[HN Gopher] The MP3.com Rescue Barge Barge
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       The MP3.com Rescue Barge Barge
        
       Author : CharlesW
       Score  : 64 points
       Date   : 2025-10-26 20:23 UTC (8 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.somnolescent.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.somnolescent.net)
        
       | amatecha wrote:
       | Wow, hell yes, thank you. Found a very old remix a friend made of
       | one of my songs! Unfortunately looks like another friend's songs
       | weren't archived. A bunch of mine were though. Awesome! <3
        
       | buildbot wrote:
       | I really hate how often modern UIs forgot that sometimes a folder
       | might have _literally Cthulhu_ (A.K.A 4 billion 1kb text files)
       | in it and will absolutely fall apart - looking at you cursor.
        
         | stronglikedan wrote:
         | or 4 billion levels of subfolder like npm (I haven't used it in
         | years now, but maybe they've fixed it since.)
        
         | ronsor wrote:
         | It's not even UIs--most filesystems hate tons of small files in
         | a single directory. It really shouldn't be done.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | I got my taste of "full" folders with NT during the early
           | days of DVD programming. The software would write everything
           | into a single directory where it would create at least 3
           | files per source asset. We were working a specialty DVD that
           | had 100k assets. The software+NT would crash crash crash. The
           | next year the project came through, we were on a newer
           | version of the software running Win2k and performance was
           | much improved using same hardware. I haven't had to do
           | anything with a folder that full in years, but I'd assume it
           | is less of a chore than the days of NT. Then again, it could
           | have gotten better, but then regressed as well. Really, I'm
           | just happy I don't get any where close to that to find out.
        
       | Thev00d00 wrote:
       | Oh man, as a casual Musicbrainz contributor, we need to get these
       | added/linked
        
       | echelon wrote:
       | I feel like we'll not only live to see the day where we're
       | finally out from under the clutches of the RIAA, but that that
       | day is fast approaching.
       | 
       | The death of the RIAA will come from an open source music gen
       | model that busts open the economics of music IP. And probably one
       | from the Chinese.
       | 
       | It's been announced that AI-generated music is already starting
       | to top charts [1, 2]. The RIAA moved to shut down Udio [3, 4] and
       | succeeded in getting them to capitulate to onerous demands [5].
       | They're probably trying to shut down Suno and the rest as we
       | speak.
       | 
       | If a solid music gen model comes out of China, the RIAA will be
       | toast.
       | 
       | Nobody is going to go after every single song published and ask
       | them to show their sources. That's absurd. There just aren't the
       | resources to do that. And generative software will eventually
       | generate those anyway.
       | 
       | Once this begins to proliferate in the open, there won't be any
       | control levers left.
       | 
       | The RIAA couldn't stop RVC models. Once there are more powerful
       | models, it's game over. Every DAW will bake them in and everyone
       | will have a complete working studio on their desktop.
       | 
       | Tencent is working really hard on this [6, 7]. There's no way the
       | tentacles of the RIAA can stop China.
       | 
       | We've already artists switching to concerts and merch as the
       | primary means of revenue generation. Switching to using singles
       | and albums are more promotional of the artists' brands - that's
       | the correct model.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.billboard.com/lists/ai-artists-on-billboard-
       | char...
       | 
       | [2] https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/01/entertainment/xania-monet-
       | bil...
       | 
       | [3] https://www.riaa.com/record-companies-bring-landmark-
       | cases-f...
       | 
       | [4] https://musically.com/2025/09/29/riaa-updates-udio-
       | lawsuit-a...
       | 
       | [5] https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/universal-music-
       | settl...
       | 
       | [6] https://cypress-yang.github.io/SongBloom_demo/
       | 
       | [7] https://github.com/tencent-ailab/SongBloom
        
