have been.
        
         | rakoo wrote:
         | No, capitalism responds to the richest. That's the foundation
         | of Capitalism. To think that anything can be done if just
         | everyone paid differently is the epitome of free-for-all
         | lawless libertarianism.
         | 
         | How have purchases influenced copyright laws being pushed again
         | and again as Disney demands ?
         | 
         | How have purchases changed improved working conditions?
         | Biodiversity ? The climate ?
         | 
         | We can't buy a better future, because there'll always be
         | someone richer than us. We need to build it directly and ban
         | the illusion that is the market
        
       | chx wrote:
       | The beautifully written but not much known Rune Blades Of Celi
       | ebooks no longer can be purchased, as the small publisher is just
       | gone. Of course, the ones I purchased could no longer be
       | downloaded. But want something bigger? Fine. The Wheel Of Time
       | (is that large enough for you?) Complete Edition I bought for
       | over a hundred dollars also can't be donwloaded any more. (And to
       | be more on topic, one of my favorite artists have disappeared
       | from Bandcamp and so did my purchases. And Bandcamp is better in
       | this than others.)
       | 
       | You can download all these from torrent trackers.
       | 
       | Tell me true, if you can't buy them how on earth it is piracy to
       | download them?
        
         | Damogran6 wrote:
         | I got a free download of one of the more forgetful Terminator
         | movies on....Universal? Can't get that back.
         | 
         | RCA Lyra protected music? Gone.
         | 
         | Paid $10 to Harvey Danger for 'Little by Little' and hey, I can
         | still get it. That's a surprise.
        
         | pavel_lishin wrote:
         | > _Tell me true, if you can 't buy them how on earth it is
         | piracy to download them?_
         | 
         | People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they want
         | to make their creations available. If I don't want to sell you
         | something, then I'd entertain the argument that downloading it
         | anyway is in some sense immoral or unethical.
         | 
         | But in your situation, you've already fucking bought it! It's
         | as if you placed a pick-up order at the bookstore, showed up to
         | pick up your books, and they told you to eat shit. In which
         | case, acquiring it through other means is completely
         | acceptable, morally and ethically.
        
           | BobaFloutist wrote:
           | I agree (or at least see the argument) if it's like the
           | original creator who decided they want to keep their hands on
           | the work (or _maybe_ like if a company wants to withdraw one
           | edition of a book to sell a new edition), but in cases where
           | works are orphaned, or the rights are in limbo, or a huge
           | corporation merges with another huge corporation and
           | permanently deletes creators ' works for a tax break, I don't
           | think there's any real argument.
           | 
           | If I Johnny writer am like "Ok when I was 15 I thought that
           | many consecutive slurs was funny, but now the alt-right is
           | rallying around what was supposed to be satire, so I want it
           | off the market" that's kind of reasonable. If James Writerson
           | has classics that are kind of out of fashion and got
           | converted to ebooks by Big Publisher(tm) which was then
           | bought by Bigger Publisher(tm) who decides it's not worth the
           | money to keep the classics on the market (but also refuses to
           | release them back to the estate of James Writerson or to the
           | general public), that's less reasonable.
        
           | vanchor3 wrote:
           | > People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they
           | want to make their creations available. If I don't want to
           | sell you something, then I'd entertain the argument that
           | downloading it anyway is in some sense immoral or unethical.
           | 
           | I would say another key distinction is between "don't want to
           | sell/can't sell" vs "don't want you to buy". In the former it
           | may be because the owner does not want to go through the
           | trouble of selling it or is no longer around to sell it. I
           | know some people have given up because the effort to deal
           | with "trolls" (particularly DMCA and fakes) has either turned
           | their passion into a nightmare or it's not really their
           | passion anymore and they don't want to deal with it.
        
           | JohnFen wrote:
           | > People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they
           | want to make their creations available.
           | 
           | But this gets complicated. I wanted to post a song from a
           | somewhat obscure '80s band on my website and so tracked them
           | down and asked for permission.
           | 
           | One of them (the songwriter) responded to say that the band
           | has never had the rights to the music on that album and, in
           | fact, they don't even have a recording of it themselves. In
           | his words "as far as I'm concerned, you can do whatever you
           | want with that stuff". I posted the song and sent him a high-
           | quality copy of the album it came from.
        
