[slg]

>As a musician, fuck everything about this

Pretty wild to include a comment like this in the testimonials. Sure, you can disagree with the musician on philosophical terms over IP laws and many consumers will always prefer "free", but to put this in your testimonials shows that the developers take pride in the act of pissing off musicians. That just rubs me the wrong way.

[toomuchtodo]

Musicians are not the consumers, users are the consumers. Some musicians will always be unhappy, this is unavoidable due to complex issues around IP rights, compensation for art, and the length of time it takes to make changes to these systems (not to mention simply how much existing content is out there new and current artists are competing against, attention economy and all that).

n=1, I am optimizing for access to as much content as possible while providing as little economic benefit to corporations as possible (ie Spotify) while still supporting the artists I enjoy (whether that's via venmo, paypal, buying their vinyl, buying their digital versions from bandcamp, etc). I also enjoy cheeky devs/builders, can't take any of this too seriously, we're all dead eventually.

[slg]

Musicians are not the consumers, but it's their work being consumed and this software would have no purpose without them. And to be clear, my problem isn't that this software upset some musicians. It's that the developers highlighting that fact as part of their marketing suggests they take pride in angering musicians. That is a level of disrespect that goes way beyond the sort of passive consumer level disrespect of wanting something for free. It's active hostility compared to mild selfishness.

[lukan]

It is one musician whose negative comment is displayed along with people complaining that the whole thing is slow garbage. You might be reading too much into it.

[partomniscient]

One musician can be ripped off and not compensated and have to take the 'big guys' to court on the off-chance they find out about their work being used despite the (fucked up) copyright laws [0].

It is a massive problem. It's the rich poor divide with propoganda fucking over the genuine little people in favour of the richer/established/more connected people. Human life is like this. Call it out if you see it if you value truth over greed.

The future is built on the past. Claimed "Ownership" of the past fucks up the present for the established powers over creativity (e.g. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act). AI just takes it to a whole 'nother level.

[0] https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/unauthorized-rap-samples/

[ada1981]

I think it’s just funny to post bad reviews.

[protocolture]

I am kind of sick of Musicians complaining that culture is so accessible.

Its truly the case that if it wasnt for radio and the legal frameworks developed to deliver radio we would probably be looking at incredibly heavy gatekeeping for music.

Humans in general are better off with tools like this. And I for one am glad that these developers are showing off who is angry.

Heck things could be a lot better right now if it wasnt for Metallica.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

I like Pete Seeger’s paraphrase of his father: “Plagiarism is basic to all culture”. I think we underestimate the damage to society at large when “remixing” the work of others is legally fraught.

The mere reproduction of a previous performance is not additional work for the artist and so does not require compensation: to demand royalties undermines the fundamental structure of art for most of history.

[AlecSchueler]

As a musician: that's totally fine, we can argue the philosophy of it all day and what the law should or shouldn't be.

But right now it is what it is and people are basing their careers off that status quo. There should be some respect for that, no?

[komali2]

> There should be some respect for that, no?

Not really. Like when my friend scolded me the other day for not finishing the dessert I ordered - "trash is burned here, you're contributing to excess methane production."

May I be flogged for my excess methane production. I will present myself with no resistance, so long as the floggings are delivered in a linear scale mapping to amount of methane produced. As soon as all the time in the universe is spent flogging the decision makers at all the oil and gas companies, I'm right there.

People listening to music for free is less than a drop of water in the ocean of causative reasons musicians get fucked.

[account42]

No, with that logic we should have outlawed the internet. It's up to you to find a working business model, not up to society to enable the one that you want.

[cess11]

Some people think that music should mainly be a task for artists, and not for careerists in the entertainment industrial complex.

[welferkj]

Sure, and "piracy" is part of the status quo. Show some respect for my total disrespect of IP laws and your livelihood.

[bigyabai]

> It's active hostility

Not really? If the testimonials are true, then simply making the app itself is an act of hostility.

