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cortesoft
0xbadcafebee
> how little money per stream artists make ... What is fair compensation for writing a song?
Those are two different things. Recording artist does not always equal songwriter. So how much should the songwriter make? The recording studio? The audio engineer? All the other people involved in creating the recorded song? Now that it's made, how do you get people to know the song exists and want to listen to it, much less purchase it?
The reason compensation isn't a settled thing is it's a very complex thing to answer.
The simplest possible answer is "the artist sets their own price" - assuming they just DIY'd the entire production, advertising, distribution, etc themselves. But that is so much work that they would need to already have an income stream to give them the time to do it all, not to mention all the non-music skills if they're not paying professionals to do the rest.
If they're not just going to play at the local coffee shop, or bus from city to city barely making enough for gas and beer, they need some way to professionally produce, mass-market, and mass-distribute their songs. It's not feasible for most musicians to do this themselves, so there exists a music industry to do it... which gives them all the cards... letting them set the price, and contract terms... which are often unfair. That's what happens when an industry is given the power to exploit people: they do.
parliament32
> Those are two different things. Recording artist does not always equal songwriter. So how much should the songwriter make? The recording studio? The audio engineer? All the other people involved in creating the recorded song? Now that it's made, how do you get people to know the song exists and want to listen to it, much less purchase it?
Why are any of these the distribution medium's (or better, listener's) problem? The songwriter, recording studio, audio engineer, marketing firm, etc should be paid for their services at their standard rates at the time the service is performed. The artist is the one who should accept this risk. Just like.. basically everything else in the world. The plumber who installed an office sink is not entitled to some fraction of the occupying organization's revenue, right?
> But that is so much work that they would need to already have an income stream to give them the time to do it all
Which is why labels exist. They take the risk on, and pre-pay for (everything), in exchange for the lion's share of potential revenue. Artists are, of course, welcome to stay unsigned and handle all the risk and rewards themselves, but that typically isn't a good value prop.
IMO everything here is working as designed, including Spotify. The author just doesn't understand that "artists getting paid fractions of pennies per stream" is exactly what should happen.
AdamJacobMuller
> should be paid for their services at their standard rates at the time the service is performed
Because by and large they don't want that. They are creatives who would prefer to be invested in their work: Charge less now, putting more into their work in the hope and belief that it will pay off over time. Sometimes it does.
Daz1
People don't actually care about answering this question, they just want to steal music and keep a 'clean' conscience.
onion2k
I think the opposite is actually true - people want to pay for music, but in a way that compensates the artists they like without enriching someone who 'only' provides the mechanism that they use to listen. People rail against Spotify, music labels, and TicketMaster for extracting so much money from the music industry that there's very little left for people who actually make the music.
rpdillon
Nope! I just think the business model is rotten. I worked at Amazon MP3 back in the day, mostly because I adored the concept of people paying to download DRM-free files. Same reason I use GOG for my games: I have a lot of money waiting for people that want to sell me files that I have control over.
But the industry moved another direction, and they want ultimate control over everything: not just the songs themselves, but the clients to play them and everything in between. And the tragedy is they screw the artists just as much as customers. Copyright has been captured by the middlemen at the expense of the artists and audiences: that's the real reason people have no respect for the industry, and why copyright is so reviled.
probably_wrong
Without giving specific numbers, I think the following situation is inherently unfair:
I pay Spotify $20. They take their cut (say, 50%) and there's $10 left for the artists. I've only listened to one small artist throughout the entire month. The artist does not get $10 but much less despite Spotify knowing precisely which artists I listened to.
benoau
They on average pass approximately 70% on, but the record labels also eat heavily into that before the artists get their share.
I'm reminded of an effort a few years ago to legislate the creators getting 50% - which of course meant the "platforms" and the "labels" would collectively share only the other 50%. Which is presumably why the initiative failed.
> The three major labels - Sony, Universal and Warner Music - faced some of the toughest questioning of the inquiry, and were accused of a "lack of clarity" by MPs.
> They largely argued to maintain the status quo, saying any disruption could damage investment in new music, and resisted the idea that streaming was comparable to radio - where artists receive a 50/50 royalty split.
> "It is a narrow-margin business, so it wouldn't actually take that much to upset the so-called apple cart," said Apple Music's Elena Segal.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57838473
These days Spotify has hundreds of millions for Joe Rogan and podcast investments, and Apple reports a 75% profit margin on services, so I guess it is quite profitable for everyone except the actual artists.
sniffers
If I pay Spotify $20 and listen to one song one, surely they don't send that artist $14...
micromacrofoot
indeed - record company exec salaries don't come out of the ether, that's money that could otherwise go in the artists' pockets
hndamien
The record company representing that one artist also does not get $7 of the $10.
scarface_74
Apple Music is a miniscule part of service revenue compared to App Store, payments from Google ($20 Billion a year), AppleCare, etc.
