5 ms·

Renting your music means accepting that it will disappear

61 points by cdme 3y ago

beebmam 3y ago
I think we all have to face the reality that much of the content we love could disappear tomorrow. Many of my favorite videos and music tracks, almost entirely made by independent no-name artists, have disappeared over the last 2 decades from the internet, either due to link/content rot or artists that wanted their content to disappear. It is deeply sad to me, but I've learned to accept it and move on. Archival tools are great for preventing link/content rot, but it feels disrespectful to use them for people who want their content deleted. Should we strive to always try to do the right thing? What do you think?
- dimask 3y ago
  I like the following quote from an old greek rock singer, from those old times that musicians produced music in the form of actual material work (vinyls, cds etc) and deleting content was not a thing as it is now: > [...] a work, when it leaves the hands of its creator, acquires its own personality, its own identity, according to which its course is drawn and it is the irrevocable right of the work to follow an autonomous way which, in the name of any paternity, you have no right to stop, otherwise the state has the same right in the form of censorship.
  - janalsncm 3y ago
    Artists may not have a right to have their works forgotten (whether they actually do or don’t is a legal one) but I believe what GP was getting at is whether it’s respectful or moral to listen to art the artist wants to disassociate from.
    - pavel_lishin 3y ago
      It doesn't feel any less moral than someone dictating what art I should or shouldn't enjoy. Yes, there's a greater weight placed on someone's opinion if they're the ones that made the art, but in the end, if I buy a CD of music or a print of an artwork, it would be a ludicrous proposition that the artist should demand that I stop listening to it or looking at it.
      - GauntletWizard 3y ago
        Yes, I would definitely give more credence to the artist who produced it saying "This work was trite crap, and I disassociate myself from it" than from a music critic saying "this work was trite crap, and you shouldn't waste any more brainpower on it", but either is very marginal- sometimes any art that is very much a product of it's time has reason for a second life, possibly a Renaissance; history doesn't repeat but it has a tendency to rhyme.
- prepend 3y ago
  > but it feels disrespectful to use them for people who want their content deleted I think it’s ok to recognize that the artist and I want different things and that’s ok. But people’s wishes aren’t absolute. And I don’t think it’s disrespectful to not do what people want. Once an artist makes something and puts it out in the world, they lose control. Visual art is not something that someone owns, so they don’t have a right to decide to destroy or take back what they released. I expect that this is unpleasant to the artist. But life is unpleasant. And the trade off is that others get to do what they want. I think this conflict is probably ok and best, as the alternative is some sort of complicated right that would let artists be able to reach into my private collection and remove stuff that is mine, just because they made it. I’m happier and happier with my historical process of buying some physical media that comes with a digital download that I use while the physical media just sits there gathering dust. But backups are good even if I never use them.
jamesear 3y ago
Millions just get on with it, without a fear. If one streaming site goes bust, they'll switch. If all streaming sites go bust, the world will be united in finding solutions. It'll be fine. But fair enough to those that want to curate their own local collection. Full disclosure: I rely solely on my local collection, but I also think the loss of streaming is not a worry people should have.
- jwnin 3y ago
  Largely agree with you, but also wonder if this is something that will change with time. 30 years from now, maybe the big streamers start to drop license deals for older music that few listen to.
- autoexec 3y ago
  People can switch streaming services all they like but increasingly music is going to disappear from every streaming service. Streaming services are beholden to the music industry and the music industry is heavily incentivized to let old things die off and to only offer a limited subset of what they could offer because they don't want their old stuff competing with their new stuff.
  - rnd0 3y ago
    Additionally, ISPs are going to be playing more of a policing roll so people who might turn to 'pirate' streaming sites are going to be finding access to those being increasingly limited until they are completely gone as well.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      I'm afraid you're right. Not the ISPs want that either, but that's where things are headed. With users losing more and more control over their own computers (DRM, "trusted" computing, etc) piracy may get increasingly more difficult with time anyway
  - __m 3y ago
    Do they get more money for new stuff?
thaumasiotes 3y ago
It's fascinating to me that after waging a war on Napster, the labels' strategy now is to make all of their music available for free on YouTube. They replaced Napster with "Napster, but all of the files are official".
- autoexec 3y ago
  The difference is that the music industry still largely controls what is made available and what isn't, as well as which areas are allowed to hear certain songs/artists. Many songs aren't available on youtube without the use of a VPN to get you an IP in different countries. You don't usually get "this video isn't available in your country" messages anymore, but the videos just don't show up in searches for you at all unless you're allowed to see them. Copyright infringement is still rampant on youtube which really gives people a very false sense of security. We've come to expect everything to be available to them, but it's all very tenuous and the music industry in particular is constantly taking steps to lock down our ability to share and access our culture. They're always pushing for youtube to do more to protect their profits and role as gatekeeper even while more and more innocent people get caught up in youtube's shitty enforcement efforts.
KptMarchewa 3y ago
Yeah, I do accept it.
