10 ms·

Be better than free? Exactly on point. The reason I stopped pirating music wasn't because I thought there was anything wrong with it. I stopped pirating music

Be better than free? Exactly on point. The reason I stopped pirating music wasn't because I thought there was anything wrong with it. I stopped pirating music because services like spotify have so many value adds for such a low monthly cost that it makes sense to use their services rather than pirate. Spotify offered something better than free. It's time for industries that haven't caught up with the times to start rethinking their business model. Opinions on IP aside, piracy is going nowhere and trying to fight the pirates based on ethics is futile.

simplify 9y ago
To be fair, spotify was able to thrive because the pirate-solution alternative got shut down (grooveshark).
- santoshalper 9y ago
  And Napster before that et al. However, I would still rather use Spotify than go through the bother of downloading dodgy MP3s and synching them to all my devices. I think Spotify's model killed music piracy much more than legal action ever did.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - charrondev 9y ago
    Besides the convienience of streaming, I stick with spotify for their discovery features, and radios that are very targeted and generally produce good results. Their Discovery Weekly, Release Radar, and Daily Mix playlist offer far more value than any other music service has. Even though I could through a minor effort, take my entire back catalogue of MP3’s (many were pirated and very clearly sorted and organized), pirate a bunch of new content, and upload it all to a streaming service like Google Play Music, I don’t because then I would be missing out on killer curation and discovery features music services offer today.
  - mgkimsal 9y ago
    Maybe I just downloaded different stuff, but I think I can count on one hand the number of 'dodgy' MP3 files I ever got from napster/limewire. Even to this day I have friends who say "oh, i never torrent anything today - I got sick of all the viruses I got from limewire whenever I tried to get mp3 files". What on earth were people doing (or searching for) to get viruses from mp3 files? I do recall reading about some trend major publishers did, with seeding 'bad' versions of songs with the same titles as the 'real' ones, confusing people in to wasting bandwidth and resharing 'bad' files. Was that terribly effective?
    - tokenizerrr 9y ago
      They were being idiots and not paying attention to file types. GoodMusic.mp3.exe
    - seszett 9y ago
      > I do recall reading about some trend major publishers did, with seeding 'bad' versions of songs with the same titles as the 'real' ones, confusing people in to wasting bandwidth and resharing 'bad' files. Was that terribly effective? I remember Madonna's "What the fuck do you think you're doing" mp3's. But it really didn't make me change my habits, or even really annoy me. Actually, I still haven't changed my habits, as Spotify and Deezer don't have everything I want to listen to, and unlike Grooveshark, they don't allow me to add my own music.
      - mgkimsal 9y ago
        yeah - I use spotify, but it doesn't have everything I always want - maybe... ~80%. live stuff, bootlegs, etc from various folks, they don't have. Not really their fault specifically, but it doesn't cover all my needs/wants.
- programbreeding 9y ago
  I don't think most people were using grooveshark BECAUSE it was a pirate-solution. They had paid plans as well that allowed you to do more than the free ones. I don't think most people knew there was any real difference between grooveshark and spotify.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  I've never used Spotify, but even I mostly stopped pirating too... other legal means are just too easy and cheap, and increasingly likely to actually support the artist.
- tw04 9y ago
  Grooveshark is exactly the point though. The reason they were better than Spotify was because they had EVERYTHING at a time when other services had much smaller catalogues. Now the movie industry is headed down the same path. No Disney, having your own service isn't going to increase demand, it's going to drive people back to piracy.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    I'm at this point already. The price for most video streaming services would be okay if it gave me access to all the content. But I'm never going to pay for Netflix and Amazon and Disney and YouTube Red and the list goes on when I just want to watch one show on each service.
    - tokenizerrr 9y ago
      YouTube red isn't even available in my country for some reason. According to advertisements I'd get it with my Google music subscription. Nope. Not available for some reason so enjoy the ads of course no access to their specific content. Back to Spotify and ublock I went.
LoSboccacc 9y ago
true. happily paying netflix and spotify. if there were a better one to pay for a larger catalogue internationally, I'd be on that. if all you've left is handcuffing customers, your business is already dead.
linkmotif 9y ago
Except Spotify doesn't pay artists. I'd be glad to pay them if they paid artists.
- cm2012 9y ago
  They pay more than radio per listen.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - coldtea 9y ago
    The are serving songs on demand where radio is not, so what they pay shouldn't be compared with radio.
    - mahyarm 9y ago
      So instead of the record firm chosen top 50 and the nostalgia 200 it gives the long tail radio play payments too.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      It isn't clear what this means. Are you saying that radio isn't as valuable because we can't be sure that anyone is listening? That isn't the way that radio sells its advertising: "We charge less for ads because much of the time nobody is listening!" Beside the study that GP presumably references [0] specifically controlled for audience size. [0] http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1155395/business-matters-why-spotify-royalties-are-greater-than-radio-royalties http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1155395/business-...
      - mortehu 9y ago
        Radio isn't as valuable because you don't get to choose what you're listening to. Your favorite artist may never be on the radio.
      - 9y ago
coldtea 9y ago
>I stopped pirating music because services like spotify have so many value adds for such a low monthly cost that it makes sense to use their services rather than pirate. That's good and all, but we can imagine a volunteer-run service that's just as good or better than Spotify -- but it's based on piracy. We could also imagine it reaching the pinnacle or convenience, so nothing else could be added except marginal improvements. Would that make using it OK -- that there's no other paid alternative that's more convenient? In the end somebody got to pay the artists both for the production costs and for making a living on top of them. And I don't say every artist deserves money just because they are an artist -- but every artist that people actually listen to they work does deserve a cut for that.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Whether it's OK is the wrong question. The right question is what people do, which is largely unrelated. You can talk about how artists need to be paid until the end of time, but that won't change people's behavior much.
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    It might when creators stop creating - which, arguably, is already happening. There aren't many people arguing that the 2010s have been a better decade for music than the 60s to 90s. Of course, this assumes consumers and content distributors can join the dots - and so far there isn't much evidence they can.
    - SapphireSun 9y ago
      Artists are labor for labels, if labels figured out how to get paid better, the vast majority of their artists would not be paid much better. The point of the label in a for profit system is to capture value by intermediating between producers and consumers. Musicians by themselves are often very poor at capturing economic value. Since the producers are obligated to maximize profits for their shareholders under most corporate structures by supreme court decisions, their focus will be to reduce labor costs while maximizing total revenue from consumers. There are no winners here except the distributors. Some kind of artist cooperative is a necessity. Then at least the smaller creators will get paid fairly. It's also worth noting that part of the reason the UK has/had such a vibrant music scene is the dole. That is, they pay their artists to let them do their thing. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/money-are-you-ready-to-rock-n-dole-1167173.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/money-are-y... https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/role-of-the-dole-how-benefits-benefit-artists-1.530599 https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/role-of-th...