Spivak
There's just one problem with your model. There's no royalty difference between a Spotify subscriber playing one song vs 1000 songs if it's just % of subscriber's listening time. Someone who gets more plays by absolute numbers is going to be upset when they don't get a proportionate amount of money. The only way to make more money on Spotify is to get more fans and/or convince your existing fans to listen to fewer artists.
This is a popular HN suggestion for disbursement but it makes the math super weird.
ruffsl
This isn't likely to happen or change, but what if subscribers were instead billed by usage? If you streamed 24 hours a day for the whole month, that could round out to $10 a month, but if less, then simply a proportional percentage.
Spotify would never forgo current profits from flat monthly plans, but then why shouldn't artists be granted the same advantages in royalties proportional to a subscriber's ratio of playtime if the subscribers are charged a flat rate any how?
higgins
shameless plug:
SoundCloud implements a "fan powered royalties" model, so that $10 in your example goes to those who artists who you stream
cortesoft
I have often thought this method made more sense. It should not be total revenue / total streams, it should be what a single person pays going to exactly what they listen to.
It isn’t fair that someone who listens to a ton of things has a much greater say in how the money is distributed even though they pay the same as someone who only listens to one artist.
lawgimenez
I just found out Spotify is $20? In my country it's less than $3. Why the huge pricing difference.
al_borland
It usually comes down to cost of living in the county.
geekamongus
One of the big differences between the old days and today is that you have exponentially more musicians releasing music every day due to how easy it is for bedroom producers to create and release tracks with very little barrier to entry. I can create 10 songs in a weekend on my laptop in my basement and send them out to all of the major streaming services for about 20 bucks.
This floods the market with many, many independent musicians trying to get heard. And the only way to get heard today is to make it onto curated Spotify playlists, build a following, and hope that someone at a record company somewhere hears you and takes interest. Not only is Spotify a tool for consuming music by the public, it is also the main way that musicians have to promote themselves anymore.
As a musician (who gave up the dream of making this a job long ago), it really sucks. There is infinitely more competition out there now, and when you factor in all the AI crap making it on to Spotify (some of which they are responsible for), it is even worse.
prawn
What style of music were you making? I suspect, and this goes for more than just the music industry, that it helps if you're a natural self-promoter.
geekamongus
I make 90'S-ish indie rock. I play all the instruments (drums, guitar, bass, keys) and sing.
Having to self-promote is the main struggle, and that's the only way to "make it" anymore. Similar with the book publishing industry. My wife spent a year writing an amazing book, paying an editor, but when shopping it around to publishers, none of them would bite because she didn't already have a social media following. They expect you to have 20k followers knowing that X percent of those will buy the product.
endtime
Not GP, but I believe Polyphia [1] self-produces on a laptop in a bedroom (or at least did when they started out?).
ohthehugemanate
Why do you choose the CD era as your comparison point? Why not cassettes, or the LP decades? The industry has changed a lot and choosing a different baseline is illuminating to any discussion of "fair" compensation.
What hasn't changed is the fact that vertically integrated distribution-and-promotion with large market share has all the leverage, all the information, and all the legislative influence. In any time period where that exists, the same result plays out through different media.
That is to say, in terms of negotiating power, free market economics, and political influence the artist is not just strongly disadvantaged, but artificially so. It's not a David and Goliath, it's more like David and the Death Star.
When Roger Fischer, Adam Smith, and Jack Abramoff would all agree that one side probably needs some extra support, it's a good bet that "fair" lies so far on the other side of the scale that we don't have to worry about precision or philosophy of "fairness" to make a big improvement.
1718627440
Because CD has not been superseded by any other physical media? Nobody sells music on an USB stick or on a microSD card. If I go to buy music, it will be always CD.
triceratops
I recall reading a report somewhere that vinyl sales are higher than CD sales in the US.
SideburnsOfDoom
> CD has not been superseded by any other physical media
What's a Blu-ray DVD disk then?
If there still was a mass market for music on physical media, CDs would have been superseded, either by an optical disk or some kind of SD card.
But there isn't. so it hasn't.
the_gastropod
I used to work with a former member of a moderately successful rock band (they had a song in Guitar Hero, for example). He'd talk a bit about the royalties he'd received. His royalties from Spotify were negligible. Like single digit dollars per month.