everybodyknows 3y ago
Somewhat to this question, would any audiophiles here care to weigh in on the quality of MP3s bought for download from Amazon? Also, is there any other source with a comparably large catalog?
- voltaireodactyl 3y ago
  Bandcamp is the standard go to — if they’re on there you can get lossless quality. Alternately I believe Apple Music is now selling the highest quality digital downloads of all the major providers at the moment.
- jamesear 3y ago
  7digital has a decent FLAC catalog.
- secstate 3y ago
  I've found most Amazon downloads to be 320k and, while the audiophile will argue, hard to distinguish from FLAC. Most importantly, it's higher quality than the EP I have on magnetic tape that was a recording of a recording I bought at the Fireside Bowl in 1999. Boy, I enjoyed listening to that, and the 320k MP3s do just fine so long as I don't need to re-encode them anytime soon.
- tkgally 3y ago
  Nonaudiophile here. For classical music and jazz, I have found Presto Music to be a good place to buy mp3s. The search function works well, and many classical albums come with liner notes in PDF booklets. Presto also offers FLAC downloads, but I can't hear the difference on the equipment I use so I buy the cheaper mp3s. I have also bought mp3s from Amazon. I didn't have any problems with the sound quality.
- not_the_fda 3y ago
  Qobuz sells lossless FLAC files. I use their streaming service and will then buy albums if they are something I want to preserve. They also have excellent human curation.
- rnd0 3y ago
least 3y ago
I used to hoard mp3s back when oink's pink palace was a thing. Any time I heard one song by an artist that I like, I'd just go and download just about everything that artist ever produced. But then one day, my massive 500gb hard drive with all my music died. I was a teenager with no income so it's not like I could have backed it up if I wanted to but after that the notion of collecting all that music over again just sounded like a massive waste of time. Spotify didn't exist yet, so I still pirated a ton of music but never again to the same extent. Thanks to the emergence of streaming music services, I largely just don't download music, unless it's something particularly special or difficult to find, which is limited to a some Japanese music that isn't available in the US. I actually think I prefer treating music as ethereal because ultimately, although there are many songs that I am quite fond of, there's no shortage of really great music that I haven't heard yet and an even greater amount of music that I will never hear. I don't have anything against digital hoarders, but I do think in most cases it's compulsion more than anything driving them to archive all of the movies, tv shows, and music that they do.
- xg15 3y ago
  Until your favourite streaming service just announces the next chapter of its exciting journey, that is.
- rnd0 3y ago
  >I don't have anything against digital hoarders, but I do think in most cases it's compulsion more than anything driving them to archive all of the movies, tv shows, and music that they do. The recent crunchyroll/funimation flaps would prove the wisdom of being a hoarder (of some sort), at least for things you're going to care about some day. I mean, there is some truth to what you say. E.G. I have gigs of music in my digital collection that was simply "eh, maybe I'll wanna hear it someday" circa 2005 but then I never got to listening to; but that doesn't mean that in most cases it's only compulsion (at least for me, personally).
  - least 3y ago
    I think it's fine to download those things. I still do sometimes. I just don't do anything to preserve them and I'm not buying a bunch of hard drives just to ensure that I can hold onto every anime I've ever watched on disk just in case I want to watch something again. If it's something that I do find myself going back to more than once, then I will try to keep it. Digital hoarders are great to have. The hoarders are the ones that often have been the source of otherwise lost media. I just don't think it's all that different from hoarding of physical items. As someone whose natural inclination is to hoard, I've taken measures to prevent that (both in the physical and digital realm).
Canada 3y ago
I trust that some of you out there will data hoard because you just love to do that for whatever reason so permanent loss will be minimal.
xg15 3y ago
The general mood of this thread seems to be "eh, I for one welcome our new streaming overlords, having actual control about the songs you listen to is overhyped anyway".
- rnd0 3y ago
  Kinda distressing, yeah; but as more and more people get bit on the backside (and they will) the more their tune is gonna change.
- omar_alt 3y ago
  Yes wanting to preserve musical history or be able to recall something you once liked probably falls into the rockist vs poptimist debate. Even listening to tracks in the order they were intended is either radical or primitive to the defenders of streaming.
uuddlrlrbaba 3y ago
It doesn't have to, there are tools to save backups of favorite artists or playlists as well as backup metadata. I have a setup to discover new music on streaming platforms and backup my liked music onto a plex system
wduquette 3y ago
I once had lots of 8-track tapes. I no longer have an 8-track player. I once had lots of cassette tapes. I no longer have a cassette player. I once had a lot of vinyl (and still have some left). I no longer have a turntable. I still have lots of compact discs. I have a portable compact disc player and an Apple SuperDrive stashed somewhere in the house. Media wears out. Players go out out of production. Owning recordings means accepting that someday they won’t work any more.
- rnd0 3y ago
  >Owning recordings means accepting that someday they won’t work any more. ...that's why you format shift (vinyl -> cassette, cd -> mp3/flac)? Backing up your primary media and the listening to the secondary format saves wear and tear and extends the life of your primary source too. I have cds I bought in the 90's I can still back up if I feel the need to do so. I doubt that anyone will be able to say the same about being able to access rented media in the 2040's or 2050's.
4d4m 3y ago
True. This is the reason I add free .mp3 downloads as standard practice to all my music pages. Best to keep local copies and own your own library if you choose.

