[eisa01]

It's important to remember that to this day, streaming sites do not have a full archive of the music out there. There is still a need for music piracy

Even albums mentioned in the Norwegian business magazine D2 can be impossible to find in legit channels. Your only option is to buy used CDs on Discogs for 50-100 USD, or know your way around the successors of these sites

These CDs weren’t even on Oink or What (or did not survive the transitions)

https://www.dn.no/d2/musikk/stena-line/lars-holte/spotify/ha...

[wodenokoto]

I think the streaming sites are in a difficult position.

On one hand I expect access to the worlds music, but on the other hand I also expect not to be drowned in 8bit covers and AI music.

They are - to me at least - also an arbiter of music, similarly to how record stores used to be.

[port11]

If only they had gobs of cash to pay people to curate content… or, I don’t know, AI that can check if something is AI. Or ask uploaders for some kind of proof, since we’re in the age of asking citizens to prove they’re adults. If only there was _something_ they could do!

[bradly]

I can't speak for other streaming services, but at Apple Music we did pay musical industry professionals a lot of money to do human evaluation of specific searches. We had people with specific deep knowledge of genres and niches. At least in my little corner Apple that was quite a bit of effort put into this.

[port11]

Kudos to you then, that’s commendable. Maybe it’s a branding choice on Apple’s side to have this curation?

[antisthenes]

I mean for starters you could clearly label everything that was uploaded/created before 2023/24 and the slopocalypse.

[applfanboysbgon]

> 8bit covers and AI music

As someone who loves lsdj... ouch.

[Hoodedcrow]

> It's important to remember that to this day, streaming sites do not have a full archive of the music out there.

And even if they did, you'd still need to pirate a copy of your collection to own it (as there's a chance not all of it is sold digitally and DRM-less).

[dyauspitr]

The one pirate site I miss more than anything is demonoid. I could find just about anything on there. Is there anything similar now? What happened to all their archives once they were taken offline.

[burnermore]

Deimos passed away (may he rest in peace) and the old staff members brought it back online. But contents are lost. And it feels malwarish TBH. Archives of cartoons which you can never have now. It was nuts. Waiting for the invite window to open was nuts!!! Good ol' memories.

[Sammi]

I got access to the original closed demonoid and I could find anything I was looking for there. But I was never able to download anything as they required you to upload before you could download. I had nothing of value to share, so I was just stuck. How did people solve this?

[beloch]

Some music is a lot like abandoned video games. It can sometimes be tricky to figure out who owns the rights and, even having done that, more difficult still to track them down and get their permission. Also, it's not a given that the answer will be, "Yes.". If you ask an obscure artist to fill out forms and jump through hoops for 6 cents in streaming royalties, they may tell you to piss off.

There are likely many albums that would have met oblivion were it not for piracy.

[bobdvb]

There was a black and white fantasy TV show called "Adam Adamant Lives!" from the 60s. The BBC always wanted to re-release it but the original contracts for the show were written when no one ever considered re-runs and physical releases. The BBC didn't have rights from the original actors for anything other than the original broadcast. And one of the actors who appeared in a few episodes didn't want it to be shown again, even if they were paid, the BBC didn't want to release a box-set without all the episodes. Eventually they just waited until that actor died and they were then able to release it.

I'm lead to believe that in music there are some similar contractual issues. The rights for some artists were for radio, and physical media, but no one considered streaming or downloads because those things didn't exist. So they have to go back and tidy up the contracts to cover their asses. And it doesn't just have to be the headliner on the recording, you may need to get every performer/contributor.

[qingcharles]

This is where YouTube Music really shines, in a way. It lets every Tom, Dick & Harry upload whatever-the-hell, and as long as it doesn't ping off the major labels' copyright signatures then it stays and YouTube (supposedly) does some accounting around the back to try and figure out where the royalties should go.