             | joemi wrote:
             | That's not complicated, though. The artist is not the
             | seller. The artist already sold their rights. Whoever
             | bought the rights is the seller. You might choose to
             | disregard that because the artist said they don't care, but
             | their opinion is meaningless, so it should not be the basis
             | of your argument.
        
         | kleiba wrote:
         | _> the ones I purchased_
         | 
         | This is were you went wrong.
        
           | gpvos wrote:
           | Incorrect. They actually purchased them and could download
           | them, DRM-free. (At least if the other services listed are
           | like Bandcamp.) You should archive them yourself after
           | downloading. The fact that you can download them again from
           | the server, or maybe stream them, is an additional service,
           | it's not the thing itself.
           | 
           | That being said, when something is not sold anymore, I'd say
           | it's fair game to torrent it or upload it wherever.
        
         | c0pium wrote:
         | Where did you purchase The Wheel of Time complete edition from?
         | I just checked and my downloads still work.
        
         | Modified3019 wrote:
         | Reminder to archive all bandcamp purchases
         | 
         | https://github.com/easlice/bandcamp-downloader
         | 
         | I have a windows oriented "get past setup pain points" tutorial
         | here: https://github.com/easlice/bandcamp-downloader/issues/21
         | 
         | For generating a cookie file, I suggest just using
         | https://github.com/hrdl-github/cookies-txt I should really
         | write up a full Linux and windows setup guide and submit it.
         | 
         | Likewise, people who use bandcamp are likely to use GOG, which
         | also has purchase archiving tools available on GitHub. I've
         | used https://github.com/Kalanyr/gogrepoc for a long time, but
         | there are actually multiple projects now.
        
         | niccl wrote:
         | > Tell me true, if you can't buy them how on earth it is piracy
         | to download them?
         | 
         | My daughter, doing a journalism course assignment, once asked
         | Maddy Prior of Steeleye Span (not a _huge_ artist, but
         | reasonably well known towards the end of last century) about
         | this. Maddy's comment was basically the same. She'd rather you
         | bought something legally, but if it's not available (some of
         | their back catalogue had disappeared) then Maddy thought it was
         | fine to 'pirate' it.
        
         | Freak_NL wrote:
         | All of my Wheel of Time volumes are still there; I checked.
         | Granted, barring fire or a really thorough or oddly specific
         | burglar, they're not likely to go anywhere (although I suspect
         | my son will devour them once he's mastered reading English and
         | can reach that top shelf).
        
         | JohnFen wrote:
         | > one of my favorite artists have disappeared from Bandcamp and
         | so did my purchases.
         | 
         | Always download the flac of the music you purchase on Bandcamp.
         | Then your purchases won't ever go away.
        
       | oldandboring wrote:
       | In a very strange way it's almost a return to the pre-VHS days
       | (for video) and pre-vinyl days (for music). You could enjoy the
       | content streamed to you over the airwaves but that was it.
        
         | xerox13ster wrote:
         | In the order that they wanted you to hear it.
        
           | maratc wrote:
           | With unskippable ads.
        
         | creer wrote:
         | There was very little time like that. Where you couldn't hold
         | in your hands the content that you bought.
         | 
         | Radio broadcast becomes popular in 1920-1930. While records
         | playing speed standardizes in the late 1920s. Say Wikipedia.The
         | vinyl single and LP are later but you easily buy records long
         | before vinyl. If anything, I don't know that there were paying
         | streaming formats in early radio.
         | 
         | There was probably quite a bit of content that was played live
         | on the radio - and not available as recordings. And it would
         | have been pretty hardcore to make your own recording of the
         | stream.
        
       | sertbdfgbnfgsd wrote:
       | - Download mp3
       | 
       | - Play on VLC.
       | 
       | Not complicated.
        
         | mattl wrote:
         | Download the MP3 from where? If you want a copy of a well known
         | song, you might find one, but for something else you might
         | struggle to find one. Your best bet is to buy used CDs and rip
         | them yourself.
        
