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The submitted article doesn't mention it but my guess at connecting the dots is that it's related to EU Article 13's stringent requirement of "upload filters"[0

• toxik 7y ago
  Good job, EU! Squelch your citizenry in the interest of the copyright industry. Content filtering is draconian and fundamentally opposed to a free and open society.
  • jsilence 7y ago
    Self hosted, federated alternative: funkwhale.audio
    • indigochill 7y ago
      Is the theory that this will be more resistant to copyright takedowns (given the talk about "sharing music with friends") because takedowns will have to be issued to individual pods?
    • jakelazaroff 7y ago
      Does this pay artists? I can't find any mention of it on their website.
      • sethhochberg 7y ago
        They claim to specialize in copyleft content, so almost certainly not. The cynic in me thinks that in practice it'll be a fancy frontend for everybody's BitTorrent downloads folder... with an archive.org downloader script for some plausible deniability.
  • criley2 7y ago
    It keeps happening with their draconian regulations. After the privacy/data protection bill, I hear that the european market for online advertising imploded trying to meet regulations and Google Ads gobbled up some 30-40% more market share in Europe. It came down to the fact that Google was able to meet the regulations fastest, and achieve informed user consent across a wide userbase dramatically faster than small local outlets, so ad buyers flocked to the fastest and widest game in town. One example: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/image002.png https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/image002.p... Seems more true than ever that big regulations create big business moats that big businesses can easily absorb, but which demolish smaller businesses.
    • Semaphor 7y ago
      The whole GDPR thing was known years in advance and even smaller outfits would have had enough time to make changes. An additional anecdote: we experimentally tried a smaller German ad exchange (used by quite some big-name sites here). Profits went way up compared to AdSense. What also went way up was the amount of stupid, low effort clickbait-bullshit (which as a non-lawyer I sometimes questioned the legality off considering some told outright lies). We stopped using them shortly afterward.
    • dmitriid 7y ago
      Why do you think that advertising business is good and imploding ad business means privacy regulation is bad for small businesses in general? Besides, GDPR is an extension of similar laws that have existed for years.
      • criley2 7y ago
        * I didnt say ad business was good or bad, but from the perspective of a European I would want European firms competing against American firms and keeping money and talent in my borders to boost my communities. * I didn't say that imploding ad business means privacy regulation is bad for small business, but I did demonstrate that big regulation chokes out small business and strongly correlates with big business success
  • raverbashing 7y ago
    While I don't think it's exclusively due to it, it is certainly a factor A lot of independent artists supported art 13 though, let's see how they like this change
  • Broken_Hippo 7y ago
    Content filtering is draconian and fundamentally opposed to a free and open society. Now, I'm not a supporter of current copyright laws as I think they are absolutely ridiculous as is, however, I disagree with your statement. It all depends on who is doing the filtering. Done correctly, content screening is a part of a free and open society. And with some care, sometimes it is required. I am also going to assume that you are more referring to the entertainment industry than the "copyright industry" since the topic is content instead of, say, logos or toaster design. If I had children, I'd really want age-appropriate filtering to be available and I understand someone wanting "wholesome" content for themselves. I simply don't want them choosing for me and I am not the one to choose for my spouse. In most cases, as long as I have control over what sorts of content filtering I'm good. I do think society should be free from rhetoric that puts others in danger (anti-vaxx) or that calls for dehumanizing or wiping out others or their religion in most cases (white supremacy, for example). I don't think we should be so open that our brains fall out, in other words. But more to the point: All of that entertainment that was listed was made by someone. Likely many someones. So was the music people listen to in a store. And the art people look at in restaurants and people's homes.I completely understand people wanting to make money from their own work. When there is absolutely no screening, you get places that steal others work - music, art, entertainment, and so on - and make money from it. This might come in the form of making purses and coffee cups with art or someone getting taking your music and performing it for money. It is a real issue - and the "big industries" are not innocent of this. So yeah, if it is technologically possible for an entity to filter content based on these things, I can understand requiring it. Beethoven might not have been able to stop folks from memorising his music and playing it in a foreign land, but he would have had a chance with today's tech. Content filtering itself isn't bad - and I post this on a site that filters content to a point - and it doesn't make the "copyright industry" bad. The copyright laws make the copyright stuff bad.
    • toxik 7y ago
      I would be cautious about defending those that have, from those that do not. The general public does not have the kinds of money and resources that the copyright lobby does. For that is the first point to counter your argument: the copyright industry is not mainly looking out for artists, it is looking out for itself and its benefactors. Ask any musician what percentages of royalties they get from their song, it's a joke at this point. Live performances are the sustenance of musical artists today. That is not to say that I don't defend the rights of artists to their work; I do. But that isn't what this battle is about, this is a battle against the same industry that finds it pertinent to send out mass blackmail letters to families, to single mothers, to depressed people. It is surely going to be one of those things that we look back on in decades to come and go "what the f--- were we thinking?" Finally, you have to take a wider view in these matters than saying "there is some configuration of content filtering that I find acceptable," because once you have content filtering laws in place, people who you disagree with can co-opt this into a totalitarian state. You do not know who will have the keys to the kingdom come tomorrow.