         | goopypoop wrote:
         | mush can't save art
        
           | echelon wrote:
           | You can make art with literally anything.
           | 
           | I once hooked up lasers, galvos, and a web cam with some band
           | pass filters to make an interactive art demo where people
           | could draw onto the side of tall buildings using a laser
           | pointer. The web cam tracked the laser pointer and the
           | projector I built traced your work and displayed it with
           | persistence.
           | 
           | None of those ingredients would scream art at face value. It
           | takes an artist to assemble them into something that
           | captivates others.
           | 
           | AI is simply one more tool in the tool belt for an artist.
           | 
           | You might be talking about "prompting". Such as someone
           | typing something lazily into ChatGPT and calling the output
           | "art". I'll give you that. Without sufficient intention,
           | taste, or curation, it's not going to hold attention.
           | 
           | I'm talking about tools for artists like these:
           | 
           | https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQaorWJETXe/
           | 
           | https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQakfG2D3tN/
           | 
           | https://x.com/get_artcraft/status/1972723816087392450
           | (something I made)
           | 
           | Or tools for musicians like these:
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN2CQLZIlbI
           | 
           | Or even interactive art that leverages AI and involves the
           | viewer, like these:
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fW9LI6dwCX8
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hnIPdVZK1A
           | 
           | I'm a filmmaker and I've made countless "photons on glass"
           | films. AI tools are incredible at getting ideas out of my
           | head and into yours on both a time and monetary budget.
           | 
           | I'm elated that Disney- and Pixar-level VFX are now within
           | scope and that I don't have to be born as a nepo baby in
           | order to direct a film with "Disney-caliber" visuals.
           | 
           | One last analogy using pre-AI tech: not all cameras produce
           | art. We have them in our cell phones and can use them to snap
           | selfies and food pics. But in the hands of the right person
           | or under the right conditions, we might call the outputs of
           | the process of photography "art".
        
         | BigTTYGothGF wrote:
         | > The death of the RIAA will come from an open source music gen
         | model that busts open the economics of music IP.
         | 
         | The master's house will not be destroyed by cow tools.
        
         | officeplant wrote:
         | >It's been announced that AI-generated music is already
         | starting to top charts
         | 
         | It's not hard to be slop with slop. If we're being honest here.
         | 
         | > Every DAW will bake them in
         | 
         | And this is when my love of music will finally start to die.
         | Living long enough to see DAWs elevate the common hobby
         | musician into developing a skillset, only to give in to the AI
         | hype cycles and kill the soul of creativity.
         | 
         | But at least the main DAW I use these days (Renoise) is so
         | traditionally minded that kind of slop shit will never make it
         | into an update since the userbase would riot in response.
         | 
         | May the AI enjoy the rot in their soulless world.
        
           | echelon wrote:
           | > It's not hard to be slop with slop
           | 
           | A tool in and of itself is not slop.
           | 
           | What someone makes can classify as slop if the person doesn't
           | have skills and taste. If they're not diligent about their
           | work and careful about what they share.
           | 
           | A real artist is capable of using any tool available to them.
           | 
           | > Living long enough to see DAWs elevate the common hobby
           | musician into developing a skillset, only to give in to the
           | AI hype cycles and kill the soul of creativity.
           | 
           | Are you angry about AI code completion? Is tab
           | suggest/autocomplete ruining your love of programming?
           | 
           | Are all the "common hobbyists" going to make you exit your
           | career?
        
       | IshKebab wrote:
       | It's been a while... what kind of music was on mp3.com? Is this
       | commercial stuff? Small bands?
        
         | adzm wrote:
         | It was mostly indie bands and self-published stuff, at least
         | when I used to use it. The idea I think was a place for legal
         | music sharing without piracy. At some point it started becoming
         | more of a web magazine thing and I kinda forgot about it.
        
         | comprev wrote:
         | There was once a band called Hybrid Theory who had a name clash
         | with another band on MP3.com at the time, so instead they
         | called their debut album by that name. The band instead renamed
         | to Linkin Park :)
         | 
         | (At least that's what I remember reading - the band certainly
         | changed it's name from Hybrid Theory)
        
         | bnpxft wrote:
         | it was essentially bandcamp before bandcamp
        
         | AlyssaRowan wrote:
         | All kinds of self-published stuff, lots of which later _became_
         | commercial. You will have heard of some of it, for _sure_.
         | Darude - Sandstorm? That was from there. DragonForce were big
         | in the power metal category. The band that became Linkin Park
         | came from there. And then hundreds of thousands of indie
         | artists (including an earlier me).
         | 
         | The RIAA's action there destroyed vast amounts of music, pretty
         | much the equivalent of if someone just aggressively deleted
         | Bandcamp and Soundcloud put together and everything on it
         | because they were upset they didn't control it all. I will
         | _never_ forgive them for that.
        
       | fragmede wrote:
       | Hey can someone seed the L directory for all_music_2023.torrent?
       | I've almost got it fully downloaded but just that one's missing.
        
       | 4cidBurn wrote:
       | I haven't had a chance to download The Barge yet; it's still on
       | my to-do list. A few months ago, back in July, I went through the
       | PureVolume archives and built a handy searchable database and
       | app. It ended up being about 181GB, so I didn't want to host it
       | myself, but I did make a torrent.
        
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       (page generated 2025-11-03 23:00 UTC)