Think about a ~$15/hour job. A solo artist would need ~500k streams per month to hit that. Only the top fraction of a percentage of artists on Spotify hit that.
Music has always been a tough business with middle men taking the lion's share of the upside. Streaming services just add another layer of middlemen.
dagi3d
how much did their label get?
cortesoft
> A solo artist would need ~500k streams per month to hit that
How many hours did it take to create the songs? You can write a song and then keep making money off it for years. There are also other revenue streams, with live performances and merchandise, etc.
I don’t think you can really compare music streaming to a full time job unless someone is ONLY making music for streaming and doing it 40 hours a week.
mingus88
I’m not sure about this accounting. I know some artists with very successful songs and they made nothing substantial from millions of streams
Could it be that the streaming platform pays 0.005 which then gets divided amongst the whole band, and then the label takes their cut for producing and marketing it?
Whereas before, the label was simply giving 10%?
brentm
I managed a few artists in the past. Usually Spotify paid something like $0.0035 per stream but it ranges based on where the listen took place. One artist owned part of their catalog so earned the 100% on those streams. The rest of their catalog was owned by a major label where they were credited 15% of the streaming take (which was slightly higher than the direct rate) towards their unrecouped major label account.
I'd say overall though, streaming can be good for artists. It helps keep them fresh in fans ears (via auto-generated & editorial playlists) and provides a revenue stream for the older stuff that would never be selling in stores or iTunes now.
brewdad
Question (You may or may not have insight): What happens when I download a playlist and listen to it offline in my car on an hours long roadtrip? Do my “streams” get counted once I get back online? Does the artist get credit for an estimated number of streams based on typical patterns? Does the artist get bupkis since I might play a song ten times but it wasn’t technically streamed to me?
jszymborski
The article says they purchase from bandcamp which takes less than 20%, and support them on patreon.
magicalhippo
> The article lists the 'price per stream' as about $0.005.
Not saying it's perfect, but Qobuz is paying[1] ~3.5x that.
I've been trying it out as a Spotify alternative, fairly pleased so far, though the "radio" feature in Spotify is better at finding new tracks I like.
That said I buy albums on Bandcamp for stuff I really enjoy.
[1]: https://community.qobuz.com/press-en/qobuz-unveils-its-avera...
McAlpine5892
Recently I gave up on Apple Music. The clients had gotten so bad from a UX perspective that I found it frustrating to use. Especially on desktop. There is also no easy way to cache your _entire_ library to disk. Other services+clients are heaps of Electron that I'd rather avoid.
It took some effort and pain but I have a pretty solid self-hosted system now that requires no futzing around:
0. epoupon's Lightweight Music Server (LMS) [0] is an awesome, barebones Subsonic client written in C. It's really good and deserves to be more well-known.
1. wrtag [1] is a less-fully-featured beets written in Go that handles tagging.
2. amperfy [2] is an excellent Subsonic client that runs on iOS. It's configured to automatically cache anything and everything on LMS.
3. Syncthing [3] syncs music files. Needs no introduction. Rock solid.
4. Swinsian [4] a macOS music player that is very reminiscent of old iTunes, but much better. The information density is so incredibly refreshing after using Apple Music.
5. Everything talks to each other seamlessly over Tailscale [5].
All together, an entire open-source stack maintained by volunteers that easily outdoes Apple's own UX in the music department.
[0] https://github.com/epoupon/lms
[1] https://github.com/sentriz/wrtag
dawnerd
I've started buying cds cheap and ripping them. It's kind of incredible how much music you can stockpile legally for the same amount you're paying for a monthly sub. I have a pretty similar stack to yours and with tailscale makes it very convenient to have my own streaming platform anywhere. Plus I have many albums that simply don't exist on streaming. Downside is there are some albums that are streaming only, mostly soundtracks from Disney. I get those from Qobuz since they let you download flac.
rs186
Apple Music costs $10.99 per month in the US.
How much music can I stockpile legally with that?
Last time I checked, a CD easily costs $12, excluding shipping. Not to mention that I probably listen to at least one new album per day.
Curious how your math works.
dawnerd
Thrift stores are .99 to 2.99. The local library has a for sale section with a massive selection of music. Ranging from .49 on up. Ebay is good for more rare albums but there's so many shops selling them also for dirt cheap free ship, to the point where I don't even know how they profit.
