this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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whatever will the millionaires do????

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[–] SternburgExport@feddit.de 191 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Stealing from the artists? But that is already Spotifys job.

[–] NetchytheNetch@feddit.it 51 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I usually buy the records of the artists I like. I stopped using spotify for this exact reason, it preys on artists and fattens the rich bastards on top

[–] heavyboots@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This. This is why I am in the “I still buy CDs” camp. DL the album and if I’m still listening to it a couple days later I buy the CD, assuming the artist still even releases on CD…

[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 9 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Even buying the cd only puts a few bucks at best in the artists pockets. 80%+ goes to the publisher/producer/marketing/etc.

If you want to support an artist go see them live and/or buy merch from them directly. Anything what is just supporting publishers.

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[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 38 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Well technically it is the record labels' jobs. I think most big artists don't interact directly with Spotify but through a label that signed them when they were small and takes 90% of the income from their songs.

[–] Transcendant@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Exactly. When you see someone whingeing about how little they earned from x amount of streams, go look up what spotify pays per stream, do the maths, it never adds up.

It's because they signed a shitty publishing / label deal. I've got plenty of music on spotify and tbh have earned more in royalties from streams than I ever did via labels in this day and age (though there was a 'golden age' where digital downloads paid very well, assuming the label manager wasn't on the fiddle). Spotify could prob pay a little more per stream at this point though.

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[–] Whirlybird@aussie.zone 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Artists don’t generally make money from music sales unless they self publish. Spotify gets the music out there and heard so people discover bands and go see them in concert and buy merch, which is where bands make their money.

It’s crazy that it’s 2023 and people still don’t understand this.

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[–] Chozo@kbin.social 140 points 1 year ago (6 children)

This thread is unnecessary bullying. If you don't like his take, then downvote him and move on with your life. Posting his username and comment in another community/instance is just poor taste and makes you seem a bit like a crybaby.

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[–] ErwinLottemann@feddit.de 67 points 1 year ago (3 children)

just to be sure - are you referring to the musicians as millionaires or do you mean the streaming service ceos? just wanted to check because i know a few musicians and none of them are millionaires, seems like they are doing something wrong... 😐

[–] Chozo@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Common pirate mentality: anyone who has something I want doesn't deserve to have it.

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[–] Damage@feddit.it 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah, all my musician friends must love keeping a low profile I guess

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[–] sashanoraa@lemmy.blahaj.zone 67 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone who's bough several albums on bandcamp, I'm pretty sure I've given more money to actual artists than the average spoify user ever has through their subscription.

[–] ComradeKhoumrag@infosec.pub 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Doesn't the production label make most of the money from sales anyways?and the artist makes more from live performances

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 7 points 1 year ago

That's assuming the artist does live performances. Not all do.

I think the more accurate answer is "it depends." It's best to find out the best way to support your favorite artists. Some have their own site, some use Bandcamp, some use Apple Music, some want their followers to use Spotify (because maybe exposure there helps them more). There's an artist I follow that says Spotify the best way to support her; I don't understand how, but it's not my place to question the first hand source about what helps them eat.

Either way, it's not as cut and dry as "Spotify bad."

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[–] barttier@feddit.de 63 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Imagine feeling good because you pay for spotify. If you want your favorite artists to have money buy tickets and merch.

[–] 3laws@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] barttier@feddit.de 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also Eventim if you are in germany - good luck

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[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Better than no money at all tbh.

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[–] LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Y'all get so pissy when people judge you for stealing content. Then you start attacking this user? Even putting up your own post to bully them?

Definitely the behavior of adults and not 14 year olds.

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[–] HeneryHawk@thelemmy.club 39 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Have friend. Is artist. Headline act in front of +40K. Goes all over world doing festivals and stuff. Steals music. Encourages me to steal music. Laughs when I steal his music

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[–] java@beehaw.org 39 points 1 year ago

Most artists are not millionaires.

[–] International_buy549@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm sure Spotify is paying the artists very fairly and totally not robbing them of their labour.

[–] newIdentity@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 year ago (6 children)

It's actually the lables that are ripping off the artists.

Spotify isn't profitable. They're constantly losing money

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[–] jaykay@lemmy.zip 32 points 1 year ago (12 children)

If I play one song, from one artist, once a day, for a year, the artist earns about $2 from me. BFD lol

[–] gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

it gets more interesting if you calculate how much of the percentage of a user's subscription goes to spotify, how much goes to labels and how much ends up in the artists themselves.

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[–] CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It is important to know that artists make close to nothing on Spotify. By pirating Spotify you hurt big tech (and even not really, it’s not like they have a finite amount of money) and not the artists. Sending an artist $5 on Ko-Fi to an artist you enjoy will absolve you of all your music piracy sins for the rest of your life.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And everyone blames spotify for this and uses metrics about how much per listen they pay and forgetting we used to listen to songs thousands of times on CDs we paid $10 for.

