6 ms·

Musicians are not the consumers, but it's their work being consumed and this software would have no purpose without them. And to be clear, my problem isn't that

by slg 1y ago

Musicians are not the consumers, but it's their work being consumed and this software would have no purpose without them. And to be clear, my problem isn't that this software upset some musicians. It's that the developers highlighting that fact as part of their marketing suggests they take pride in angering musicians. That is a level of disrespect that goes way beyond the sort of passive consumer level disrespect of wanting something for free. It's active hostility compared to mild selfishness.

bigyabai 1y ago
> It's active hostility Not really? If the testimonials are true, then simply making the app itself is an act of hostility. The parent comment is putting it as nicely as it can be put. If you don't want people to pirate your music, your only path of recourse as a musician is to stop uploading digital copies of your work. There is no honor system in music or data and there never will be.
- slg 1y ago
  >The parent comment is putting it as nicely as it can be put. If you don't want people to pirate your music, your only path of recourse as a musician is to stop uploading digital copies of your work. There is no honor system in music or data and there never will be. I'm just tired of this technolibertarian mindset of "it's not wrong because no one is stopping me from doing it". There is no "honor system" in life either and if you see that as permission to be an asshole, that just makes you an asshole. And if your best defense against being accused of being an asshole is some form of "they couldn't stop me", then you're tacitly admitting to being an asshole.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    Then maybe we'll never see eye-to-eye. I grew up with an iTunes account, but I never spent my money on music. Some weeks my family lived paycheck-to-paycheck, some nights skipping dinner. I downloaded my music off YouTube to my 2005 HP Compaq, put it on my iTunes library and synced it to my iPod Shuffle. Didn't weigh on my conscience when I pirated video games or FL Studio either, not then and not now. If that made me an asshole, then 11-year-old me was a supervillain bumping Aphex Twin. Oftentimes I think HN forgets to consider the 99% when contemplating ethics over sous-vide.
    - slg 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - bigyabai 1y ago
        You actually don't understand the consumer desire for free, if you necessarily conflate it with class warfare and moral grandstanding. It seems to be a karma sink insisting upon this, but this is the hacker ethos. Nobody lords information over anyone, any paywall you erect will eventually fall. For fuck's sake, children are being firebombed in Gaza right now, and this is the imperative ethical hill you choose to die on? Draw out this line of reasoning long enough, and one could argue that Richard Stallman is the worst human alive for "moral grandstanding" the software industry and taking glee in destroying software jobs with copyleft licensing. But more accurately, he ushered in the information age for everyone and prevented it from being cordoned-off behind a proprietary paywall. Yes, he predicated Napster and ThePirateBay and 4chan and all the horrible examples you're apt to draw upon. But he also invariably pushed technology forward - we're better people, that we aren't slaving away remaking the Cairo library for the 30,000th time. Common access to at least some information enables a great deal of art and provides countless value to would-be artists. I'd like to think that the entire human race is bettered with access to information. It would certainly be idyllic if we could compensate artists, authors and scientists along the way, but humanity would be ruined if all information came at-cost. I am willing to fight for a world where individuals have free access to information, and I reckon my tools are more powerful than the publishers who seek to thwart me. I won't stop when the musicians scream out bloody murder, and if you think that's the most immoral thing imaginable then don't ask how 15-year-old me found the money to afford Jimmy John's.
        cindyllm 1y ago
        [dead]
        slg 1y ago
        >For fuck's sake, children are being firebombed in Gaza right now, and this is the imperative ethical hill you choose to die on? Nonsense like this is where I leave the conversation. You can't deny the accusations of moral grandstanding in the same breath you say this. I commented directly on the topic being discussed in a specific HN thread. That does not mean I think this is the most important issue on the planet and the non-sequitur of contrasting a discussion of IP law with children in Gaza being firebombed is just straight up offensive. The "karma sink" here isn't voicing your "ethos", it is you.
  - voidfunc 1y ago
    Unfortunately the winds are not blowing in your preferred direction. We are being shown time and time again and in increasing frequency that being an asshole is the best way to succeed.
    - anon_e-moose 1y ago