I've also had amazing luck going to estate sales and just asking if I can buy them all out. The last one I paid under 10 cents a cd. People just want to get rid of their 'old tech no one uses anymore'.
Most people realistically are listening to the same music multiple times over multiple months. If you listen to a different album every day you do kinda fall outside of the norm and ya, that would probably make streaming a better choice.
nektro
> I probably listen to at least one new album per day
this is absolutely not typical of the average listener
peterldowns
Just to pile on the terrible Apple Music UI — it's so unnatural and baffling to me. One example that really takes the cake is that there is no ability to set a sleep timer in the app. After having to google it, the only way I've found is to set a timer in the Clock app and change its ringtone to be an "action" of stopping all playing audio. WHY???
rs186
Well, that's Apple and iOS for you in a nutshell. I found out about it the hard way as well. I have mixed feelings about Apple's products and design, but that may be one of the most stupid things I know of.
undefined
akch
LMS is in cpp and not c
jihadjihad
[flagged]
xyst
It’s always been pretty terrible.
When I was in college, Apple gave it to students for free (or at a steep discount, maybe $2.99/mo?). The 2015 client was god awful but I honestly couldn’t complain since it was just a few bucks.
But once I graduated and the university locked me out of the .edu account. I didn’t feel it was worth keeping anymore and dropped them for Spotify or Pandora.
brewdad
I really should go back to Pandora. It fits my listening style of picking a genre or era and just letting things play. Spotify artist radio works ok but I really enjoyed Pandora’s algo more.
My wife loves to build Spotify playlists though and I can’t justify paying for both.
sfRattan
Just added my old music collection to my private Jellyfin server on my home network. The UI for music is not as polished as some focused alternatives like Navidrome or FunkWhale, but it's good enough... And I like having both fewer apps installed on my devices and fewer discrete services running on my homelab.
It was fun to go back through the collection of music I've been accumulating since high school and moving from hard drive to hard drive: mostly ripped off CDs from the library or purchased in used bookstores, later purchased from iTunes, Amazon, and BandCamp once DRM-free downloads became the norm. Updating album art and re-curating the collection has been a walk down memory lane --- I'd (back then) embedded most of it at 200x200 to fit on a tiny Sony MP3 player, and then an iPod, without wasting space. The music library holds up better than either my old DVDs or the rips I made of them... Even lossy MP3s don't sound as rough as 480p looks on a large display today.
If you're looking to update the metadata in your own music collection, I can happily recommend:
* https://covers.musichoarders.xyz/ for searching for album art.
* https://picard.musicbrainz.org/ for editing music metadata in files.
If you're wanting to replace Spotify or other music subscription services on the go (i.e. from a phone) with something like Jellyfin, Funkwhale, or Navidrome running at home, I've tried and had some success with both tailscale and netbird (though these both require some networking knowledge).
noduerme
I recently switched to Jellyfin when Plex started charging for remotely accessing my home server.
For anyone considering it, I found Tailscale + Jellyfin work a charm. There aren't great docs for doing so, and I beat my head against it for a little bit, but all you need to do really is to add both your local IP range and the Tailscale IP range to the allowed ranges for Jellyfin.
With that, any device on your tailnet can access it. I went further and set up a cloud VM with a public web address behind an auth, installed Tailscale on the VM, and set it up to reverse proxy port 443 to the Jellyfin tailscaleIP:port on my tailnet. So now I can get to it through any web browser or Jellyfin app on devices that aren't on my tailnet.
I'm extremely happy with the results, and the nice thing is that unlike Plex this setup is never subject to forced changes in the future.
oceanplexian
The problem is that PlexAmp is literally the killer feature of Plex. Literally no open source software comes close. It would be great if it did, and I would switch, but it’s the only app that even remotely competes with Spotify for me for that reason.
noduerme
FWIW, for music in my car and on my phone, I only used Plex and use Jellyfin as a failover. I just use Pi Music Player and I keep my whole MP3 collection on a memory chip, so I don't have to be online at all. Whenever I pull the chip out of my phone and put it into my laptop to copy and remove my photos (cloud backup? no thanks) I update the mp3 folder.
brewdad
Finamp isn’t there yet but it is closing the gap to Plexamp.
jazzyjackson
Never used PlexAmp but I'm happy with FinAmp
unethical_ban
What's the point of the tailscale setup of you have a reverse proxy open to the net anyway?
noduerme
The easiest way for the VM to reverse proxy stuff to my home server (without tracking my residential dynamic IP and messing with my router / NAT) is for the VM to be on tailscale too..then I can just proxy calls on the VM to the home server's tailscale address.