           | Nemrod67 wrote:
           | rutracker.org has many things archived
        
         | pavel_lishin wrote:
         | The article clearly explained that this was not possible in
         | their case.
        
         | pimlottc wrote:
         | It's not that simple for the poster's use case, which is "play
         | whatever my kids want to hear while we're in the car"
        
           | sertbdfgbnfgsd wrote:
           | My kid is only 2 years old, but when he can understand the
           | concept I will be sure to teach him that he doesn't have an
           | arbitrarily large choice, he can only choose from within the
           | options we have available.
        
           | paradox460 wrote:
           | Download MP3
           | 
           | Put on Plex/Jellyfin/Subsonic
           | 
           | Play in car
        
       | whywhywhywhy wrote:
       | > as Sony just decided to yoink over a thousand seasons--that's
       | right, seasons, not episodes--of Discovery shows from the
       | PlayStation Store
       | 
       | Didn't realize Sony owned Discovery, oh wait they don't. So it's
       | actually Discovery who's licensing caused Sony to be legally
       | obligated to remove the shows.
       | 
       | Sucks if you bought it but yeah just like the games in your Steam
       | library you never actually owned it, you merely licensed it.
        
         | jefftk wrote:
         | Sony shouldn't have sold shows to their customers without first
         | negotiating contracts with the rightsholders ensuring Sony
         | wouldn't have to renege.
        
           | BizarroLand wrote:
           | And really, Netflix screwed the pooch on this one right at
           | the start by not making licensing rights irrevocable.
           | 
           | They could have said, "we'll pay $0.XXX per stream" and media
           | companies would have said, "yay, more money for old crap we
           | don't care about any more" and that would have been that.
           | 
           | But because they didn't make it irrevocable, companies have
           | been rug pulling customers ever since
        
         | pierat wrote:
         | > Sucks if you bought it but yeah just like the games in your
         | Steam library you never actually owned it, you merely licensed
         | it.
         | 
         | If you're lied to about a "sale" and it's really just a shitty
         | rental, we have a different word for that: FRAUD.
         | 
         | And the action that Sony hacked devices and removed said
         | content? It mirrors the individual form of this (
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38614624 ), which is
         | "horribly illegal". I argue it pales in comparison to Sony's
         | actions.
        
           | thfuran wrote:
           | It shouldn't be legal for a transfer of a revocable license
           | to be described as "buying".
        
           | thomastjeffery wrote:
           | If you want a story about Sony and lawsuits for hacking
           | devices, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS
        
         | CaptainFever wrote:
         | It doesn't matter whose fault it is. Companies are still
         | stealing from the customers.
        
         | BobaFloutist wrote:
         | Content I have bought and downloaded should be as irrevocable
         | as a book on my bookshelf.
         | 
         | "Licensed" is a made up word. Did I buy it? It's mine. Did I
         | rent it? It's no longer mine after the rental period is over.
         | End of story.
        
       | RecycledEle wrote:
       | The Chinese system of central libraries is better than copyright.
       | 
       | Imagine having every book ever written, for free, all your life.
       | 
       | Imagine authors and inventors being compensated twice what they
       | are usually paid in the USA, while the corporate lawyers
       | panhandle.
       | 
       | I know the lawyers would end up as party higher-ups still
       | screwing us, but I can dream.
        
         | rakoo wrote:
         | A central, government-run library only shifts censorship from
         | "not profitable" to "not in line with authority". It's not
         | automatically better, but it's the logical one anyway when
         | there's a ruling State.
        
         | BobaFloutist wrote:
         | In a system like that, how do you decide which authors get paid
         | what? Is it per check-out with a floor?
         | 
         | I'm genuinely curious.
        
       | georgeecollins wrote:
       | I buy mp3s so I will always have them. People think I am a crank-
       | maybe so.
       | 
       | The difference with media today is that the control often stays
       | in the hands of another party, often not the rights holder. I can
       | accept that knowing that everything I buy I am just renting.
       | 
       | The thing that scares me is how a third party can make something
       | effectively impossible to discover. In this generation that's
       | done for profit. But you can imagine where that will lead when
       | what everyone sees is curated in a way they aren't aware of.
        