• _fizz_buzz_ 7y ago
  I think that's unlikely. If I am not mistaken, the EU directive will not be implemented for another two years.
  • jasode 7y ago
    Is there an advantage for Spotify to allow 2 more years of copyright-infringing uploads that they have to clean up later? Is there another plausible reason for Spotify shutting down direct uploads that's unrelated to copyrights?
    • sk0g 7y ago
      Yeah, they could build an in house alternative to the YouTube algorithm to detect dupes/ infringing material. Spotify please hire me so I can work on this, tack.
      • scarface74 7y ago
        How would this benefit Spotify? The few people it would attract wouldn’t be worth the cost. According to other posters, it’s barely used.
        • sk0g 7y ago
          Maybe it doesn't, but I was planning to use it soon! I'll have to pay a small sum to do the same now, but that's not a big deal.
          • scarface74 7y ago
            Unrelated question. As an indy artist, why use Spotify? More than likely people wouldn’t discover your music and you lose the direct relationship with your listeners. Isn’t it better for small artists to get “1000 True Fans” who would be willing to pay $x than to get a few more fans that would pay you indirectly $x/10000?
• eternalban 7y ago
  This makes sense up to the point about 'the human version of the "contentid" algorithm'. The record label arrangement makes the record labels the only valid source of original music. The government issues copyrights. Looks like "human" governance needs to catch up, and issuing agencies need to provide "algorithmic" means to verify the copyright status of any content. [without wasting too much energy ..]
  • zxcb1 7y ago
    If it is possible to generate music with machine learning, it should be possible to decompose a track for comparison with others, melody, arrangement etc. The dynamics of this would be interesting, when uploading you will be told that your track is infringing, it is too similar to the following tracks by x, y and z :)
• the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
  I doubt that's the case. From what I understand the beta was barely used by people enrolled in into it and Spotify has killed more popular things before.
• Radle 7y ago
  Is "thanks GDPR" the new "thanks Obama"? This spamming of anti GDPR related stuff, without any evidence support quotes or anything the like is absolute disastrous. Yes it's possible that Spotifys decision was influenced by GDPR, it's also possible that the decision was only done because of it. But since Spotify hasn't said so, blindly assuming that GDPR is at fault is incredible dishonest.
  • pgeorgi 7y ago
    Article 13 has nothing to do with GDPR except that it comes from approximately the same regulatory body.
• Krasnol 7y ago
  I don't believe this is the issue here. If it would have been, they wouldn't hesitate to use this as a reason there and not go with this marketing bs.
• hobs 7y ago
  I routinely see major artists complaining on twitter that spotify allows people to upload their content directly and get paid. While I think the GDPR plays into it, its really two birds with one stone in my mind.
• cma 7y ago
  The EU thing doesn't apply yet. More likely it goes against labels at a much deeper level: letting people succeed without labels. I wouldn't be surprised if the labels didn't want to renew deals unless that avenue was cut off. That is much more concerning to them than a copyrighted upload avenue that they could DMCA away pretty easily.
  • oldgregg 7y ago
    This. All the major labels did not support spotify out of good will-- Spotify uses hollywood accounting to give the labels the spoils. Same exploitation of artists thats been going on for 100 years.
    • neka 7y ago
      No it doesn't, Spotify provides line-level accounting for every stream to the rightsholders. What they then do to account to artists could be anything.
      • oldgregg 7y ago
        Doesn't matter. Do they provide line-level accounting for ad revenue? Do you know what percentage of TOTAL revenue gets paid to artists?
        • neka 7y ago
          No because Spotify pay the rightsholders who may or may not be the artist.
          • oldgregg 7y ago
            You're missing the point. Let's say Spotify pays rightholders 20% of gross revenue for streaming. Then they take another 40% of the gross revenue and pay the major labels for advertising, marketing... whatever. That's hollywood accounting-- it's not streaming revenue so they don't have to report it. Ever notice the labels don't complain that the streaming rates are so notoriously low? Why don't BMG/UMG/WMG just band together and demand an increase in streaming revenue? Because they WANT to keep it low so they make the real money on non-streaming revenue that doesn't go to rightsholders. Maintaining control is the issue and that's why they forced Spotify to make people work through their "partners"
• sb636 7y ago
  If this is the case, why would spotify not just outright say that? It seems it would calm a lot of the backlash, and artists would be more understanding.
• dalbasal 7y ago
  >>Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtube's ContentID If true, this is worrying. It basically gives a handful of companies a monopoly over a potentially wide range of things. It is unreasonable to require everyone to meet a standard that relies on cutting edge technology.
