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Are Music Streaming Services Ethical?


koolkeyZ865

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Guest Ralph Nolte
When it comes to the question of "ethics & morals" in today's music world, there's this huge disconnect between the various players: consumers, musicians, middle-men - the latter being the "industry" that makes most of the money and exerts the most influence without really caring about the long-term interests of the other two...

 

For music appreciation to happen all you need is artist and audience (could even be the same person, e.g. somebody just noodling on a piano for own enjoyment). For "music business", however, you need people willing to part with some money and somebody with rights to music that can be "monetized" - note that in this scenario a conventional musician is optional! The big labels and publishers are milking plenty of long-dead artists' catalogue and Spotify has commissioned no-name bands/performers to create music specifically for inclusion in popular playlists (with up-front payments for services rendered, so no royalties are involved). If this process were taken to its logical conclusion, streaming sites could eventually move entirely to AI-driven music that's created by algorithms to mimic various genres (this already exists, e.g. computer-composed music in a "Bach style" that's good enough to fool experts...)

 

There'll always be fans interested in the artists behind the music - but for the masses who just want something nice to listen to according to their moods, anonymous and/or generative music might become the new normal. Imagine a day when everyone will just have a generic music app installed on their devices and (maybe) pay for subscriptions to continuously updated algo-packs - you'd then get an ever-evolving code base to keep generating new music in your favourite styles on the fly. One of the few remaining options for musicians to then make a proper living would be to work in this field: programming and fine-tuning proprietary systems according to consumer preferences.

 

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The exposure argument is a thorny one, as many creatives are exploited for providing creative work free of charge on the promise of exposure, and in most cases the person who benefits the most is whomever you're providing this free of charge art to.

 

If you stream, and that's the only way you 'buy' music, that's fine - just don't kid yourself that it's helping anyone but the biggest of artists and the subscription provider. The best way to support the artist is as it has always been - buy the physical media, buy the merch, go see them live (if possible, buy media + merch directly from the artists bandcamp or label)

Yep. Even looking into getting my tunes on streaming sites lately a lot of the distribution services offer 'exposure packages' that are supposed to guarantee plays and bullshit like that. Pay to play the game, it's always been that way.

 

 

 

Yeah I remember having to research how to get distro without literally paying an arm and a leg. Some of the bigger underground labels on bandcamp like say Orange Milk or Dream Catalogue use one that's fair but they often run into issues because they have so much sample heavy music, meaning many albums are simply non-starters for streaming services.

 

It's like you are talented you either tailor you music for commercial appeal and throw money at getting PR OR you organically and sincerely build an audience from ground up, meaning you'll likely still be successful only among a niche audience or scene...unless you happen to get noticed by a music journalist actually doing their fucking job and finding worthwhile music to share.

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I use it daily. It's legal at least. Of course legality does not mean it's ethical.

 

I use Spotify just as much for finding recs and putting together playlists as I do to stream music in general. It's essentially replaced last.fm for me in every way besides a scrobbling record. There's no downplaying that, I confess I pay for it and all. I do scoff at people who get pissed an artist and/or an album isn't on Spotify. That's some prime bullshit privilege.

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My biggest qualms about Spotify rest not in the streaming platform but their model. Someone pointed out that they make most of their money via major label rereleases and such. Likewise they've sucked in people with the same PR and payola bullshit that wrecks every aspect of the music industry.

 

There's also their contracted and in-house music producers who put out single tracks under different aliases which are then placed on their most popular playlists. They've denied this and offered explanations in defense of their process, so calling them "fake" is a bit dubious (although historically major labels have always cashed in with novelty ripoff or "inspiration" albums with different music fads - check any vinyl bargain bin and you'll find plenty of examples from the 60s and 70s of this) but nonetheless it's clear Spotify is trying whatever it can to make a buck and that will never include a proper share with more obscure and less popular artists struggling to make a living. That's why a DIY scene will always exist. That's also why any article I've seen claim that streaming music/ playlist curation is a revolution is pure cringe-worthy industry horseshit.

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I'm pretty sure there's a specific streaming service for DJs called pulselocker or some shit with Serato, traktor etc integration. Probably 100% EDM bangers.

 

this sounds so shiddy I want to shidd all over this concept.

 

Most of the streaming songs that we tested (on a home cable internet connection) loaded into Serato DJ in about 5 seconds or less. Of course, the speed that a song downloads or streams from Pulselocker will depend on your connection – if you’re in a venue with a slower connection, you might see a song take a few minutes.

oh. yeah that sounds. that sounds, good

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I'll post some more thoughts on this as it's something I've followed closely for quite a few years and I've just finished a night shift and just about ready to hit the hay! 