[marysol5]

Neither do pirates, even less so because it's P2P. LOTS of dead torrents out in the world

[IshKebab]

> streaming sites do not have a full archive of the music out there

True, but it's way less common to want to listen to a specific piece of music than it is to want to watch a specific film or TV series. There's also way way way more music out there than there is film or TV, so it's again less of a problem.

If I want to listen to music I just say "hey google play some music" and it gets some random music based on my tastes that is generally pretty good. I rarely say "hey google play this specific track". Generally when I'm educating my kids ("It's cooooming home, it's coming, England's coming home").

For film and TV there's really not that much good stuff out there. I hear about a specific series, say Severance. Oh it's only available on Apple TV and I only have Netflix, Disney+ and Prime. Piracy it is then!

[RugnirViking]

That's not my experience at all. My most common workflow in these apps is exactly going to a specific song (artist, album, playlist) and playing it. I can scarcely imagine much use for just asking for "music" - my closest equivalent is putting my extremely large "liked songs" playlist on shuffle which takes me down memory lane etc.

I know behaviour like yours is common, however. Spotify themselves say so, and work under that assumption wrt. promoting cheaper (for them) music when they detect passive listening.

[black_knight]

Less common mayhaps, but some of my more blissful moments are when I sit down in the couch, load up one of my favourite albums, close my eyes and go on a musical journey!

What I listen to is definitely not interchangeable. And contrary to TV series, there is no limit to how much I can enjoy it!

[charcircuit]

Just because you can't stream it, that doesn't justify piracy. I buy the CD for music I want to listen to but can't stream. The idea that you are forced to pirate is made up.

[teach]

I agree with you that you are never "forced" to pirate; you can simply not listen to the missing album.

But many many many many excellent albums are not available for sale anywhere at any price. They essentially do not exist, except in the hands of a few collectors.

The bands themselves, the creators of said music, want their music to be heard.

The fact that they aren't available for sale or streaming is often because a rich bureaucrat can't be bothered, not for any legal reason.

[marysol5]

Disagree on the last part, there's plenty of bands that only ever released on CD. Films and Documentaries that only went out on DVD, or even worse. Only ever shown at film festivals and never had actual releases.

I've never understood that last one.

[charcircuit]

It's okay for media to reach its end of life even if they are excellent. All good things come to an end. There is continually other new good things you can find instead in life.

[mabedan]

Recently I found out that the Translucent Blues album by Ray Manzarek and Roy Rogers isn't on any legal streaming platform. Only one full-album upload on YouTube. Made me sad.

[throwaway2037]

    > Even albums mentioned in the Norwegian business magazine D2 can be impossible to find in legit channels.

I'm confused. Spotify wouldn't work?

[fl4regun]

spotify doesn't contain every music album released.

[marysol5]

Nothing does

[throwaway2037]

I fully expected the GP reply! I am stunned how much music is on Spotify. I'm not here to say that Spotify is perfect, but I can almost never find something that isn't available on Spotify.

[mghackerlady]

This! The only album I consider perfect (Regional at Best by Twenty Øne Piløts) is only available on I think Deezer?

[DaanDL]

What I also miss on Spotify: live mixes.

[Blahah]

Soundcloud is great for this

[nirvael]

Kind of, Soundcloud has very aggressive copyright claims which is a problem for mixes.

[cobbzilla]

for electronic music di.fm has some great live sets. I wish they had more tho

[marysol5]

themixingbowl.org is a good tracker, lots of radio rips on there too

[haunter]

Took me 1 min to find the first album in FLAC, probably the other two is available too

[eisa01]

Only one of them had been available in FLAC, but someone made sure to make the rest available in the last two years, and someone else even put them on YouTube...