      That short-term individual success is at the expense of the wider long-term success. If 10 people live in a lake and I fish more than everyone I will be better off that others. But then everyone else will seek the same individual short-term success because my first step in being an asshole was not punished. We will all end up starving in this scenario. A central authority agreed by all to manage this situation fairly is the way out. Rules agreed to in common beforehand and enforced by a neutral party.
      - voidfunc 1y ago
        You're missing the key next step where after you get yours you start figuring out ways to deny others from getting theirs either through bullying, state-supported violence or legal means :)
      - thwarted 1y ago
        Tragedy of the Commons Ruins Everything Around Me.
        ninetyninenine 1y ago
        It's only a tragedy if everyone acts the same way. If a few act against the grain then it's no longer a tragedy. The common thief is an example. Also pirating games and movies is another example.
        ToucanLoucan 1y ago
        Tragedy of the Commons is bullshit. Just one pessimistic, selfish asshole penning out a manifesto on how everyone is just as miserable and awful as he is. It assumes that individuals, left to their own devices, will inevitably over-consume shared resources out of selfishness. But this narrative ignores centuries of evidence to the contrary: communities around the world have sustainably managed commons through norms, trust, and mutual accountability. And he wasn't just wrong for the hell of it. He used it to argue against immigration and for coercive population control, not to promote environmental stewardship. His model erases the role of governance, culture, and cooperation, reducing human behavior to a simplistic race to depletion. In reality, the commons don’t fail because they’re shared. They fail when they’re mismanaged, privatized, or stripped of the social fabric that sustains them. I would go so far to say that the only way this concept has ever come close to being "correct" is the culturally inert modern Western world which has replaced everyone's souls with aimless desires for products and cheap dopamine hits, far from anything approaching our natural state.
- toast0 1y ago
  > If you don't want people to pirate your music, your only path of recourse as a musician is to stop uploading digital copies of your work. People have been recording concerts for decades. Often with a bit of help from the sound crew, which can probably be discouraged by musicians with enough influence, but if the only allowed way to hear a song is to attend a concert, lots of people would rather have a recording that a fan made and distributed.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ada1981 1y ago
I think it’s just funny to post bad reviews.
lukan 1y ago
It is one musician whose negative comment is displayed along with people complaining that the whole thing is slow garbage. You might be reading too much into it.
- partomniscient 1y ago
  One musician can be ripped off and not compensated and have to take the 'big guys' to court on the off-chance they find out about their work being used despite the (fucked up) copyright laws [0]. It is a massive problem. It's the rich poor divide with propoganda fucking over the genuine little people in favour of the richer/established/more connected people. Human life is like this. Call it out if you see it if you value truth over greed. The future is built on the past. Claimed "Ownership" of the past fucks up the present for the established powers over creativity (e.g. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act). AI just takes it to a whole 'nother level. [0] https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/unauthorized-rap-samples/ https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/unauthorized-rap-samples/
protocolture 1y ago
I am kind of sick of Musicians complaining that culture is so accessible. Its truly the case that if it wasnt for radio and the legal frameworks developed to deliver radio we would probably be looking at incredibly heavy gatekeeping for music. Humans in general are better off with tools like this. And I for one am glad that these developers are showing off who is angry. Heck things could be a lot better right now if it wasnt for Metallica.
- fiddlerwoaroof 1y ago
  I like Pete Seeger’s paraphrase of his father: “Plagiarism is basic to all culture”. I think we underestimate the damage to society at large when “remixing” the work of others is legally fraught. The mere reproduction of a previous performance is not additional work for the artist and so does not require compensation: to demand royalties undermines the fundamental structure of art for most of history.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    As a musician: that's totally fine, we can argue the philosophy of it all day and what the law should or shouldn't be. But right now it is what it is and people are basing their careers off that status quo. There should be some respect for that, no?
    - welferkj 1y ago
      Sure, and "piracy" is part of the status quo. Show some respect for my total disrespect of IP laws and your livelihood.
      - AlecSchueler 1y ago
        Do you feel that putting the quote from the musician in the testimonials was respectful?
        protocolture 1y ago