61 points by cdme 3y ago

I think we all have to face the reality that much of the content we love could disappear tomorrow. Many of my favorite videos and music tracks, almost entirely made by independent no-name artists, have disappeared over the last 2 decades from the internet, either due to link/content rot or artists that wanted their content to disappear. It is deeply sad to me, but I've learned to accept it and move on. Archival tools are great for preventing link/content rot, but it feels disrespectful to use them for people who want their content deleted. Should we strive to always try to do the right thing? What do you think?

dimask 3y ago
I like the following quote from an old greek rock singer, from those old times that musicians produced music in the form of actual material work (vinyls, cds etc) and deleting content was not a thing as it is now: > [...] a work, when it leaves the hands of its creator, acquires its own personality, its own identity, according to which its course is drawn and it is the irrevocable right of the work to follow an autonomous way which, in the name of any paternity, you have no right to stop, otherwise the state has the same right in the form of censorship.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  Artists may not have a right to have their works forgotten (whether they actually do or don’t is a legal one) but I believe what GP was getting at is whether it’s respectful or moral to listen to art the artist wants to disassociate from.
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    It doesn't feel any less moral than someone dictating what art I should or shouldn't enjoy. Yes, there's a greater weight placed on someone's opinion if they're the ones that made the art, but in the end, if I buy a CD of music or a print of an artwork, it would be a ludicrous proposition that the artist should demand that I stop listening to it or looking at it.
    - GauntletWizard 3y ago
      Yes, I would definitely give more credence to the artist who produced it saying "This work was trite crap, and I disassociate myself from it" than from a music critic saying "this work was trite crap, and you shouldn't waste any more brainpower on it", but either is very marginal- sometimes any art that is very much a product of it's time has reason for a second life, possibly a Renaissance; history doesn't repeat but it has a tendency to rhyme.
prepend 3y ago
> but it feels disrespectful to use them for people who want their content deleted I think it’s ok to recognize that the artist and I want different things and that’s ok. But people’s wishes aren’t absolute. And I don’t think it’s disrespectful to not do what people want. Once an artist makes something and puts it out in the world, they lose control. Visual art is not something that someone owns, so they don’t have a right to decide to destroy or take back what they released. I expect that this is unpleasant to the artist. But life is unpleasant. And the trade off is that others get to do what they want. I think this conflict is probably ok and best, as the alternative is some sort of complicated right that would let artists be able to reach into my private collection and remove stuff that is mine, just because they made it. I’m happier and happier with my historical process of buying some physical media that comes with a digital download that I use while the physical media just sits there gathering dust. But backups are good even if I never use them.