I had been on the hunt for them a couple years after purchasing The First Winter 25 years ago :)

[bugufu8f83]

>It's important to remember that to this day, streaming sites do not have a full archive of the music out there. There is still a need for music piracy

Ehhh..... I'd wager that pretty much anything that most people want to listen to is on music streaming sites. Streaming is how everyone consumes music these days, so everything new gets released there, and by this point the catalog from the CD era is extensive. Music streaming has more music than What or Oink ever did. Streaming also has huge value add over piracy: it's really easy and convenient, it's better socially (shared playlists), and recommendations/discovery are waaaay better.

The vast majority of people do not "need" music piracy any more. If you want ten different versions of every REM album with slightly different mastering then sure, join RED. But it's a niche interest these days.

It's a huge contrast to movie piracy, which is thriving and which provides enormous advantages over any other way of watching movies at home, not just in cost and convenience but also in access and in quality.

[a-french-anon]

> I'd wager that pretty much anything that most people want to listen to is on music streaming sites

If you have simple tastes, easily accept holes in their catalog and don't care about being served butchered "remasters". People who actually care don't use Netflix/Spotify.

Some examples: Melvins' Lysol is (famously) only available on Apple Music and for good measure I just looked right now at Spotify's page for Midori (https://open.spotify.com/artist/1Qjrx8NtccILLfR3wh1u3o) and it has neither their First EP nor Second LP (https://www.discogs.com/artist/777727-Midori-3); I didn't even choose or try multiple artists, I simply wondered "hmmm, is Midori on Spotify?".

Worthless.

[bugufu8f83]

>If you have simple tastes, easily accept holes in their catalog and don't care about being served butchered "remasters". People who actually care don't use Netflix/Spotify.

Oh please, spare me the condescending bullshit.

Sure, there exists music that is on RED that is not on Spotify. There also exists music that is on Spotify that is not on RED (some of which I even listen to!).

I said "pretty much anything" and "most people". I stand by this. Most people do not experience major holes in the Spotify catalog and are perfectly well satisfied by the breadth of the catalog. If you aren't, that's cool, but you're in a minority.

If this weren't the case, music piracy would be more popular. It's not. RED has more music now than What.CD did, but the community is smaller. It's telling that it doesn't even get a mention in the OP. A lot of people who join aren't even particularly interested in music piracy but just want to use it as a stepping stone to other communities.

I'm not saying that music piracy sucks or whatever. I'm just saying that most people don't feel much need for it and are well-served by Spotify--which, again, has some huge advantages over piracy that I gave previously. I think it is useful to be realistic about this because it's easy reading an article or thread like this to feel a kind of FOMO and I think it's valuable to push back against that.

[ryandrake]

I think you and OP are arguing different things. Netflix/Spotify are the McDonalds/Olive Garden of media. They are basic, uncomplicated, and flawed, yet they serve most people's tastes. People whose needs they don't serve well go somewhere else.

[bugufu8f83]

I'm not sure why people keep bringing up Netflix. Last I checked, they weren't a music streaming service.

There's a huge difference in Spotify for music vs Netflix for TV and movies. Netflix's catalog is absolutely tiny. Spotify's is not.

I also continue to disagree with the idea that Spotify's catalog is only for people with basic or mainstream tastes. This is far too reductive. Like I said above, the vast majority of newly released music is released onto Spotify. For many new or small artists, streaming is the only way their music is released. There is no "somewhere else" to go.

Personally, I listen to a lot of contemporary French indie pop, including a lot of pretty obscure stuff. This stuff is most available through streaming services. To the extent it is available via pirate channels, it's because someone bothered to take the time to rip it from a streaming service. There is nothing which music piracy offers in this domain, and there is a lot that it lacks (both in availability and in all the service factors that make streaming appealing, as I've said--convenience, sharing, discoverability). A further factor I haven't brought up yet is that it just feels shitty and pointless to pirate this kind of stuff when listening to it on Spotify at least provides some benefits to the artists themselves: royalties (tiny as they may be), increased play counts, exposure via recommendation algorithms.