Artists make close to nothing on spotify, but they also made jack all before spotify. Most of the money you pay goes to labels.

Going to a show is a lot closer to putting money in an artist's pocket, that's how they make most of their money.

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[–] jetsetdorito@lemm.ee 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Spotify replacing songs in my library without warning basically radicalized me to start using modded apps and buy my favorite artists on bandcamp

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Make sure you’ve got everything off of Bandcamp cos it’s going to enshittify rapidly after the sale.

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[–] PixxlMan@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

Ah yes all those millionaire artists. Poor rich artists. Everyone knows all artists are rich. Right?

Did you.. read the comment? It wasn't about the streaming platform owners.

[–] artaxadepressedhorse@lemmyngs.social 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll typically buy albums from artists that I'm pretty certain aren't mega wealthy, and actually I've just been paying less attention to the ones who are. If I check them out on YouTube and they have a Vevo logo on the vid that's a easy way to know they don't need my money at all.

[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 year ago

Vevo channel is cheaper than you think. You can submit a music video to Vevo for $500 (last time I checked), and if it gets rejected you'll get a refund.

[–] DJDarren@thelemmy.club 18 points 1 year ago

You know, as much as I'm fine with setting sail to find video content that's hidden behind streaming subscriptions, I'm actually ok with paying £15 a month for Apple Music / Spotify, et al...

I mean, I'd say there's 99% similarity between the libraries of the big two streamers, so it's not like you have to sub to both to get all the music you want. I can listen to the same hardcore bands across most of them, and that's fine. The problem I have is that there's a bunch of shows on Netflix, another bunch on D+, more on Prime, and so on, and so on. So we're made to feel that, in order to keep up with cultural discourse, we have to spend out £70+ a month on half a dozen different services.

And nah, fuck that.

All that said, I do download some music, because I want FLACs to convert to 320 aac so I can load on to the iPod I like to use.

[–] SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I do want to move away from Spotify since they randomly drop previously available songs from time to time, but I have some 500 songs in a playlist. Is there a way to easily RIP all of it in good quality? spotify-dl is simply insufficient in terms of quality and accuracy. Has anyone used zotify? Does it work? I might get a second account and try, if anyone can tell me if it worked for them.

[–] green_dot@le.fduck.net 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

First of all, this might now answer your question fully, but..

spotify-dl uses youtube music to download stuff, and if you have youtube premium you can get higher quality downloaded, I think it does opus 128 or 156 kbit, and the sound is quite good.

tidal, deezer, or qobuz have cd or hi-res quality songs, and there are utils that help you get stuff from their service. qobuz-dl's the one I have been experimenting with. Obviously you need subscription for it, but spotify is generally shit.

Apart from that I used few other sources to get my music.

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[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is Spotify dropping the songs or are the record companies?

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[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Spotify CEO is a warmonger, so fuck that guy and his company anyway.

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 24 points 1 year ago

However, the support doesn’t stop with direct investments. Spotify also hosts podcasts discussing several elements of military affairs from history, strategy and military technology.

Lol, imagine complaining about historical podcasts.

[–] Carter@feddit.uk 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

People bragging about modded Spotify always confuse me when there are plenty of better open source options utilising YouTube Music.

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[–] BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

you're taking pride in bootlegging content?

yes-chad

Why are people such massive dorks now when it comes to piracy, fuck off

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[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

It's super-complicated to figure out how much revenue each stream earns musicians, but unless they're already one of the biggest names in music, it ain't much. Which means that, either way, pirating the music isn't harming them to any significant degree, unless everyone was pirating their music, and no one was attending their live performances.

[–] RealFknNito@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I support gaming piracy from big studios, I support movie piracy from big studios, Spotify and YouTube are just the middleman for smaller content creators. You're just stealing from creators at some point. Why is that a point of pride?

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[–] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 year ago

Imagine being convinced that giving away what little money you have to a huge corporation was "right".

[–] MrSqueezles@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've pirated content and don't have any issues with it. What has worn me out

  • Sites being pirated don't give a shit that pirates aren't going to use them anymore. That's literally why they blocked them.
  • Want to consume content without paying? Do it and maybe share with others how you did it, but don't make the millionth post bragging about how you're sticking it to the man. Go rob a Tiffany's and brag about sticking it to that company. And when they install new security measures, post about how unfair it is and you'll never take stuff from them again. Or don't. Really. Don't. I want to see that post about as much as the post about what you had for breakfast this morning.
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[–] sturmblast@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I'll tell you right now most the bands I listen to aren't fucking millionaires

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