simplify 9y ago

To be fair, spotify was able to thrive because the pirate-solution alternative got shut down (grooveshark).

santoshalper 9y ago
And Napster before that et al. However, I would still rather use Spotify than go through the bother of downloading dodgy MP3s and synching them to all my devices. I think Spotify's model killed music piracy much more than legal action ever did.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- charrondev 9y ago
  Besides the convienience of streaming, I stick with spotify for their discovery features, and radios that are very targeted and generally produce good results. Their Discovery Weekly, Release Radar, and Daily Mix playlist offer far more value than any other music service has. Even though I could through a minor effort, take my entire back catalogue of MP3’s (many were pirated and very clearly sorted and organized), pirate a bunch of new content, and upload it all to a streaming service like Google Play Music, I don’t because then I would be missing out on killer curation and discovery features music services offer today.
- mgkimsal 9y ago
  Maybe I just downloaded different stuff, but I think I can count on one hand the number of 'dodgy' MP3 files I ever got from napster/limewire. Even to this day I have friends who say "oh, i never torrent anything today - I got sick of all the viruses I got from limewire whenever I tried to get mp3 files". What on earth were people doing (or searching for) to get viruses from mp3 files? I do recall reading about some trend major publishers did, with seeding 'bad' versions of songs with the same titles as the 'real' ones, confusing people in to wasting bandwidth and resharing 'bad' files. Was that terribly effective?
  - tokenizerrr 9y ago
    They were being idiots and not paying attention to file types. GoodMusic.mp3.exe
  - seszett 9y ago
    > I do recall reading about some trend major publishers did, with seeding 'bad' versions of songs with the same titles as the 'real' ones, confusing people in to wasting bandwidth and resharing 'bad' files. Was that terribly effective? I remember Madonna's "What the fuck do you think you're doing" mp3's. But it really didn't make me change my habits, or even really annoy me. Actually, I still haven't changed my habits, as Spotify and Deezer don't have everything I want to listen to, and unlike Grooveshark, they don't allow me to add my own music.
    - mgkimsal 9y ago
      yeah - I use spotify, but it doesn't have everything I always want - maybe... ~80%. live stuff, bootlegs, etc from various folks, they don't have. Not really their fault specifically, but it doesn't cover all my needs/wants.
programbreeding 9y ago
I don't think most people were using grooveshark BECAUSE it was a pirate-solution. They had paid plans as well that allowed you to do more than the free ones. I don't think most people knew there was any real difference between grooveshark and spotify.
QAPereo 9y ago
I've never used Spotify, but even I mostly stopped pirating too... other legal means are just too easy and cheap, and increasingly likely to actually support the artist.
tw04 9y ago
Grooveshark is exactly the point though. The reason they were better than Spotify was because they had EVERYTHING at a time when other services had much smaller catalogues. Now the movie industry is headed down the same path. No Disney, having your own service isn't going to increase demand, it's going to drive people back to piracy.
- majewsky 9y ago
  I'm at this point already. The price for most video streaming services would be okay if it gave me access to all the content. But I'm never going to pay for Netflix and Amazon and Disney and YouTube Red and the list goes on when I just want to watch one show on each service.
  - tokenizerrr 9y ago
    YouTube red isn't even available in my country for some reason. According to advertisements I'd get it with my Google music subscription. Nope. Not available for some reason so enjoy the ads of course no access to their specific content. Back to Spotify and ublock I went.