If you're asking why I bother to use tailscale on my phone to connect Jellyfin that way instead of just using the reverse proxy, I guess it saves me a little in bandwidth costs and it pings faster.
sys_64738
Curious. When are you seeing Plex charging? I am using it remotely from a home server and see nothing about paying for anything.
sitharus
It’s been that way for years now, it’s all on their website https://www.plex.tv/plans/
If you want to stream from outside your local network you need to pay. Hardware transcoding is also paywalled now, along with a bunch of other things.
daedric7
Feishin, used by the author as well, supports Jellyfin.
As for mobile, while Symphonium supports Jellyfin, I prefer Finamp as it maintains the split from multiple music libraries.
sunrunner
I'm always glad to see people move away from Spotify's model and towards options that better support artists directly, and I definitely don't mean this to take anything away from the article despite how it sounds, but just seeing the system diagram reminds me that it's amazing the lengths that systems-minded people will go to to create their own Rube Goldberg-esque systems to 'optimise' the experience.
I counted thirteen separate components. If it works for the author then more power to them, but I personally want to spend less time futzing with technology when it comes to this kind of thing and more time actually just actively listening to new music.
I buy from Bandcamp or Apple, sync locally, and I'm done. Bandcamp's iOS app is better than Apple's Music at this point (though not a hard bar to reach). And I find new music organically from listener-supported streaming public radio.
I haven't mentioned analysis or recommendations, but honestly I so rarely seem to find anything through the typical algorithms and recommendation-type mechanisms that I genuinely like, and stumbling across something new just from having public radio on in the background still feels magical, organic, and overall such a good way to broaden your musical horizons.
Still, a good starting point for people wanting their own similar setup.
sfRattan
> stumbling across something new just from having public radio on in the background still feels magical, organic, and overall such a good way to broaden your musical horizons.
I've largely given up on algorithmic recommendations and gone back to human curation. There are humans out there writing about music, movies, and everything in culture. I've found the ones whose tastes I largely trust, and I follow them via RSS to read about the things I might like.
Are some of those critics probably using algorithms themselves? Sure. Let them dive into that swamp and pull out the gems. I'll stay on the shore, watch, and wait.
sunrunner
> human curation
More and more I feel like recommendation algorithms for discovery of anything seem to just not actually work for finding things which are new and exciting, but perhaps that's by definition.
If information is surprise then the most interesting things are those which aren't like the things I already know. And the easiest way to find those things I find is to just tune in to something where you don't know what you'll hear, and simply wait. That's it. It might take a while, but I bet you'll find something that feels new, exciting and perhaps expands your tastes a bit. And what could be better?
sfRattan
Absolutely. I've made several new Spotify and Pandora accounts over the years. Initially they offer good recommendations but eventually the algorithms always aggressively funnel down to the same 2-to-3 dozen similar-sounding songs (though its a different set of songs with each new account). Once trapped in that algorithmic tarpit, the only thing to do is start over, which is annoying. Now I let myself discover things via human critics or just in the course of life.
bradley13
This. I don't need another tech stack to maintain. Music stored on a disk, played via VLC. For underway, I have a copy of the music on my phone.
KISS
denimnerd42
I really want to do this but like any hobby it takes too much time. My biggest frustration as a youtube music user is that the app doesn't appreciate that it might not always have a good internet connection and takes forever to fallback to your downloads when loading the library.
If I used an open source app or my own app I could fix this stupid bug but I don't have any control. :(
jerf
If you just want independence, just start collecting MP3s or CDs or whatever. I've been collecting physical music since the mid 90s and my whole MP3 collection is still under 128GBs, so I just copy it anywhere I want it now. Unless you really put some effort into it, storage will probably grow faster than your collection will.
Also, you don't need to think of it as an all-or-nothing proposition, or something you need to drop in one month. Just start. Peck away every so often and in 5 years you'll have enough independence to tell any streaming service what it can do with itself.
denimnerd42
The large flac/mp3 collect I have from my ripped CDs is the reason I even consider it. I just find the toil to be not worth it over minor foibles I have with streaming music. It would sure be nice though to have the time.. I operate software at work for a living. I don't want to come home and operate it too :( Was all about it in HS and college though.
jerf
If you've already got it, I'm not exactly sure what you think the toil is? You just copy it places. Maybe just the MP3s for things like phones. Then use an MP3 player.
If you mean the inaccuracies of the metadata, again, you just peck at it as it bothers you. You don't have to fix it all at once. Any decent MP3 player can do searches for specific songs. Nor do you have to do a hard cut from streaming services.