A large fraction of what is uploaded to music piracy sites currently is sourced from music streaming platforms. Not all of it, certainly. A large fraction of the CD- and vinyl-sourced uploads are also available on music streaming platforms too though. As I've mentioned a few times previously, Spotify has a bigger catalog than RED does (even if you ignore all the 0 play AI slop spam that's been flooding Spotify lately).

I would say that the median user of private music torrent sites now is one of two things: either they are there because they want to join other communities for things beside music (TV, movies, video games, anime, porn, whatever), or they are someone who has been pirating music for a long time, probably Gen X, listens to mainly music from 30+ years ago, and has made music piracy a part of their identity and self-perception on some level (you can see a certain sense of smug superiority about it even in this HN thread).

All of this is to say that I think that the comparison to McDonalds or Olive Garden is just way, way off base. Spotify and Netflix do not belong in the same conversation either. Is there some stuff that's not available on music streaming platforms? Sure, it exists. If people find that streaming is not meeting their needs, of course they should look elsewhere. But the picture that is being painted in this thread is simply far off from reality.

[a-french-anon]

While I must sadly agree with your usage of "most people", I still don't understand why you thought it changed anything to the original claim that there is still a need for music piracy (for the aforementioned people who care). And note that I didn't pick particularly obscure artists, we're talking 10~100k ratings/followers on RYM.

> Oh please, spare me the condescending bullshit.

Why would I?

[lopis]

> Streaming is how everyone consumes music these days

It's pretty dangerous to assume that what you do is what everyone else does too.

> so everything new gets released there

Previous comment was probably referring to older music.

[bugufu8f83]

If you take issue with the claim that everyone streams music these days than the only way I can understand your comment is by assuming we live in vastly different cultures.

Certainly in the US everyone uses streaming to listen to music. This random article claimed that 90% of American adults regularly stream music online, for example: https://cybernews.com/news/us-internet-users-music-streaming...

[marysol5]

90% of ADULTS! Is a really incredible statistic. Not just "Music listeners" but everyone else..

Also of course it also includes playing from Youtube

[itsmartapuntocm]

If you listen to non-western music the streaming library shrinks a lot.

[Gander5739]

Do you think the difference between film piracy and music piracy is inherent, due to the differences between film and music; or is there some alternative reality where we ended up with a one-stop shop for films, as well?

For the history of music piracy, I found" How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy" was a good book to read.

[maccard]

I would wager the effective piracy rate of stuff that on prime and Netflix a few years back was close to the effective music piracy rate. IMO the difference is that with Spotify, tidal, Apple, YouTube or Qobuz - you mostly get access to everything. With film, you can pay for Netflix, Disney, Hulu, peacock, HBO, and _still_ not be able to get access to major releases without paying more on top of the subs.

[bugufu8f83]

That's an interesting question. I'm not sure. We sort of had that one-stop shop experience with Netflix's DVD service, where you would pay a subscription fee and in exchange you would get to watch movies from a huge catalog. But this didn't translate to the streaming era.

P2P film piracy, at least for the quality-minded, has a few strong competitive advantages over film streaming. It doesn't have to deal with rights issues, for one, which can present huge roadblocks to film distribution. Films are also huge files and the interests of a streaming platform (low bitrate) are in tension with interests of quality. Even in comparison to physical media--the highest quality release of a film might be from a different market than yours, or there might be many competing releases over time. There might be different factors that are better in one release and other factors better in another release, where the pirated copy can combine all the best parts. It's actually somewhat remarkable how good film piracy has gotten these days for those who care.

[Gander5739]

I don't think quality is really much of a concern for the majority of people, only enthusiasts. I suspect, analagous to 128 kbps opus (on youtube music), most people can't really tell the difference between a 1080p bitstarved stream and a 4k bluray rip.

