Is music piracy dying?

Most of the discussion and sources of content talk about movies and series.

I’ve been recently looking for psy and techno music, finding FLAC or WAV with active seeders feels like striking gold. It’s definitely been a while since I’ve looked for active torrent sites and it feels more barren than ever.

Edit: Thank you all for all that valuable information. The reddit group really wasn’t this helpful and valued making fun over adding real use able knowledge.

carson,
@carson@lemmy.world avatar

It’s certainly alive and exists.

But access to music is easy and affordable. It’s more inconvenient for me to pirate it than just use a streaming service.

I also listen to a lot of independent artists and rather buy their stuff to support them.

kiddblur,

The only music I pirate is stuff that isn’t on Spotify, namely Nintendo game soundtracks

One_Dollar_Payout,

The thing is not every popular or moderately popular song is on any streaming site. I’m a fan of 90s and 00s trance music, and there are some notable songs that aren’t available on any of the most popular paid services, or are available only in newer, re-recorded versions or remixes - some of them are available on Spotify, but not all. YouTube Music has such an advantage that you can listen not only to the songs uploaded by record labels, but also to countless additional songs available on YouTube, however most of the time they are in worse quality (AFAIK max audio bit rate in YT videos is 128 kbps). So while streaming services are now affordable and have very extensive audio library, they have some shortcomings that one can only fill with physical media or piracy.

yumac,

I prefer there not being any lag in-between songs, which most streaming services have.

I usually use a streaming service like YouTube (through piped) to find new artists, then use soulseek to download their entire discography.

The problem with streaming is that the companies will eventually figure out new ways to squeeze every penny out of you. The once ‘free’ YouTube is now blocking adblocks, and Spotify requires DRM to be installed for it to function.

For me, piracy isn’t just about convenience or price, it’s mainly about control over the media I have.

blue_zephyr,

Spotify is very affordable and provides pretty much all music on earth. I’m not interested in jumping through hoops to download songs if I can just conveniently stream them all from one legit service.

YellowtoOrange,
@YellowtoOrange@lemmy.world avatar

We share our spotify account with friends and halve the cost.

Lininop,

Yep its basically like Netflix before it shit the bed.

wick,

The state of video streaming is hardly Netflix’s fault. When every channel starts a subscription service and pulls it’s content from the others everyone loses.

Music streaming on the other hand is a complete experience on every service. It’s kind of a miracle tbh.

MavTheHack,
@MavTheHack@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

Still no word on the hifi tier though

ashok36,

I have Spotify through a family plan but I do download backups for when the enshitification happens to them.

I just use lidarr with the deezloader script. Sign up for a month of deezer premium every six months and just download my back log. For $30/yr I always have a relatively up to date, lossless quality, music library backup.

Heldenhirn,

I'ma get hate for this but I'm not pirating out of principle but when I think something it's to expensive for it's price. I live in a country with good salaries and have to work less than one hour for one month of endless music. To me that is a good deal but I am aware that it is not to everyone especially those from other countries. I mostly pirate Movies and TV Shows because you would need to pay over 50€/month to get access to all services.

And009,

Those are cheap in my country and we don’t have access to high quality service like tidal either

SinJab0n,

Nah, not happening. I used to buy stuff from play music because they used to let u download the mp3, flac, etc. Then i would use it for an old android 4 phone wich i use as player.

But since they kill it im not doing that anymore, i refuse to suffer a netflix 2.o now with more tears for all the money u invested and watching how it evaporates because a suit tough it was something nobody watches even when it’s one of ur more popular shows, or worse, they block ur country and u end up in piracy once more.

If u wanna use the argument of “but we need to help the creators, bla, bla, bla”, dude if u really wanna help them donate them directly, be it music or series, it has been more than proven that they only recibe the bare minimum by conventional means.

Amir,
@Amir@lemmy.ml avatar

You can pay for any streaming service that serves FLAC and rip that. Very easy to do for Tidal and Deezer for example.

And009,

Not accessible in my country

Amir,
@Amir@lemmy.ml avatar

VPN?

procrastinator,

I know deezer doesnt allow vpns on their site

COOLSJ,

Rutracker.org maybe. I find pretty much every music I want on it. Though i mostly listen mainstream so maybe it is easier to find it.