by slg 1y ago

bigyabai 1y ago

> It's active hostility Not really? If the testimonials are true, then simply making the app itself is an act of hostility. The parent comment is putting it as nicely as it can be put. If you don't want people to pirate your music, your only path of recourse as a musician is to stop uploading digital copies of your work. There is no honor system in music or data and there never will be.

slg 1y ago
>The parent comment is putting it as nicely as it can be put. If you don't want people to pirate your music, your only path of recourse as a musician is to stop uploading digital copies of your work. There is no honor system in music or data and there never will be. I'm just tired of this technolibertarian mindset of "it's not wrong because no one is stopping me from doing it". There is no "honor system" in life either and if you see that as permission to be an asshole, that just makes you an asshole. And if your best defense against being accused of being an asshole is some form of "they couldn't stop me", then you're tacitly admitting to being an asshole.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Then maybe we'll never see eye-to-eye. I grew up with an iTunes account, but I never spent my money on music. Some weeks my family lived paycheck-to-paycheck, some nights skipping dinner. I downloaded my music off YouTube to my 2005 HP Compaq, put it on my iTunes library and synced it to my iPod Shuffle. Didn't weigh on my conscience when I pirated video games or FL Studio either, not then and not now. If that made me an asshole, then 11-year-old me was a supervillain bumping Aphex Twin. Oftentimes I think HN forgets to consider the 99% when contemplating ethics over sous-vide.
  - slg 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      You actually don't understand the consumer desire for free, if you necessarily conflate it with class warfare and moral grandstanding. It seems to be a karma sink insisting upon this, but this is the hacker ethos. Nobody lords information over anyone, any paywall you erect will eventually fall. For fuck's sake, children are being firebombed in Gaza right now, and this is the imperative ethical hill you choose to die on? Draw out this line of reasoning long enough, and one could argue that Richard Stallman is the worst human alive for "moral grandstanding" the software industry and taking glee in destroying software jobs with copyleft licensing. But more accurately, he ushered in the information age for everyone and prevented it from being cordoned-off behind a proprietary paywall. Yes, he predicated Napster and ThePirateBay and 4chan and all the horrible examples you're apt to draw upon. But he also invariably pushed technology forward - we're better people, that we aren't slaving away remaking the Cairo library for the 30,000th time. Common access to at least some information enables a great deal of art and provides countless value to would-be artists. I'd like to think that the entire human race is bettered with access to information. It would certainly be idyllic if we could compensate artists, authors and scientists along the way, but humanity would be ruined if all information came at-cost. I am willing to fight for a world where individuals have free access to information, and I reckon my tools are more powerful than the publishers who seek to thwart me. I won't stop when the musicians scream out bloody murder, and if you think that's the most immoral thing imaginable then don't ask how 15-year-old me found the money to afford Jimmy John's.
      - cindyllm 1y ago
        [dead]
      - slg 1y ago
        >For fuck's sake, children are being firebombed in Gaza right now, and this is the imperative ethical hill you choose to die on? Nonsense like this is where I leave the conversation. You can't deny the accusations of moral grandstanding in the same breath you say this. I commented directly on the topic being discussed in a specific HN thread. That does not mean I think this is the most important issue on the planet and the non-sequitur of contrasting a discussion of IP law with children in Gaza being firebombed is just straight up offensive. The "karma sink" here isn't voicing your "ethos", it is you.
- voidfunc 1y ago
  Unfortunately the winds are not blowing in your preferred direction. We are being shown time and time again and in increasing frequency that being an asshole is the best way to succeed.
  - anon_e-moose 1y ago
    That short-term individual success is at the expense of the wider long-term success. If 10 people live in a lake and I fish more than everyone I will be better off that others. But then everyone else will seek the same individual short-term success because my first step in being an asshole was not punished. We will all end up starving in this scenario. A central authority agreed by all to manage this situation fairly is the way out. Rules agreed to in common beforehand and enforced by a neutral party.
    - voidfunc 1y ago
      You're missing the key next step where after you get yours you start figuring out ways to deny others from getting theirs either through bullying, state-supported violence or legal means :)
    - thwarted 1y ago
      Tragedy of the Commons Ruins Everything Around Me.
      - ninetyninenine 1y ago
        It's only a tragedy if everyone acts the same way. If a few act against the grain then it's no longer a tragedy. The common thief is an example. Also pirating games and movies is another example.
      - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
        Tragedy of the Commons is bullshit. Just one pessimistic, selfish asshole penning out a manifesto on how everyone is just as miserable and awful as he is. It assumes that individuals, left to their own devices, will inevitably over-consume shared resources out of selfishness. But this narrative ignores centuries of evidence to the contrary: communities around the world have sustainably managed commons through norms, trust, and mutual accountability. And he wasn't just wrong for the hell of it. He used it to argue against immigration and for coercive population control, not to promote environmental stewardship. His model erases the role of governance, culture, and cooperation, reducing human behavior to a simplistic race to depletion. In reality, the commons don’t fail because they’re shared. They fail when they’re mismanaged, privatized, or stripped of the social fabric that sustains them. I would go so far to say that the only way this concept has ever come close to being "correct" is the culturally inert modern Western world which has replaced everyone's souls with aimless desires for products and cheap dopamine hits, far from anything approaching our natural state.
toast0 1y ago
> If you don't want people to pirate your music, your only path of recourse as a musician is to stop uploading digital copies of your work. People have been recording concerts for decades. Often with a bit of help from the sound crew, which can probably be discouraged by musicians with enough influence, but if the only allowed way to hear a song is to attend a concert, lots of people would rather have a recording that a fan made and distributed.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ada1981 1y ago