  • sorenn111 7y ago
    It is very worrying. It is like regulatory capture, but not implemented at the request of the company. It was done purely by the EU. By requiring cutting edge and practically non existent technology, it somewhat requires a monopoly by the one company that can do it (YouTube, or do it the best because there is no perfect filter). And the EU will then turn around and fine them for being too big. I believe in well regulated capitalism, but I find that the EU takes things too far and does not worry enough about the unintended consequences of their rules.
    • alexgmcm 7y ago
      The problem is less one of regulation vs. not regulating and more the fact that most of the politicians are dinosaurs with little or no understanding of modern technology. They probably don't realise how unreasonable the demands are.
      • elliekelly 7y ago
        Laws where the government requires some business intermediary to “police” for compliance are the most worrisome to me. The bar for these sorts of regulations should be very high. Unless life or limb is at risk regulatory compliance should be left to the regulators.
    • simias 7y ago
      >I believe in well regulated capitalism Then you really should avoid crying wolf for what's effectively pure speculation in this case. I also fail to see what "capture" you have here, people are still able to upload their track to Spotify, they'll just have to go through a 3rd party that will have to screen copyright infringement and make sure the metadata is in order. Meanwhile Spotify is free to focus on the big fish which is probably what they really care about. So who is capturing what in this scenario? Regarding Youtube it's already effectively a quasi-monopoly, not because of regulation but because operating a free video streaming service at this scale requires insanely deep pockets. The only others that manage to stay afloat are mainly those who offer content that can't be hosted on Youtube (dailymotion, liveleaks, porn sites etc...).
• pbreit 7y ago
  With services like DistroKid (from F'd Company creator "Pud") I'm wondering how big of a deal this actually is? The optics definitely are lousy. https://distrokid.com https://distrokid.com
  • peapicker 7y ago
    100% agree. Distrokid makes it cheap and easy to get unto pretty much all the streaming services. (disclaimer: I am a customer in the musician with no label category)
• jdlyga 7y ago
  I've seen plenty of copyright infringing content with videogame music. There's albums of songs claiming to be covers of games like Megaman X, but are actually direct rips of the soundtrack.
• njl 7y ago
  Spotify has internal fingerprinting stuff that can handle this easily enough. The shutdown is entirely due to pressure from the record labels. It's a shame; this was a surprisingly difficult product to get off the ground, and a lot of folks put in heroic efforts to make it work.
  • creaghpatr 7y ago
    Apparently not, because it's number one streamed track "Old Town Road" never cleared the Nine Inch Nails sample it used. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/05/29/lil-nas-x-sample-old-town-road-infringing/ https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/05/29/lil-nas-x-sample...
    • ptd 7y ago
      Think about it from the artist's point of view. What financial incentive does an unknown artist have to clear samples? On one end of the spectrum, you create a song using an uncleared sample and it goes nowhere. Nine Inch Nails never hears about your song, and neither does the public. On the other end of the spectrum, your song goes viral and makes you one of the most popular artists in the country. Even if Nine Inch Nails claims every cent you make from the song, you have already accomplished your goal. You're a popular artist and now have a platform.You can sell merch, sign sponsorship deals, and get paid to advertise for brands on social media. You can put out new music with all your ducks in a row and go on to have a very successful career. Why go through the trouble of clearing your sample when the chances of your song becoming popular are very slim, and even if it does become a hit, the reward far outweighs the risk? Outside of ethics, there is no reason for an unknown artist to clear samples when they are trying to make it in the music industry. It should also be noted that both the creator of Old Town Road(Lil Nas X) and Nine Inch Nails are currently under Columbia records.
      • geden 7y ago
        There are theoretical risks, depending where you are based: Court costs Injunctions Risk of Punitive damages They may share a record label, but do they share the same publisher?
• doh 7y ago
  This is most likely not related to the Article 13 (now called Article 17) as they are still most likely to be considered to be a UGC platform. The directive [0] says: "The services covered by this Directive are services, the main or one of the main purposes of which is to store and enable users to upload and share a large amount of copyright-protected content with the purpose of obtaining profit therefrom, either directly or indirectly, by organising it and promoting it in order to attract a larger audience, including by categorising it and using targeted promotion within it." Considering that Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Pandora, ... get their catalogues from services like CD Baby or Tunecore, they are very likely to meet the condition above. So my guess the shutdown will be related to some external pressure, from the major labels and/or the partners mentioned above. [0] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-8-2018-0245-AM-271-271_EN.pdf http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-8-2018-0245-A...
• intricatedetail 7y ago
  You can still upload content that infringes copyrights via various services, you can also register such content in "contentid". It is a more hassle than a direct upload but not too much and has been happening. E.g. an independent artist uploads his song to YouTube. A thief makes a copy and sends to Spotify etc and then requests take downs of original work.