       | at_a_remove wrote:
       | I'm considering some kind of combination of autoloader feeding
       | either Exact Audio Copy (which isn't set up for them) or
       | dbpoweramp (which apparently _is_ set up for them) to get
       | metadata, then I guess I will have to pirate or rebuy discs when
       | the AccurateRip indicates that there 's some damage to the disc.
       | 
       | I've avoided iTunes and its descendants due to all of the horror
       | stories about destroyed music libraries and music "helpfully"
       | replaced in error. Similarly, I haven't signed up for any
       | streaming music since I have an el-cheapo plan and these services
       | sound like they tell _you_ what to listen to.
       | 
       | I think having somewhat weird tastes in music and being
       | _particular_ about it has some overlap with having to seek
       | technical solutions which are also not-mainsteam. I am reminded
       | of Pictures for Sad Children, wherein a character 's musical
       | preference is "Whatever is on the radio, played a reasonable
       | volume." and realize I am at the other end of that spectrum.
        
         | miah_ wrote:
         | There are some highly opinionated open source tools that do
         | this, like whipper. Getting it all working is.. a bit
         | frustrating. I do wish that whipper had more knobs to tweak
         | rather than being very opinionated in how it rips and what it
         | outputs.
         | 
         | For fixing up metadata of your existing collection there is
         | Picard.
         | 
         | https://github.com/whipper-team/whipper
         | 
         | https://picard.musicbrainz.org/
        
         | paradox460 wrote:
         | I've long thought about getting an old Bravo CD burning robot,
         | and making it run "backwards". Always been a "I oughtta"
         | project
        
       | jrm4 wrote:
       | I'm curious as to when exactly these takes are generally going to
       | move from
       | 
       | "Please let me have the thing I want and reasonably should have"
       | 
       | to an open
       | 
       | "Eff it, the tech is here, I'm just taking copies now and you
       | should too."
       | 
       | (not that I ought to support that sort of thing, since I am a
       | lawyer and we have promulgated standards of professional behavior
       | I shall tell all of you that that second thing is bad, very bad.)
        
       | pkdpic wrote:
       | Glad to see this pop up, its been a weirdly big struggle for me
       | as a new-ish parent.
       | 
       | For a while my ancient CD collection and healthy ecosystem of
       | local used vinyl / CD stores had us in a nice routine in
       | conjunction with youtube-dl and my posse of old Sony voice memo
       | usb mp3 players.
       | 
       | Then youtube-dl wasn't a thing anymore (maybe it is again?)...
       | 
       | Then we had to get a new car (a Tacoma)...
       | 
       | No CD player, no aux cable.
       | 
       | I had really bad early experiences with apple music and Spotify
       | not having stuff I wanted. Unclear artist support reputations
       | also (Im no expert there). But it all had heavy Enshittification
       | vibes early on IMHO.
       | 
       | Anyway somehow in my exhausted dad mental state I've concluded
       | that buying albums on iTunes like a maniac is at least worth a
       | try before augmenting my car to have an aux cable and / or
       | peripheral CD player. I held off buying albums on iTunes
       | literally until 2 months ago. Very strange but maybe working.
       | 
       | Anyway curious what other folks are doing as far as listening to
       | music. This article was spot on but I needed a Solutions
       | section...
        
         | all2 wrote:
         | Youtube-dl still functions quite well. You can even grab the
         | CLI here: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl
         | 
         | And occasionally you can find one of their TLDs just by doing a
         | search on DDG or Brave.
        
         | teddyh wrote:
         | > _Then youtube-dl wasn 't a thing anymore (maybe it is
         | again?)..._
         | 
         | yt-dlp is definitely a thing: <https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
         | dlp>
        
         | gkbrk wrote:
         | youtube-dl is still a thing, last commit was one week ago.
         | 
         | https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commits/master
        
         | BobaFloutist wrote:
         | How expensive is it to swap out the media player in your car
         | for something with an aux port? Alternatively, does it not have
         | a USB port?
        