I think it’s just funny to post bad reviews.

lukan 1y ago

It is one musician whose negative comment is displayed along with people complaining that the whole thing is slow garbage. You might be reading too much into it.

partomniscient 1y ago
One musician can be ripped off and not compensated and have to take the 'big guys' to court on the off-chance they find out about their work being used despite the (fucked up) copyright laws [0]. It is a massive problem. It's the rich poor divide with propoganda fucking over the genuine little people in favour of the richer/established/more connected people. Human life is like this. Call it out if you see it if you value truth over greed. The future is built on the past. Claimed "Ownership" of the past fucks up the present for the established powers over creativity (e.g. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act). AI just takes it to a whole 'nother level. [0] https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/unauthorized-rap-samples/ https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/unauthorized-rap-samples/

protocolture 1y ago

I am kind of sick of Musicians complaining that culture is so accessible. Its truly the case that if it wasnt for radio and the legal frameworks developed to deliver radio we would probably be looking at incredibly heavy gatekeeping for music. Humans in general are better off with tools like this. And I for one am glad that these developers are showing off who is angry. Heck things could be a lot better right now if it wasnt for Metallica.

fiddlerwoaroof 1y ago
I like Pete Seeger’s paraphrase of his father: “Plagiarism is basic to all culture”. I think we underestimate the damage to society at large when “remixing” the work of others is legally fraught. The mere reproduction of a previous performance is not additional work for the artist and so does not require compensation: to demand royalties undermines the fundamental structure of art for most of history.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  As a musician: that's totally fine, we can argue the philosophy of it all day and what the law should or shouldn't be. But right now it is what it is and people are basing their careers off that status quo. There should be some respect for that, no?
  - welferkj 1y ago
    Sure, and "piracy" is part of the status quo. Show some respect for my total disrespect of IP laws and your livelihood.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      Do you feel that putting the quote from the musician in the testimonials was respectful?
      - protocolture 1y ago