I do have it all hooked up on Syncthing so my changes stay in sync but that's not exactly a hard thing. It's only marginally harder than a straight copy, and sometimes honestly even a bit easier given how dodgy phones can be about large normal copies.
kevin_thibedeau
I did this to a 500 disc colection in fits and starts and it was a bit of drudgery for the final push with three drives running at once. the biggest issue is ensuring metadata is up to snuff. Lots of CD-text has garbage capitalization. Cover art can be crappy or unavailable. Musicbrainz hashes have occasional collisions forcing you to manually enter titles.
ashwinsundar
I want to do this too, and have a feeling that it's not as hard or time-consuming as it seems. 15 years ago, all my music lived in a /Music folder and I could play anything in there, instantly. It should be easy to just move that folder to a networked drive, get some sort of mp3 player app on my phone/devices, and point it at that folder. If the app is allowed to download files as well, that's even better. Otherwise, plugging in my phone/mp3 player and uploading songs manually was never particularly difficult, even back then.
If I remember correctly, all my playlists were really just text files used by Windows Media Player or iTunes, so it should be easy to support that type of functionality as well.
roywiggins
You can more or less do this with apps that will stream your library off Google Drive. The one I tried demanded permissions to read everything in my Google Drive which seemed too dangerous, but if you had a separate cloud drive somewhere you could set it up pretty easily.
slig
I believe it's too risky to have DMCA-able content in Google Drive.
galleywest200
The VLC app can read and play from networked drives, at least on my iPad.
kevin_thibedeau
Run a DLNA server and you client options grow.
toddbonzalez1
Not sure what platform you're using youtube music on but there are a few open source third-party apps for android that may have better offline functionality (though I have not either of them, I just came across them while searching different streaming music options)
InnerTune: https://github.com/z-huang/InnerTune
denimnerd42
that's cool. those apps are one google backend update away from death though :/
kcrwfrd_
It’s been a long time since I used it but an iOS subsonic client I used to use (I think it was iSub) had better local-first / offline behavior than Apple Music or Spotify.
bambax
Navidrome is really simple to set up in a Docker container, if you already have some kind of system for self-hosting. If not, it's a good opportunity to start!
seemaze
My own self hosted audio journey ended with Lyrion Music Server[0], formerly Logitech Music Server. It is now open source and run by the community.
There are plugins for Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify, local radio, song lyrics, and more. It also does great multi-room audio syncing via DLNA, Airplay, and Squeezelite. I recently setup transcoded streaming so I can listen to my library remotely on Apple Carplay at a reduced bitrate.
It's certainly not perfect, but more perfect than any other open or commercial platform I've trialed. Can't recommend it enough!
jnaina
I have over 400 CDs and SACDs in my collection, from the 80s to the oughts. Have ripped them to my Roon server connect to a Qnap NAS with now over 30 TB storage, as Flac or DSF files. For those CDs that have over the years degraded and can't be ripped, I wrote a scrapping agent for an (in)famous Russian Music Archive site and have > 1M magnet links stored on a MariaDB instance running on the Qnap. I only download albums/tracks as backups, for those I have paid for, via Put.IO
My Marantz Amp is Roon Ready and the Roon App (both the desktop and the iPhone version) is pretty good and sound quality is amazing as the App streams the files bit perfect without any downmixing, via ethernet.
Roon unfortunately doesn't handle DVD-A and DTS formats properly. I use Plex server and Infuse running on the Apple TV for those, and they work well. (Yes, I know I can convert .dts files to multi-channel FLACs using ffmpeg, but too many files, and I have not gotten around building an automated conversion workflow)
rsync
Genuinely curious…
Did you, in fact, rip your SACDs at their true, higher, resolution?
If so, how ?
jnaina
Yes, in the early days. Now I download SACD "backups".
You need to use the below software and get yourself an Oppo 105 BD player.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/0yvj4ytl1tgk4r0eqt385/AA4yicm...
Full instructions here:
https://www.hifive.sg/index.php?threads/ripping-sacd-on-a-op...
kevin_thibedeau
You can get hacked Blu-ray players to rip SACD.
quitit
The bonus here is that the artists you like will get a much better share versus spotify's very low pay out rates, especially if you're into more obscure acts which fall under spotify's "no payouts under the 1000 plays/year threshold", which conveniently works out to be around 2/3rd of the entire platform.
https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/track-monetiz...
dankwizard
Ha, this is the guy that got absolutely butchered in his Reddit post [1] about the same link. OP has extensive history in the piracy subreddits and believes piracy is not theft.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1n87xho/why_i_d...