But from my experiences, some services are fairly ethical and some aren't....Spotify are the good guys in my opinion and really do try to improve things for the end user and it's content providers. Which leads me to think most anti-spotify articles are sponsored content paid for by apple or google.

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I wish bandcamp would do an app for Apple TV, streaming onto my sound bar without draining my phone battery thru bluetooth would be a really a cool experience IMO, if they gave you a nice big cover image like iCloud streaming does, it would be wicked.

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I wish bandcamp would do an app for Apple TV, streaming onto my sound bar without draining my phone battery thru bluetooth would be a really a cool experience IMO, if they gave you a nice big cover image like iCloud streaming does, it would be wicked.

Hmm kind of a gay way to say it, but I think you mean if bandcamp had a much stronger streaming platform then a lot of people would ditch Spotify entirely.

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I want to ditch Spotify for Apple Music is this a bad idea

I doubt Apple Music has the range of electronic stuff Spotify does, which to be fair can be quite surprising.
ime both have most stuff but not all, Apple has things which aren’t on Spotify and vice versa..

 

personally I prefer Apple Music to Spotify by a fuckton, 3 reasons:

 

- UI is a lot better if you’re using Apple devices. Experience is pretty good if you have multiple Apple things. If you have an iPad it supports multitasking/split-view. Not sure what’s wrong with Spotify that they still don’t support this but it’s lol.

 

- it’s centered areound your library. Basically feels like old school iPod/iTunes, if you want to. I’m an album guy, in Apple Music albums are still front & center. On Spotify albums seem like the 3rd or so tier within the UI.

 

- something is not available in Apple Music? You buy it in bandcamp or pirate it? You want it in Apple Music? Yeah drag it into iTunes, done & available everywhere. Good luck doing this with Spotify.

 

(I’m sure Spotify has some advantages, it’s more popular after all, tho tbh the only thing I can think of is searching for things is faster & better)

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oh here’s a thing which can be fucking annoying in Apple Music: their database can be comical if there’s multiple artists with the same name. It simply doesn’t seem to have any solution for that, so it’s possible that it thinks your fav+ underground electronic artist is some stupid Colombian trap rapper & shit like that.

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yeah i'm using apple music now. it's got a bunch of deepchord stuff that isn't on spotify and the layout is better, although like everything apple it runs like shit on my windows 10 computer. 

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I use the Bancamp app to stream albums that I'll buy if I like them. I also use Amazon unlimited to listen to the few "big" releases I'm interested in such as the new Fever Ray, as well as classical recordings and things like that. Do I feel guilty about any of this? No. I still buy a decent amount of music though

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content providers

 

This right here.  The reduction of musicians (and artists, and journalists, and designers, and filmmakers, and podcasters, &c. &c.) to genericized "content providers"* is absolutely emblematic of the larger problems that what we're talking about here is part of, the big, informal project to commodify human interaction of all types at the most granular level possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*not by samfez here, by the industries that have normalized that concept over the last 15 years or so.

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Latest Joe Rogan podcast had Billy Corgan on and he dishes dirt on the topic. Record companies handed over content for very cheap in order to get an equity stake in companies like Spotify. So it was nothing really new: labels acting as pimps like we already knew.

 

^

 

 

content providers

 

This right here.  The reduction of musicians (and artists, and journalists, and designers, and filmmakers, and podcasters, &c. &c.) to genericized "content providers"* is absolutely emblematic of the larger problems that what we're talking about here is part of, the big, informal project to commodify human interaction of all types at the most granular level possible.

 

 

Spotify paying $2.77 million a month for NYC office

 

Shit reads like a PR release for 720 Entertainment

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wtver carpe diem mate

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slsk f0rEverything you can't get anywhere else

i only buy if i cant find it on soulseek

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streaming music will never be my thing and i don't trust those services one bit

i put everything i steal or buy on a harddrive, i enjoy putting some time and effort in relistening the albums i got. gives me a snarejizz everytime when i refind some treasure i did'nt notice at first listens

This.

 

:datboi: And yes, still using (and will use till I diiieeee) DAP/mp3 players. :datboi:

 

For some reason never had any interest towards streaming. I buy what I love/need either on digital or CD and listen with my precious gadgets/players. Plus the batteries of my smartphones this far have needed a constant recharge with a normal everyday use, so don't dare to think how often they would need charging if I was using a streaming app in the background. OK, there might be phones with good batteries and all but they'll probably cost some $$$ with an age span equivalent to toast. Dunno, smartphones are basically a necessary evil to me. Yet, BC and SC streaming apps could be potentially nice. But all those spotify/apple things are personally no-no.

 

I love how the internet age youngsters now and then scratch their head when seeing me playing my sony. I've been told I should use spotify, because I can use it for free. Indeed, that's the most important thing, every goddamn thing should be free. At least you guys pay the monthly fees.

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