The parent comment is putting it as nicely as it can be put. If you don't want people to pirate your music, your only path of recourse as a musician is to stop uploading digital copies of your work. There is no honor system in music or data and there never will be.

[toast0]

> If you don't want people to pirate your music, your only path of recourse as a musician is to stop uploading digital copies of your work.

People have been recording concerts for decades. Often with a bit of help from the sound crew, which can probably be discouraged by musicians with enough influence, but if the only allowed way to hear a song is to attend a concert, lots of people would rather have a recording that a fan made and distributed.

[slg]

>The parent comment is putting it as nicely as it can be put. If you don't want people to pirate your music, your only path of recourse as a musician is to stop uploading digital copies of your work. There is no honor system in music or data and there never will be.

I'm just tired of this technolibertarian mindset of "it's not wrong because no one is stopping me from doing it". There is no "honor system" in life either and if you see that as permission to be an asshole, that just makes you an asshole. And if your best defense against being accused of being an asshole is some form of "they couldn't stop me", then you're tacitly admitting to being an asshole.

[voidfunc]

Unfortunately the winds are not blowing in your preferred direction. We are being shown time and time again and in increasing frequency that being an asshole is the best way to succeed.

[anon_e-moose]

That short-term individual success is at the expense of the wider long-term success.

If 10 people live in a lake and I fish more than everyone I will be better off that others. But then everyone else will seek the same individual short-term success because my first step in being an asshole was not punished. We will all end up starving in this scenario. A central authority agreed by all to manage this situation fairly is the way out. Rules agreed to in common beforehand and enforced by a neutral party.

[glitchc]

Dawkins in The Selfish Gene demonstrated through experiments that society collapses when everyone is an asshole. It also collapses when everyone is nice. There's an optimum ratio (~23% assholes to the rest) that leads to long-term sustainability.

[komali2]

This in opposition to millennia of human history, which should teach us that the surest path to human success is cooperation. Why else would we have invented language?

[reaperducer]

being an asshole is the best way to succeed.

Being an asshole is the opposite of success.

Unless you think life is a video game and the score is tallied in dollar signs. In which case, you've already lost.

[bigyabai]

Then maybe we'll never see eye-to-eye. I grew up with an iTunes account, but I never spent my money on music. Some weeks my family lived paycheck-to-paycheck, some nights skipping dinner. I downloaded my music off YouTube to my 2005 HP Compaq, put it on my iTunes library and synced it to my iPod Shuffle. Didn't weigh on my conscience when I pirated video games or FL Studio either, not then and not now.

If that made me an asshole, then 11-year-old me was a supervillain bumping Aphex Twin. Oftentimes I think HN forgets to consider the 99% when contemplating ethics over sous-vide.

[9dev]

Our legal and economic systems just don’t work that way, being poor is no excuse for doing something illegal.

Add to that that not all musicians are Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, but might just as well have to fight to survive, living from Spotify payout to gig revenue as well.

I sympathise with people trying to get access to culture by all means, but we cannot wholesale morally legitimise freeloading because of that. We all get to enjoy a broad cultural landscape, but that can only exist if most people pay for content.

[AlecSchueler]

> Musicians are not the consumers, users are the consumers

Yeah but if you want to sell cheese it's probably a good idea to maintain a good relationship with farmers.

[prmoustache]

> Searching for and playing music from YouTube (including integration with playlists and SponsorBlock), Jamendo, Audius and SoundCloud

From what I understand the _farmers_ themselves are distributing their _cheese_ freely on various website and this tool is just a glorified search engine to find them more easily. Not sure why the _farmers_ would complain?

[AlecSchueler]

Some of them are but not all of them are, some of them are having their cheese redistributed without their involvement. The ones who are complaining are the ones who aren't happy, such as the musician quoted in the testimonials saying "fuck everything about this.'

[dpoloncsak]

Isn't that literally 'shooting the messenger'?

You can Google search for pirated music too. It's not 'Fuck Google' for indexing these, its 'Fuck those sites' for hosting it, right?