The library for the music streaming platforms is much bigger than for films, of course (about 250 million for Spotify), but there's also a much lower barrier of entry. So perhaps the higher work needed to produce a film necessitates more profit, to a degree that only the fragmented streaming platforms can fulfill. After all, netflix started making originals to counter studios launching their own streaming platforms to raise profit margins, and pulling their content off netflix.

[account42]

> I don't think quality is really much of a concern for the majority of people, only enthusiasts. I suspect, analagous to 128 kbps opus (on youtube music), most people can't really tell the difference between a 1080p bitstarved stream and a 4k bluray rip.

They might not care but anyone who literally can't tell the difference of a good 4K source and a 1080p source on an appropriate display needs to go see an eye doctor. But that most people don't care about quality also isn't particularly shocking.

And as gp indicated, quality isn't just about the encode resolution and bitrate but also about the master itself. Unfortunately not all directors and companies behind great movies have the resepect for their creations that it deserves and the current release which might be the only release on streaming platforms might have significant flaws such as unwanted cuts/restorations, missing audio tracks, replaced sound effects, inaudible mixes, missing subtitles, bad upscales, excessive denoising, reframing from the original aspect ratio that cuts of content and/or shows parts of the originally captured film frames that were never meant to be seen, or various other "enhancements".

[marysol5]

But physical DVD rentals is even more restrictive than a streaming library. You'd literally hit a physical limit on the number of patrons at any one time.

[pjc50]

> due to the differences between film and music

Music being generally 3-10 minutes long while film is 1h30-3h makes a big difference here. A film is a bit more of a commitment than a playlist entry; you can just put music on the virtual sushi belt and grab what comes past, while sitting down for a film is more of a time commitment.

[dfxm12]

There are fewer music rights holders, so it is easier to get them together in a room and agree to, for example, a piece of Spotify in exchange for licensing the music. Thus, Spotify becomes like a defacto standard with reasonably all popular music. Just one subscription for what the average listener will want.

Right now, there are too many film distributors and services, let alone TV, plus a lot of exclusives that people want to watch. These video streaming services seem to be trending towards consolidation, but I think film distributors remain diverse.

[taneq]

Heck, almost everything is available for free on YouTube.

[konart]

This is very far from truth unless you only listen freshs pop music. And even then it is easy to click a song only to receive "not available in your region".

[mghackerlady]

no, I've found many an album on youtube that isn't anywhere else and was uploaded by a random guy 10 years ago

[konart]

Yes, same can be said for Vkontakte, for example (thanks to its piracu police and user uploads)

But this is kind of a different story.

Likewise at somepoit Russia passed a law that made all soviet movies and cartoons public and obviously studios started using YT as their hostding platform.

But this is not a default case. Just a lucky coincidence.

[marysol5]

That's still piracy

[abc123abc123]

What? I find plenty of jazz and classical music on youtube. yt-dlp -x is your friend.

I find it amusing that youtube can be the source of my "pirated" music and get away with it. But the piratebay guys got their lives smashed to pieces.

But that I guess, is our civilization today. One set of rules for politicians and corporations, and one set for the slaves.

[konart]

See my sibling comment.

Yes, if the owner uploads somthing to yt and\or if the composition in public domain - it will be there. But that's it.

For example you have Netherlands Bach Society on Youtube. And I most likely can upload a rare Chaliapin's recording.

But:

- this one big "IF".

- this won't work same way for some rare Michael Jackson composition, for example.

[marysol5]

TPB were actively advocating and facilitating the upload of owned content. YT reacts to takedown requests and even re-directs advertising revenue to the rights holders.

You know TPB is a company right? They even run a paid VPN service. And half of their business was "bulletproof hosting".

[abc123abc123]

Plenty of pirate material on yt, and I couldn't care less about what organizational format tpb have. I'll support them against Google every day of the week, since they are not hellbent on creating a socialist surveillance society.

[otabdeveloper4]

> pretty much anything that most people want to listen to is on music streaming sites

If that were true, then vinyl sales wouldn't be growing.

