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Music Piracy Is Back in a Big Way (www.wired.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

176 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Visits to music piracy websites went up more than 13 percent last year, a new report says. The majority of those visits were to sites that allow users to download the audio from YouTube URLs.

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[–] [email protected] 131 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I feel like Bandcamp's biggest fans are prolific pirates with a conscience who just want to see their favorite artists actually get paid.

EDIT: Don't forget it's Bandcamp Friday today.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago (2 children)

bandcamp sold out

look forward to its demise

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/17/bandcamp-lays-off-half-its-staff-after-buyout-by-songtradr

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But we'll still need a proper place to support our favorite creators (where the artists actually receive some of the money). I wonder where people will migrate next.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Audius.co

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Haven't heard about that one, thank you for the heads-up.

First impressions:

From top 10 artists i follow:
- 5/10 have profile and uploaded at least one song on Bandcamp.
- 3/10 have an account on Audius (possibility to donate).
- 1/10 has uploaded at least one song on Audius.
One MUST upload a profile picture to create an account.
- About 1/3 of proposed artists during account creation have uploaded <5 songs, most seem to be remix and cover artists.
- Didn't figure out how to search for artists during account creation, ended up choosing 2/3 artists I've never heard of.
Not immediately apparent whether I can download bought music to a lossless format.
Not sure how to buy album or individual song at first glance.
LOTS of remixes and covers, not so much original songs (this is both good and bad).
Nice that you can donate arbitrary amount without buying anything, in case you already got the music from... other places...
- I didn't find anyplace where "$AUDIO" is explained, how much the artist receives, or what you receive if anything.

Less relevant observations:

weird pause/play button, sometimes there's just a loading wheel spinning where it's supposed to be, not really functional.
Slightly intrusive, had to disable some plugins (Javascript (obviously it's playing music) and fingerprinting (cloudflare?)) for the site to load. Not relevant to music, but just a general observation since we're in the piracy community.

Not much going on by now, but it probably just needs some time to grow and assimilate the likely soon-to-be-migrating Bandcamp user base. I'll keep an eye on it, and probably revisit it once more artists have migrated to it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Thanks for the detailed obesrvation! Yeah unfortunately it still has some technical issues and shortcomings but imo this platform has some great potential.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

The economics with the artists haven't changed. Until they do I'll still use them to pay artists a living wage.