[account42]

Not if the cheese can be copied at no cost and there are already more cheese varieties around than anyone could eat in a lifetime. In that word, farmers should have no say in who does and doesn't get to eat cheese or extract a tax from cheese consumption.

[AlecSchueler]

> there are already more cheese varieties around than anyone could eat in a lifetime.

If that's what you think then why don't we just close down all the studios and instrument shops. We've got enough, no need to keep producing it?

You can copy and distributed the cheese freely but the farmer still has to spend money taking care of and housing the cows, milking the cows, going through the whole processes of churning and pasteurising and everything else, then packaging it and disturbing it to where you can initially find it.

Now after all that you come along and make your perfect atomic copy and walk away saying "Well screw you, you should have no say in any of this..."

Then what? What's the incentive to produce and distribute new cheese? You really think it doesn't matter because you already have cheese from the past? Because there's a lot to be said about cheese that captures the spirit of the zeitgeist...(Ok that last bit didn't work in the metaphor)

[account42]

There is nothing wrong with people creating new music, either out of passion or because they have some way to get paid for it (patronage, crowdfunding, live performances). But as abundance of available creative works increases we need to re-evaluate what cost we should pay as a society in order to incentivize it. IMO we are at a point where no incentive via copyright is needed and the cost copyright imposes on everyone is way too high. The world only works as well as it does because most people routinely ignore copyright already.

And no, in this analogy the farmer doesn't have to keep working for us to have enough cheese - only if someone specifically wants a new kind of cheese. We don't need to bend reality in order to make information scarce for that.

[atoav]

Your app is living off the work of artists and making it in a way that gives them a way to profit from it costs you nothing, so it is the right thing to do.

Show some merch buying options or display a button that allows you to pay for the music as a thank you to the artists or something. Makes you appear better in front of the crowd that would use bandcamp/soundcloud in the first place (so your core demographic) and supports the artists.

I am listening to music on bandcamp/soundcloud because I love music and this is a place where you can find new interesting music — not because it is free there. And in my experience as someone who sells on bandcamp many listeners share that spirit.

[prmoustache]

> Your app is living off the work of artists and making it in a way that gives them a way to profit from it costs you nothing, so it is the right thing to do.

The app just find the music on free sources, probably published by the artists themselves or their agents. How is that living off their work and where do the nuclear developer receive money from the nuclear app users in the process?

[atoav]

You read "living of" as a monetary value, that isn't what I meant. That particular app is useless without musicians that upload stuff for free, meaning the fact that musicians do that is of existential importance for it.

And that means such an app enters a certain relationship with these musicians. This relationship can be symbiotic (good) or parasitic (bad).

[elliotec]

This is a really shitty take. „Can’t please everyone, might as well piss off the creators and show it as a badge of pride!“

Personally I will never use this software and would actively advocate against it if only to counter the attitude you’re presenting.

But mainly because artists should be able to make a living and it’s already hard enough with the meager pennies or less they get from current PAID streaming services.

[1gn15]

Do you, or anyone supporting this comment, have adblock installed? The same argument applies. Don't be a hypocrite.

[elliotec]

You do have a point. Feels different but can’t put a finger on it right now.

[atoav]

Artists, especially on bandcamp, are often the underdog. Being proud of not paying them is like being proud to watch a street artist "for free", because fuck them for doing it in public. My ethics say: "If you don't like it, ignore it and walk on, if you liked it enough to stop and watch you give them something."

Meanwhile most online ads are supporting multinational corporations that already may earn money with your browsing data and try to manipulate your choices every step. All while delivering their ads in a way that makes it a threat to not block them. That isn't remotely the same. If you need my money to survive, give me the choice to pay instead at least.

The exact same software could have been marketed as something to discover new music, for free and the musicians would be mostly okay with it.

[toomuchtodo]

Artists making a living will in no way be impacted by the use of this software. The only way for artists to make a living through their art would be changes through IP/copyright reform (politics and policy, which will take years if not decades) and the operation of platforms where they can get a more fair share of compensation [1] [2]. One can think a musician's response to this software is absurd and still believe they should be able to live comfortably and with dignity while creating art. Pay these folks UBI if we have to, but the problem is not this software is my point.