1gn15
> OP has extensive history in the piracy subreddits and believes piracy is not theft.
OP sounds awesome. Thanks for the recommendation!
dragonwriter
> OP has extensive history in the piracy subreddits and believes piracy is not theft.
Copyright infringement is neither piracy nor theft, those are both metaphors used largely for the purpose of emotional manipulation.
scarface_74
Why do I think you would feel differently if a company used GPL software in a method that was against the license.
dragonwriter
I dunno, I’d assume it is projecting your own inability to separate analysis of basic definitions and facts (the question of “in law, are any or all of copyright infringement, piracy, and theft literally the same things?”) from personal political preference (“is rigid adherence to the wishes of the copyright owner desirable for commercially licensed music? is rigid adherence to the wishes of the copyright owner desirable when that is adherence to the terms of a copyleft free software license preferred by the FSF?”) combined with you being really bad at guessing other people’s political opinions (“is dragonwriter a zealous proponent of the FSF in particular or copyleft licenses in general?”) even in a forum where those opinions are on full display?
globular-toast
That's a very apples and oranges comparison and betrays a lack of even the most rudimentary critical thinking skills. Either that or just playground bullying.
BLKNSLVR
> believes piracy is not theft
That's true by definition isn't it? Piracy (Internet piracy, since that's the context) is copyright infringement, not theft.
somat
Piracy is a real crime, I like to define it as theft of goods in transit. however it might be more specifically be the above in international free zones.
I always find it funny how people want to try and inflate one of the lesser crimes "copyright infringement" into one of the most heinous ones. Might as well call it software rape, it's just as accurate.
jansper39
But the definition of theft is that it permanently deprives the owner of the object being thieved. Piracy might be a real crime but it doesn't match the definition of theft.
I'm not even sure what software rape is supposed to mean, but to me that seems to belittle the very real crime of rape.
b3lvedere
To the letter of the law or contextual text, you may be super right. Still does not solve the issue of artists that are getting ripped off left and right.
globular-toast
Do you pay every busker you pass by? Or do you block your ears when you pass to ensure you don't "steal" the music?
I think a combination of UBI, abolishment of copyright and a busking model with 100% of the proceeds going directly to artists would improve things no end. We have the technology to do this and have no need for leeches like Spotify.
8fingerlouie
It may not be theft, but it is stealing :
---
Stealing: the action or offence of taking another person's property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it; theft.
---
Regardless if there is anything physical missing, you're still obtaining something for which you don't have the ownership rights, therefore another persons property.
And somewhere there's a starving artist that would get $0.25 per purchase that now gets nothing, so you could argue that you're stealing from the artist.
dankwizard
Maybe by definition, but if you're a game developer and you find out everybody is pirating your game and not purchasing it from Steam/physical store, it's akin to them walking into the store, sliding the product under their jacket and walking out. You're not going to say "They are infringing on my copyright".
Unai
The idea that every illegitimate copy is a lost sale is old and tired. Most people wouldn't mind enjoying plenty of entertainment products that would otherwise never pay for (regardless of whether a free alternative exists or not).
Since you talk about game developers, just today was "Hollow Knight: Silksong" released, a game with no DRM (which means it will be on every pirate site the minute it releases, something that was known beforehand), and had just a few hours later over half a million concurrent players on Steam, one of the many storefronts where the game is available.
No industry has ever been killed by piracy, not even close, and the cases of musicians, authors, and game developers who have attributed piracy to their success keeps piling up. I really don't get why people who in other aspects of life try to look at the facts of things keep arguing so fervently about something proven to be, at best, a net positive and, at worst, a way for more people to enjoy arts and entertainment that they would never had otherwise.
If you don't get money for your works, you might be unlucky, or you might just not be good enough to make what people want [to pay for]. As a game developer myself, that's certainly my case. I hope to one day make something so many people care about, that they go out of their way to pirate it, because statistically that means I'd sell a lot of copies.
sfRattan
> akin to them walking into the store, sliding the product under their jacket and walking out
That is a misrepresentation of what is happening across computers and networks. Here is a better analogue:
If someone walks up to my car, taps it with a magic wand, mutters some incantations, waits a few minutes as a perfect duplicate slowly materializes, and then drives away in the duplicate... Of what have I been deprived? Maybe privacy, depending on what I had in the car at the time it was duplicated... But that's tangential to the point here.