         | verve_rat wrote:
         | Try an fm transmitter?
         | 
         | Plug it into a 12v socket (cigarette lighter socket) and plug
         | the audio cable into the headphones jack. Tune the radio to the
         | set frequency. Bob's your uncle.
         | 
         | https://www.amazon.com/s?k=fm+transmitter+for+car&crid=XYUJ3...
        
       | DavideNL wrote:
       | Anyone else here also still using LogitechMediaServer (and iPeng)
       | to stream their own music?
       | 
       | Such an old system (written in Perl), but still runs great!
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logitech_Media_Server
       | https://github.com/Logitech/slimserver
       | https://hub.docker.com/r/lmscommunity/logitechmediaserver
        
         | venachescu wrote:
         | There are dozens of us! Dozens!
        
         | AtiRadeon9700 wrote:
         | I threw that old thing (logitech squeezebox) in the recycling.
         | 
         | With how warm it was in standby I bet it cost more money in
         | power bills than itself don'tcha know.
        
       | donatj wrote:
       | I still use whatever they call the service where my ripped CDs
       | get uploaded to my Apple Music library. I have quite a few albums
       | physically that their library lacks and it's been nice to be able
       | to listen to them in my car.
       | 
       | Over the last 3 to 4 years though more and more of my music
       | living in the cloud has gotten corrupted, to the point that
       | something like 1 in 10 songs is unlistenable. The source material
       | in my main library still plays fine, nothing wrong with it, but
       | play it on any other device it pops and skips.
       | 
       | Doing some googling, I don't seem to be alone in this. It's
       | honestly infuriating and has me potentially searching for some
       | other service.
        
       | high_5 wrote:
       | The true anarchism to the enshittification of the music services
       | would be to just sing or whistle the songs.
        
         | 082349872349872 wrote:
         | I've heard rumours there are even analogue "musical
         | instruments" which can be used (especially during Carnaval) to
         | cover music...
        
       | akokanka wrote:
       | Torrent and terabytes of data on hard disk ftw!
        
       | gambiting wrote:
       | The thing that really worries me and which no one seems to be
       | talking about is the region locking of localisation for streaming
       | content.
       | 
       | For context - we're a Polish family living in the UK(like 2
       | million other Polish people). We have a small child who loves
       | Disney films, and because he is normally exposed to English(and
       | speaks it fluently) I'd like him to at least watch cartoons in
       | Polish. But Disney region locks most(not all, but majority) of
       | Polish localisation to Poland only. When we visit Poland I can
       | watch all Disney content in Polish on my UK account without any
       | issue - but when we're in the UK these localisation options
       | disappear. So Disney clearly has those options but chooses not to
       | offer them.
       | 
       | So right now, at least we can still buy DVDs or have those
       | shipped over. But it's clear that Disney wants to stop
       | distribution of physical media - as they've already done in some
       | regions.
       | 
       | What then for multilingual families? Just "suck it up" and don't
       | have access to content in my language, because I don't happen to
       | currently live in Poland?
        
         | keiferski wrote:
         | For your situation specifically check out this site. I think
         | there are some cartoons:
         | 
         | https://35mm.online/
        
         | ssss11 wrote:
         | That's a fascinating perspective which I wasn't aware of -
         | locking of language localisation. Thanks for raising.
        
         | fragmede wrote:
         | While there is the bigger picture to consider, my solution to
         | get access to Swedish content for my then-partner while we were
         | in the US was to use a VPN. Mullvad worked for local content,
         | but if you still have friends/family back home, a tailscale
         | exit node might work better, especially for Disney+.
        
         | jareklupinski wrote:
         | would love a solution for this too
         | 
         | raising bi-lingual kids is much easier when you can give them
         | second language media, and it doesn't seem like it would be an
         | expensive flag for Disney to flip...
         | 
         | might even be an opportunity to rebrand themselves as
         | educational...
        
       | thomastjeffery wrote:
       | > Enshittification has reached new heights, as Sony just decided
       | to yoink over a thousand seasons--that's right, seasons, not
       | episodes--of Discovery shows from the PlayStation Store.
       | 
       | > But they're not just removing them from the store.
       | 
       | > They're removing them from people's libraries.
       | 
       | That's called fraud. Why in the world are we not prosecuting it?
        
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