[1] Spotify Alternatives That Pay Artists... - https://cutoffthespigot.substack.com/p/spotify-alternatives-...

[2] How To Support Artists As They Withdraw From Spotify - https://www.nylon.com/entertainment/delete-spotify-alternati...

[atoav]

One can be angry for symbolic reasons as well. If your CEO told you to "Get your code on github, it is free", you would probably rightfully question whether they understood the reasons why people develope and maintain open source software in the first place.

Similarly here. It is not about the act of people listening to the music for free. If this was a problem, a musician would just restrict access to those tracks. It is about a spirit of taking without giving back, which could be understood as: "Haha you idiots, thanks for providing it for free, I am not paying then". A bit like stopping to watch a street performer, and instead of clapping and (eventually) tossing a coin going like: "We are in a public space, I don't need to pay, idiot. Your own fault!".

Technically correct, but ethically wrong and shows they don't value the work of artists. This is just about words and showing some respect, not about money. And since words and showing respect literally cost nothing this makes the insult even greater.

[technothrasher]

> Technically correct, but ethically wrong

Ethically wrong to watch a street performer but not toss a coin? I do agree that it is ethically virtuous to toss the coin, but ethically wrong not to? I'm not seeing it.

[atoav]

Everything exists in thousand shades and ethics is one of those fields where in the finer shades people can and will differ in their assessment. That is in the nature of the thing.

I am not saying anyone who listens voluntarily for 30 seconds and doesn't pay a handsome amount is a monster. What I said is that listening, enjoying it and then telling them: "Stupid musician, their fault for giving me the choice to pay, so I don't" makes you a bad person.

There are a thousand ethically sound reasons why you wouldn't toss a coin, you could not have one, you could be broke, you could misunderstand the situation, you could have a cultural background where this is uncommon and street performers are getting their share in a different way etc.

But enjoying the fruit of their work and then maligning them for giving it to you for free is not only rude, but yes: ethically wrong.

[pxoe]

It's completely understandable not just for the usual streaming services (like youtube, etc.) and the grievances there (payouts per play, whichever way it goes, be it that artists getting stiffed or people refusing to come up with even a fraction of a cent), but for something like bandcamp as well, which is kind of 'almost but not quite a streaming service' and more accurately described in a literal way like 'it lets you play music and buy it', from which apps like this just remove the 'buying music' portion completely.

For something like youtube, there's hardly any qualms whether it's ethical or exploitative to sidestep that whole thing and whatever else artists may put out around their music (even something like links in video descriptions), because it is just a mess and people just roll with it anyway. But for bandcamp it leans a bit more towards 'taking it for a ride', when an app like this completely removes the aspect of buying music. Perhaps some people might not even get a slightest clue that's even possible cause there is just no such suggestion in the app at all. And if you wanted to get there, it kind of makes it harder to do so, because there's no prominent links to the original pages of songs and albums in the app. Finding or copying a link is a bit non-trivial because there's no such option in album view or track items, there is in playing queue but it's also kinda buried there.

It's just the way that something like this completely obscures the fact that you could buy music from bandcamp, or sometimes even download it for free (depending on what artists have set up). It's one of the better platforms for artists, so it's kind of odd to see this 'fuck you got mine' approach to it. It's also kind of just crummy and shoddily made, so even bandcamp webpages seem like a better browsing and listening experience. Bandcamp website isn't the worst for finding and playing music (it may be plain but it's snappy, and their discovery tools are pretty nice), but it's remarkable to make something that works even worse, perhaps just because bandcamp doesn't even have that much going on.

[charcircuit]

This bypasses the ads of YouTube Music which means that artists are not being compensated for their work.

[lelandbatey]

That is a detail which is the responsibility of the artist as a businessperson. If you give away pizza with a big stack of ad flyers, no one would complain when that business doesn't make that much money because no one reads the ad flyers all they do is eat the pizza and toss the ads.