There's a worthy argument that the above scenario is still a wrong (some kind of tort, maybe). But there is simply no argument that the above scenario is equivalent to theft.
Theft deprives someone of a scarce material resource. Copyright infringement subverts someone's exclusive, government-granted monopoly. Unlike being secure in one's possessions, copyright has never been understood as a natural right. People grok this distinction intuitively, even if they neither fully understand the technology nor possess the words to articulate it well.
BLKNSLVR
The world in which I choose to live (which is seemingly getting further removed from 'shared reality') the meaning of words actually matter. I'm reminded of the classic Calvin & Hobbes strip[0] that ends "Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding"
"Maybe by definition" does not a counter-argument start.
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/words/comments/10k610a/calvin_and_h...
8fingerlouie
So i decided that Spotify/Apple Music/Tidal/whatever doesn't pay enough money to the artists, and instead i decided to pay none.
gotcha.
s3p
I read the comments. Despite clearly explaining that he was supporting artists, people just said "no you're lying" and baselessly accused him of piracy.
Anyway OP seems like a great person. And if he did like pirating, cool! You are free to live your life how you see fit :)
bambax
I don't see any butchering whatsoever in the Reddit thread?
don_quiquong
I mean the use of lidarr is a dead giveaway. Don't need to snoop his history to put 2 and 2 together
milkshakes
well, he did add this important note. now he only uses lidarr for managing his collection
Important Note: Always ensure you're obtaining music through legal channels
echelon_musk
> Always ensure you're obtaining music through legal channels
> My setup uses sabnzbd integrated with Lidarr for handling downloads of content I've purchased.
Sure. I believe you.
SirMaster
I don't understand.
At the start of the article the author says this is why Spotify is good.
"For years, I relied on Spotify like millions of others. The convenience was undeniable stream anything, anywhere, discover new music through algorithms, and share playlists with friends."
How does one discover new music through algorithms or share playlists with friends on this proposes self-hosted stack?
He claims it tiges him everything Spotify offered plus more.
"Here's how I built my own self-hosted music streaming setup that gives me everything Spotify offered and more."
But I don't see how it does those things, and those are the main reasons I use Spotify. 80% of the time I listen to automatic playlists based on my music tastes and hear new and old (but new to me) music constantly. If I don't like it I skip the track to the next as much as I want. How on earth am I supposed to do that if I have to buy and curate every new album into my collection?
gausswho
Haven't used it myself but the author's tool for recommendations is Lidify.
SirMaster
But that doesn't come close to the flow and convenience of Spotify.
So I have to manually invoke Lidify, then see the recommendations, then buy the songs, load them into my library, then mix them into my playlists. And what if I don't like them? Now I bought songs that I have no interest to listen to again.
How many songs can I even buy per year for $99 a year that Spotify costs. $1 per song? I certainly cycle through way more than 100 new songs a year with the Spotify algorithms to hear new music.
I just don't see how he can make a claim that his setup is even remotely comparable to Spotify.
therealfiona
Been rebuilding my music library from my sailing the high seas days when I did not have money. CDs sound really good. Some much better than streaming Spotify.
Glad I own the media. A buddy was listening to an Audiobook on Spotify, paused it and came back to it no longer being on Spotify. Between stuff like that and no toggle to disable AI generated music, I don't think I'll be going back.
_grabs minidisc player and goes for a walk_
cobbzilla
Or discovering that the song you loved has been edited by the artist, and your favorite line is now garbled because it’s not PC anymore? So glad I had the original CD, so I can listen to it how I remember it!
theshrike79
What if how I remember it is with a skip that happened because the radio DJ bumped the player while I was recording it to tape? :D
prayerie
hah, i always take my MZ-N1 with me whenever i go outside as i genuinely find it simpler to use than trying to manage a local music collection on an iPhone, does make me feel a bit pretentious though :-)
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So the author talks about how little money per stream artists make... but how much SHOULD they be making? What is fair compensation for writing a song?
In the old days, artists would join a label and put out an album. The artist would earn about 10% of sales or so (varies of course, but on average). So a $15 CD would earn an artist $1.50.
The article lists the 'price per stream' as about $0.005. So it would take about 300 streams of a song to earn the same amount as selling a CD used to make.
I feel like that isn't categorically less money than artists used to make per song listen? There are many albums I own that I have listened to way more than 30 times, which is what it would take for a 10 song album to get 300 song 'streams'
Is that a fair compensation? Why or why not?
I think artists should be able to earn money from creating music, but I don't know how we decide how much they actually deserve if we aren't just going based on the price the market sets.