jamesear 3y ago

Millions just get on with it, without a fear. If one streaming site goes bust, they'll switch. If all streaming sites go bust, the world will be united in finding solutions. It'll be fine. But fair enough to those that want to curate their own local collection. Full disclosure: I rely solely on my local collection, but I also think the loss of streaming is not a worry people should have.

jwnin 3y ago
Largely agree with you, but also wonder if this is something that will change with time. 30 years from now, maybe the big streamers start to drop license deals for older music that few listen to.
autoexec 3y ago
People can switch streaming services all they like but increasingly music is going to disappear from every streaming service. Streaming services are beholden to the music industry and the music industry is heavily incentivized to let old things die off and to only offer a limited subset of what they could offer because they don't want their old stuff competing with their new stuff.
- rnd0 3y ago
  Additionally, ISPs are going to be playing more of a policing roll so people who might turn to 'pirate' streaming sites are going to be finding access to those being increasingly limited until they are completely gone as well.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    I'm afraid you're right. Not the ISPs want that either, but that's where things are headed. With users losing more and more control over their own computers (DRM, "trusted" computing, etc) piracy may get increasingly more difficult with time anyway
- __m 3y ago
  Do they get more money for new stuff?

thaumasiotes 3y ago

It's fascinating to me that after waging a war on Napster, the labels' strategy now is to make all of their music available for free on YouTube. They replaced Napster with "Napster, but all of the files are official".

autoexec 3y ago
The difference is that the music industry still largely controls what is made available and what isn't, as well as which areas are allowed to hear certain songs/artists. Many songs aren't available on youtube without the use of a VPN to get you an IP in different countries. You don't usually get "this video isn't available in your country" messages anymore, but the videos just don't show up in searches for you at all unless you're allowed to see them. Copyright infringement is still rampant on youtube which really gives people a very false sense of security. We've come to expect everything to be available to them, but it's all very tenuous and the music industry in particular is constantly taking steps to lock down our ability to share and access our culture. They're always pushing for youtube to do more to protect their profits and role as gatekeeper even while more and more innocent people get caught up in youtube's shitty enforcement efforts.

KptMarchewa 3y ago

Yeah, I do accept it.

everybodyknows 3y ago

Somewhat to this question, would any audiophiles here care to weigh in on the quality of MP3s bought for download from Amazon? Also, is there any other source with a comparably large catalog?

voltaireodactyl 3y ago
Bandcamp is the standard go to — if they’re on there you can get lossless quality. Alternately I believe Apple Music is now selling the highest quality digital downloads of all the major providers at the moment.
jamesear 3y ago
7digital has a decent FLAC catalog.
secstate 3y ago
I've found most Amazon downloads to be 320k and, while the audiophile will argue, hard to distinguish from FLAC. Most importantly, it's higher quality than the EP I have on magnetic tape that was a recording of a recording I bought at the Fireside Bowl in 1999. Boy, I enjoyed listening to that, and the 320k MP3s do just fine so long as I don't need to re-encode them anytime soon.
tkgally 3y ago
Nonaudiophile here. For classical music and jazz, I have found Presto Music to be a good place to buy mp3s. The search function works well, and many classical albums come with liner notes in PDF booklets. Presto also offers FLAC downloads, but I can't hear the difference on the equipment I use so I buy the cheaper mp3s. I have also bought mp3s from Amazon. I didn't have any problems with the sound quality.
not_the_fda 3y ago
Qobuz sells lossless FLAC files. I use their streaming service and will then buy albums if they are something I want to preserve. They also have excellent human curation.
rnd0 3y ago

