Ya know what stops piracy? A better service than what piracy provides.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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It's funny how we see totally different effects there in regards to music, as all apps have almost all of the music. Spotify e.g. is so popular here that noone streams or downloads music illegally anymore. And you only need Spotify.
The solution is simple. Cave to the labels in power and be ruthless to anyone else. This way you can have the whole catalogue of music in your app while surviving economically. Until.. the enshitification becomes too strong again and we'll have a piracy revival. And then a new service pops up again, etc..
The circle of life of pop culture under capitalism.
The really stunning thing about music piracy was it was incredibly easy to do, and your entire catalogue could very easily be taken with you in your pocket and to new devices.
It’s a miracle we all decided streaming was worth it, they really did make it a better experience than pirating.
I mean now you don't even need your device anymore, the data is available from everyone's device.
I have yet to listen to all the music on my SD card in my phone. I will get around to it eventually.
After that I will test out Spotify.
I have an enormous music library on a USB drive in my car. Granted, most of the songs weren't pirated, they were ripped from thrift store CDs, but you can do the same thing with piracy
Can you imagine if you needed to subscribe to a different service just to listen to a single band? Hell right you'd be back on the high seas.
I really enjoyed "The Strike" when I discovered them on Spotify, but all of a sudden I noticed all their best songs were gone from my playlists and I found out they made specific albums/songs exclusive to their Bandcamp/physical copies, so I bought them off Band Camp.
I've always been kinda mixed on that move like, they clearly know which of their songs people really wanted, and decided to paywall them outside of a service I already pay for, which feels bad in principle. But at the same time, I like their music and I agree with them getting paid what they think they're worth.
I hove no clear cut thoughts or conclusions, but I can totally imagine different bands/artists trying to find the monetization strategy and platform that works for them and leading to bad experiences for consumers.
I think artists shouldn't primarily see Spotify etc as a source for monetization, but a way to market their music. Like putting it on YouTube. Most money comes from tours and merch anyways.
And that's where Netflix etc went wrong. They still think it's optional to offer the whole catalogue, but long-term it's the only way these services can survive. Either via this or account sharing.
Netflix was kind of not at fault in this. After they pioneered the streaming industry, proving it can be massively profitable to the very resistant studios, the studios yanked their licenses and content off Netflix and spun up their own crappy service, charging just as much as Netflix did for everything. Paramount with Star Trek is a great example of that. Oh, but that wasn't enough. After getting everyone who was going to subscribe to Paramount for Star Trek to actually subscribe, then they sold the rights to HBO. They'll slice the pie as many times as they can, selling the ever shrinking pieces for the former price of a whole pie. Netflix saw this coming years ago, which is why they tried so hard to create their own quality content, but it's just not enough, and usually not good enough to stay subscribed.
Netflix saw this coming years ago, which is why they tried so hard to create their own quality content, but it's just not enough, and usually not good enough to stay subscribed.
Which is why you have to lick the boots of the studios as a streaming service. There's not much more you can do if you want the whole catalogue. But mb that's sth that's just not profitable at this point. Because their cut would endanger your economic sustainability.
But fucking over streaming services is also not a long-term successful strategy for studios if they want to battle piracy.
So either they find enough common ground or illegal streaming etc will grow.
Plus I can integrate Tidal with my local collection as if I had downloaded it and combine it all on any device wherever I am with Plexamp
nah local files with mp3s and sync it with preferred cloud services is the best
Except when the ID3 tags get all messed up and you spend a whole Saturday afternoon fixing your entire library. Granted that's how I taught myself how to program, so it's a win/win I guess.
I support piracy because it's educational. We need to invest in the future of technology by encouraging people to pirate. To that end, I propose more anti piracy ads.
Depends on your usecase. I would never go back. Spotify has release radar etc. It's so much more convenient to find new music by your favourite artists or similar ones now.
They had it. They decided three yachts aren't enough.
"you wouldn't download a car"
Fuck you yes I would. Invents 3d printing
It's like the anti piracy messages are just advertising for piracy
how else im supposed to play some arbitrary game with cars from a digital game copy?
The "you wouldn't download a car" joke is one thing. What I don't understand is how people genuinely use a satirical joke as a supporting argument for piracy, or a critique of anti-piracy.
The advertising never said downloading a car. It was stealing a car, which is very clearly a crime.
You are free to claim auto theft is not comparable to digital piracy. You are free to suggest that somehow in the future you'd be able to home manufacturer a vehicle (although a bit far fetched IMO). But criticizing an ad campaign for something they've never said is just silly.
If I stole someone's car, and an exact copy of the car was left there for them, I'd probably be okay with stealing a car. Copying a file isn't the same as stealing a physical album. That's the criticism of that ad campaign, they aren't equal comparisons. Besides, if buying isn't owning, then copying isn't stealing.
Like I said, you're welcome to talk about it being an invalid comparison, but the advert did not state you wouldn't download a car.
We're aware of that. People didn't steal albums either.
Well, maybe you didn't. My CD case that someone stole out of my parent's convertible would like to disagree.
Funny enough, most of those discs were burned with content of dubious legality.
I mean, they could simply provide all content, in one convenient place, for a reasonable price, and on release.
That's asking quite a lot...
That’s asking for early Netflix back
Early Netflix was great. I stopped pirating. I guess it has been a good 10 years but it's back to the high seas now.
As somebody who has been using Netflix since before they even had streaming as an option, I think a lot of people really over-inflate how good the offering was in the early years of their streaming unless you just loved watching reruns of cable television from the 90s and 2000s.
Make no mistake, the offering now is worse. But it’s not like it was truly a central, low priced hub for everything you wanted to watch.
It wasn't just the content, it was the delivery of watching whatever you chose whenever you chose and wherever you chose for a reasonable monthly fee. Even without a massive catalogue it was 1000 times better than cable and the existing services that charged stupidly high fees for on demand temporary access.
It did have a lot of movies in addition to the series though, even if I had seen most of them because they started with the popular ones.
Honestly, what I miss most about early Netflix was the insane library they had of documentaries
Good documentaries from quality sources too, like Planet Earth!
Not the sensationalist garbage they put out under their brand now.
Or Amazon putting out that dogshit Jim Caviezel right wing trash
It doesn't seem like anything to me...
But would it disappear someday without warning? I'm not one to do a lot of pirating but the times I'm most tempted to take up the habit are when things that were supposed to be "purchased" just disappear and there's nothing customers can do about it...or when I see some crazy anti-pirating argument. The urge to do it out of spite is real.
Depends whether or not they hide some code to give them the option to remote disable your files after you've downloaded them, and if they to restrict your ability to create backup copies & play your files on devices you own.
There's no reason why they couldn't make stuff available in ways which buyers could feel confident in.
I've definitely appreciated when certain cool, open minded creators have released content DRM free but they are going against the grain of the big money platforms. But, I agree, like many things that would make the world a little cooler, there's no concrete reason it couldn't be done.
Likely going to have to be forced on the industry, by some mix of piracy, legislation, reality & artists' choices.
Meantime, convenience has considerable sway. For the generations for whom music was expensive & awkward to acquire (& who have the most disposable income now to spend on music as well as the most faith in companies), this still seems easier than pushing back.
Who would have thought people don't like being threatened?
I imagine for a lot of people an anti piracy campaign simply serves to alert them that piracy is possible and apparently so common and easy that everybody else must be doing it. They probably walk away curious about learning a new hobby more than fearing the consequences.
I like to call it the D.A.R.E. Effect.
As a man, I support this message.
The only logical conclusion.. a pro piracy message. Yarrrrrr
Now I'm gonna piracy even harder