We live in a world where said pizza shops want to force you to look at each flyer in the ad stack, but for years they didn't sit you down and make you look with your eyes, instead they just let you take the ads and the pizza and leave. They're trying to crank up the pressure to watch saying "the cooks deserve to be paid" and "you have to let us watch you look at the flyers to eat the pizza, or else you can't leave with the pizza."

Don't be fooled, if the musicians didn't want folks to listen on YouTube then they wouldn't put their music there. If you can find a way to look away from the flyers while still eating the pizza, you are not the bad person. Eat and weep for a world where we can't just exchange money for food.

[charcircuit]

>Eat and weep for a world where we can't just exchange money for food.

Youtube sells subscriptions for YouTube Music if you want to be able to listen to the music in the background or without ads. Violating YouTube's terms of service is unethical.

[lelandbatey]

If I open a new YouTube page incognito, I am not asked to agree to any kind of TOS. I agree to nothing, I merely start watching videos. Where is there a requirement that I must watch the ads if I have never agreed to such?

Even then, I bring this all up as a YouTube Premium membership holder, someone who has been paying for YouTube Premium since the very day it was announced as YouTube Red! I am also a sponsor block addon user, so I skip the "this video is sponsored by Stupid shoes" or whatever, read by the creators. According to you, am I stealing money from them as well, somehow?

[baq]

> Violating YouTube's terms of service is unethical.

It’s a breach of contract, but whether this contract is ethical is a different question altogether, as is the question of ethics of breaching of unethical contracts.

[prmoustache]

It is not a breach of contract if you never signed a contract in the first place.

[ada1981]

Can you explain why TOS violations in general are unethical?

[charcircuit]

If you enter into an agreement with someone you should follow the agreement to the best of your ability. Purposefully agreeing to agreements when you know you will violate them is exploitative behavior as you are taking advantage of someone because you are purposefully not holding up your end of the deal when you know that they will continue to hold up their end.

[edoceo]

Typically they start with something like: by using this $SERVICE you AGREE to blah-blah-blah ($X)

If you agree to $X but then don't do it: you're a liar.

The terms might be shit. But if you agree to shit terms you should be bound by shit terms. In the olden days: "I gave my word as a gentleman and a scholar" or "a deals a deal, even with a dirty dealer"[0].

Going back on a deal is not ethical; end of.

[0] I think it from Futurama.

[nadermx]

https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/aug/15/disney-...

Might have a word with you

[charcircuit]

If you mutually agree to use arbitration then you should use arbitration.

[anjel]

>Violating YouTube's terms of service is unethical.

I gotta ask, more or less than enshittification?

[MiiMe19]

>Violating YouTube's terms of service is unethical.

lol

[munificent]

> if the musicians didn't want folks to listen on YouTube then they wouldn't put their music there.

You are giving musicians way too much agency here.

For most musicians on YouTube, they're there because their label and/or their manager wants them there. A big part of why musicians sign with labels and have managers is specifically because they don't have the inclination or expertise to micromanage this stuff.

I'm sure in many cases, musicians would rather not be on YouTube at all, but their already-signed nebulously-worded contract with the label doesn't give them any control over that.

In a world where everyone is a perfectly spherical rational actor in a libertarian vacuum, your argument would make more sense. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world filled with primates doing the best they can with the weird cognitive capabilities nature gave them and trying to get through each day with a little joy and dignity still intact.

[guappa]

You think youtube music compensates artists?

[GuB-42]

They do. At least for those who are eligible to become YouTube partners, which starts at 1000 subscribers I think.

How fair it is depends on what you think is fair, but it is not zero.

[guappa]

The amount is important, since it's like trace amounts of money.

[pxoe]

Yes, which is what I also mention (as more usual streaming services, what someone would immediately think of and which is more geared towards that conventional kind of streaming - which bandcamp is kind of just not), it's just that culturally one is further down the line of being shitty to artists, and something like bandcamp has much lower fees on payments. However yeah, this thing is shitty to artists in about the same way, just relatively even shittier to artists on platforms that are better.