least 3y ago

I used to hoard mp3s back when oink's pink palace was a thing. Any time I heard one song by an artist that I like, I'd just go and download just about everything that artist ever produced. But then one day, my massive 500gb hard drive with all my music died. I was a teenager with no income so it's not like I could have backed it up if I wanted to but after that the notion of collecting all that music over again just sounded like a massive waste of time. Spotify didn't exist yet, so I still pirated a ton of music but never again to the same extent. Thanks to the emergence of streaming music services, I largely just don't download music, unless it's something particularly special or difficult to find, which is limited to a some Japanese music that isn't available in the US. I actually think I prefer treating music as ethereal because ultimately, although there are many songs that I am quite fond of, there's no shortage of really great music that I haven't heard yet and an even greater amount of music that I will never hear. I don't have anything against digital hoarders, but I do think in most cases it's compulsion more than anything driving them to archive all of the movies, tv shows, and music that they do.

xg15 3y ago
Until your favourite streaming service just announces the next chapter of its exciting journey, that is.
rnd0 3y ago
>I don't have anything against digital hoarders, but I do think in most cases it's compulsion more than anything driving them to archive all of the movies, tv shows, and music that they do. The recent crunchyroll/funimation flaps would prove the wisdom of being a hoarder (of some sort), at least for things you're going to care about some day. I mean, there is some truth to what you say. E.G. I have gigs of music in my digital collection that was simply "eh, maybe I'll wanna hear it someday" circa 2005 but then I never got to listening to; but that doesn't mean that in most cases it's only compulsion (at least for me, personally).
- least 3y ago
  I think it's fine to download those things. I still do sometimes. I just don't do anything to preserve them and I'm not buying a bunch of hard drives just to ensure that I can hold onto every anime I've ever watched on disk just in case I want to watch something again. If it's something that I do find myself going back to more than once, then I will try to keep it. Digital hoarders are great to have. The hoarders are the ones that often have been the source of otherwise lost media. I just don't think it's all that different from hoarding of physical items. As someone whose natural inclination is to hoard, I've taken measures to prevent that (both in the physical and digital realm).

Canada 3y ago

I trust that some of you out there will data hoard because you just love to do that for whatever reason so permanent loss will be minimal.

xg15 3y ago

The general mood of this thread seems to be "eh, I for one welcome our new streaming overlords, having actual control about the songs you listen to is overhyped anyway".

rnd0 3y ago
Kinda distressing, yeah; but as more and more people get bit on the backside (and they will) the more their tune is gonna change.
omar_alt 3y ago
Yes wanting to preserve musical history or be able to recall something you once liked probably falls into the rockist vs poptimist debate. Even listening to tracks in the order they were intended is either radical or primitive to the defenders of streaming.

uuddlrlrbaba 3y ago

It doesn't have to, there are tools to save backups of favorite artists or playlists as well as backup metadata. I have a setup to discover new music on streaming platforms and backup my liked music onto a plex system

wduquette 3y ago

I once had lots of 8-track tapes. I no longer have an 8-track player. I once had lots of cassette tapes. I no longer have a cassette player. I once had a lot of vinyl (and still have some left). I no longer have a turntable. I still have lots of compact discs. I have a portable compact disc player and an Apple SuperDrive stashed somewhere in the house. Media wears out. Players go out out of production. Owning recordings means accepting that someday they won’t work any more.

rnd0 3y ago
>Owning recordings means accepting that someday they won’t work any more. ...that's why you format shift (vinyl -> cassette, cd -> mp3/flac)? Backing up your primary media and the listening to the secondary format saves wear and tear and extends the life of your primary source too. I have cds I bought in the 90's I can still back up if I feel the need to do so. I doubt that anyone will be able to say the same about being able to access rented media in the 2040's or 2050's.

4d4m 3y ago

True. This is the reason I add free .mp3 downloads as standard practice to all my music pages. Best to keep local copies and own your own library if you choose.