LoSboccacc 9y ago

true. happily paying netflix and spotify. if there were a better one to pay for a larger catalogue internationally, I'd be on that. if all you've left is handcuffing customers, your business is already dead.

linkmotif 9y ago

Except Spotify doesn't pay artists. I'd be glad to pay them if they paid artists.

cm2012 9y ago
They pay more than radio per listen.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 9y ago
  The are serving songs on demand where radio is not, so what they pay shouldn't be compared with radio.
  - mahyarm 9y ago
    So instead of the record firm chosen top 50 and the nostalgia 200 it gives the long tail radio play payments too.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    It isn't clear what this means. Are you saying that radio isn't as valuable because we can't be sure that anyone is listening? That isn't the way that radio sells its advertising: "We charge less for ads because much of the time nobody is listening!" Beside the study that GP presumably references [0] specifically controlled for audience size. [0] http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1155395/business-matters-why-spotify-royalties-are-greater-than-radio-royalties http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1155395/business-...
    - mortehu 9y ago
      Radio isn't as valuable because you don't get to choose what you're listening to. Your favorite artist may never be on the radio.
    - 9y ago

coldtea 9y ago

>I stopped pirating music because services like spotify have so many value adds for such a low monthly cost that it makes sense to use their services rather than pirate. That's good and all, but we can imagine a volunteer-run service that's just as good or better than Spotify -- but it's based on piracy. We could also imagine it reaching the pinnacle or convenience, so nothing else could be added except marginal improvements. Would that make using it OK -- that there's no other paid alternative that's more convenient? In the end somebody got to pay the artists both for the production costs and for making a living on top of them. And I don't say every artist deserves money just because they are an artist -- but every artist that people actually listen to they work does deserve a cut for that.

mikeash 9y ago
Whether it's OK is the wrong question. The right question is what people do, which is largely unrelated. You can talk about how artists need to be paid until the end of time, but that won't change people's behavior much.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  It might when creators stop creating - which, arguably, is already happening. There aren't many people arguing that the 2010s have been a better decade for music than the 60s to 90s. Of course, this assumes consumers and content distributors can join the dots - and so far there isn't much evidence they can.
  - SapphireSun 9y ago
    Artists are labor for labels, if labels figured out how to get paid better, the vast majority of their artists would not be paid much better. The point of the label in a for profit system is to capture value by intermediating between producers and consumers. Musicians by themselves are often very poor at capturing economic value. Since the producers are obligated to maximize profits for their shareholders under most corporate structures by supreme court decisions, their focus will be to reduce labor costs while maximizing total revenue from consumers. There are no winners here except the distributors. Some kind of artist cooperative is a necessity. Then at least the smaller creators will get paid fairly. It's also worth noting that part of the reason the UK has/had such a vibrant music scene is the dole. That is, they pay their artists to let them do their thing. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/money-are-you-ready-to-rock-n-dole-1167173.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/money-are-y... https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/role-of-the-dole-how-benefits-benefit-artists-1.530599 https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/role-of-th...