[Severian]

I 100% agree with this take: adding Bandcamp to this "media" app is a really shitty thing to do.

I personally know a few musicians who use Bandcamp to either exclusively make a living (along with touring), or to supplement their income. Some are overjoyed when they get a few sales a week on a release. This POS software denies that opportunity.

Either way, 99% of the artists are small independent musicians, and this just skips the Purchase album or track and just freeloads off the small MP3 player on each album page.

Its disgusting.

[bigyabai]

Artists can disable full-length previews if this is a concern. Otherwise, I don't think Bandcamp's 320kbps MP3s are any more attractive than a YouTube rip.

[pxoe]

Previews/free streaming on bandcamp is 128 kbps mp3 only. If you buy music there, you get the whole spread, lossy and lossless, mp3 320/v0, aac, ogg, flac, even wav. (Only thing notably missing at this point is opus, which would be fantastic to have, like for example, opus at 64k (space saving/space efficient) and 256k (quality), although vorbis or aac at whatever quality they have it set to is pretty good as a space efficient option)

[fsniper]

When I read the testimonials, my take was the developers are not taking themselves too seriously. It felt well for me. They are not trying to sell one perspective, and not hiding what haters tell too. I suppose I find this refreshing.

[indigodaddy]

That's my impression as well. It doesn't exactly seem like bragging nor "oh look what we are doing and we don't give af"

[30minAdayHN]

Probably they are employing rage marketing? I used to follow this hotel in Ireland, I think, that used to post very aggressive comments against the reviews. It became a thing and people used to stay there just for it. I think there is a TV series recently in the same vein.

[baq]

Take a look at Ryanair’s X profile. There’s gold over there.

[30minAdayHN]

damn - they are brutal and fun! they have already won me as a customer.

[atoav]

You can limit the number of possible listens without buying on Bandcamp if you prefer people who actually consider paying for artists.

But yeah marketing an app as "this is free, we are great, while some musician didn't like it, but fuck them" may not be the cool humorous power move they thought it might be.

As a musician and open source programmer myself I don't feel I am automatically entitled to people's money for stuff I put out there. But while my Open source software is about giving back, I actually want people to value my music and pay for it (if they can and like it enough). So the tiniest bit of sensibility towards people who produce those things, often in their spare time, would help and costs exactly nothing.

If this was framed more like: "Discover music that is actually new for free and get in contact with the artists directly" that would be a different story.

This may turn out to be a good way to discover new music. And the bandcamp/soundcloud crowd tends to be after new unknown and good music anyways, so that should align with their ways of discovering music and make for a much better elevator pitch than the current one.

[raffraffraff]

They aren't testimonials. Couldn't be. Nobody would put mostly negative comments on their page like that. Some aren't remotely positive in any way (not even in a "hahaha, fuck the artists, get music for free" way).

Maybe they're coming from a comment feed somewhere?

[graynk]

I am very certain this is intentional. Sorta "look how much we don't care" bravado.

[raffraffraff]

Why would they not care if people were saying that the product itself was complete trash

[graynk]

Because they are confident that it's not

[smcleod]

Fairly sure it's just a joke. Who takes testimonials on a products website seriously anyway?

[fredsmith219]

If a musician doesn’t want them to do this, why do they upload their music to the free site?

[bfg_9k]

Funny because it made me feel the opposite way! I'll be giving this a spin.

[lukan]

Have you checked the other comments?

[3RTB297]

Most of the "testimonials" I'm seeing are actually negative.

>I used nuclear and had a horrible experience with it. It looks bad, you wait for 1 minute to play a 3 minute song, it's slow as fuck. Probably it's because of Electron, but it is used by so many people that I started cringing.

Uh.....what? I get trying to lean into being edgy, but a bad user experience? No thanks.

[guappa]

I mean, if people like these hate it, it must be really good.

[jamespo]

nah, it's crap