Misanthrope,
@Misanthrope@lemmy.ml avatar

I don’t think it’s dying at all. Check out private music trackers like redacted.ch/index.php or interview.orpheus.network

OiNK -> WHAT.CD -> RED

chuuqovn,

I have people download my files on soulseek/nicotine+ daily. Plus anyone that would pirate music probably already know how to rip it straight from streaming services.

dizarmstrong,

Soulseek is still around? It’s been like 10 years since I’ve used it

Anonymoose,
@Anonymoose@infosec.pub avatar

I use it daily, they even have a mobile version called Seeker which is pretty nice.

chuuqovn,

Yep, still going strong

hydra,
@hydra@lemmy.world avatar

Soulseek is very much alive, try there. But please try to share your stuff too.

And009,

Yes for sure, I am seeder #2 for most of the gold I’ve struck in the past few weeks

TornadoValley,

As the normies went to streaming it became more gatekept and toxic. I’m mainly familiar with the attitude of trades only or straight up selling tracks (eg groupbuys with kids paying thousands of dollars for some shitty Kanye mumble demo). The game didn’t used to be like that. The days of the blogs with mega/rapid share links are long gone

I mean you got all the stream rippers eg SlavArt which is super nice. Soulseek is still alright but getting taken over by traders. RED/OPS around but you can’t just waltz in and I’d argue they don’t compare to what.cd or even OinK. RuTracker still got stuff going on

But when you’re after actual rare stuff that you can’t just buy or stream it can be real tough nowadays. Scene archives can be nice but very hard to get access and it’s mostly mp3s.

hydra,
@hydra@lemmy.world avatar

Fuck traders, if you’re on Soulseek do the right thing and blacklist them.

TornadoValley,

Traders are hardly just on Soulseek. Most probably aren’t since it’s so accessible. Most of the traders I’ve seen on Soulseek anyways are scammers who are just sharing RED repositories. Or they’re on dc++ hubs where you can’t have locked files anyways

ode,
@ode@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

The best thing good users can do is remain on the client for the long term, ensuring traders remain a small minority. The next best thing they can do is PM traders regularly with requests to share. Make their sessions a pain in the butt due to the private chat alert going off routinely. ‘Hey trader, please open up to non-buddies temporarily, even at a crippled speed. I’d like two items from you. You know Soulseek is a sharing platform, right?’ Some may realise the ridiculousness of their position and co-operate.

Don’t stoop to their level by blacklisting, either. They will take that as endorsement of their behaviour. (Set 20kb/s down if it makes you feel better.)

hydra,
@hydra@lemmy.world avatar

‘Hey trader, please open up to non-buddies temporarily, even at a crippled speed. I’d like two items from you. You know Soulseek is a sharing platform, right?’

Will try it, thanks. Seems more civilized.

Don’t stoop to their level by blacklisting, either. They will take that as endorsement of their behaviour. (Set 20kb/s down if it makes you feel better.)

Thanks for the tip. That seems like a better punishment.

vibe,

quite a bunch of services that can pull high quality music directly from streaming sites. straight up lossless stuff as well

Polydextrous,

Is that so?

…gif any names of these services? Just so I can avoid them, of course!

pixelprimer,

Tidal, you can use tidal-dl to download the music

Emerald_Earth,

slavart.gamesdrive.net

Click “Join our Revolt!”

xengi,
@xengi@feddit.de avatar

For music from artists that don't exist anymore I mostly use ddl. If the artist is still there and offers a decent way of giving them money, I usually do that.

FujiTive,

Not for me, I’m pirating tons of songs in these days. Try Soulseek it’s a gold mine of good music with great quality

4th_Times_A_Charm,

Soulseek has been great since I found it. I’ve been able to replace so much of my CD collection that I ripped 2 decades ago in 256 MP3 with flac.

whodoctor11,

Today’s music doesn’t worthy to be pirated.

vibe,

skill issue, there’s lots of good music out there

BraBraBra,

Made an account just so I can call you an uncultured rube. Git gud

whodoctor11,

It’s a joke. I like Lil nas X, Resident, RATM (technically today’s), Bo Burnham… But good that it made you enter the best place in internet! 👍

MavTheHack,
@MavTheHack@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

Music is hard to find on public trackers. RED and ORP are awesome private trackers that have basically anything you can think of. And if its not use the deezload telegram bot and send it a link to the song on deezer

Or you can you soulseek. That’s still very viable even today

And009,

Good leads, the bot sounds interesting

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