[bugufu8f83]

First of all, vinyl is still relatively niche in absolute terms. Second of all, the popularity of vinyl, such as it is, has absolutely nothing to do with availability. It's largely driven by a kind of retro nostalgia (as the technology itself is, of course, inferior from a technical sense of faithful reproduction) plus a desire for personal physical ownership of something.

[ButlerianJihad]

I was a zealous collector of records when we made the switch to digital audio. And let me tell you, there was a significant artistry to the thing: a vinyl record was a standardized work of art. Every album cover was the result of careful design, photography, layout. The inner sleeve oftentimes contained more art, or if we were lucky, all the lyrics we wanted to sing along with. The record label itself, a masterpiece of design. All the smells and all the feels of merely collecting vinyl--even without playing it--are indescribable today.

When CDs came into the market, they were horribly clacky and just clad in layers of tacky plastic. The album art was shrunken, misshapen... and the objects themselves stank of polycarbonate, rather than delicious vinyl. Sure, they sounded great and they lasted a long time, and maintenance was dead simple. But so much artistry was lost. I was still collecting lots of CDs when purely digital distribution hit us, but by then, the smells and feels and experience of collecting vinyl were distant memories.

And that entire experience may be why people argue for the technical superiority of vinyl recordings, and analog tube amplifiers. Because it was all self-reinforcing, and it all fell apart once the clacky, tacky, plasticky CDs took over.

[bugufu8f83]

Yeah, that's all part of what I meant by "a kind of retro nostalgia". People enjoy the experience of buying vinyl and of putting on vinyl records. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, for what it's worth. I'm just claiming that this is what's driving vinyl's popularity right now, rather than because people are turning to it due to music availability issues (which is much more of a factor for DVDs/Blu-rays right now).

[otabdeveloper4]

There's a shitload of valuable vinyl records that don't have any art at all or even any cover. Paper and cardboard doesn't last as long as the record itself.

No, the reasons for this are entirely technical.

[ButlerianJihad]

de gustibus non est disputandum

Look, I am telling you about my own lived experience with collecting vinyl. You can speak for yourself, but I carefully stored all my items in archival sleeves, and the jacket, art, and inner sleeve were often just as important as the disc and the music encoded on it.

There was a real thrill and reward that came from collecting LP albums in particular, and that meant 12" discs, and I also had a particular specialty in finding 12" remixes and DJ versions of singles.

Yes, there were shaped discs, and colored vinyl, and white-labels and acetates that came with no art or plain sleeves, and I collected those with just as much alacrity, but it really was a pleasure to flip through my collection, or someone else's, and drink in that large-format album art.

[otabdeveloper4]

> It's largely driven by a kind of retro nostalgia

Incorrect. The reasons why vinyl specifically is still relevant (as opposed to any other "retro" audio format) are technical.

Vinyl avoids compression issues by design. (Compression both in the computer science sense and in the audio engineering sense.)

[kmeisthax]

You are correct that you can't lossily compress a vinyl, but you absolutely can master a vinyl for maximum loudness. It's harder to do, and some of the techniques are different, but it can be done, people did it, and this was actually where the loudness war started. And notably, unlike digital, vinyl does not impose a maximum loudness wall. If you find a way to make the groove wobble more than before, the player will absolutely produce a louder signal than before, whereas with digital you have a strict limit to your levels at +/-32768.

To make matters worse, people aren't doing separate masters for audiophile formats anymore, so vinyl is getting the ultra-compressed, low-dynamic-range master anyway. That is because the vast majority of people buying vinyl were doing so as merch, not so much as a way to buy better-mastered albums.

[carlosjobim]

The music is digital before it gets pressed on vinyl. They're not recording directly from microphone to vinyl.

[tclancy]

Maybe you aren’t today, but buy my Monster Cable Golden Wax Cylinder and a set of titanium needles and you can too!

[mghackerlady]

Give me a break. CDs aren't compressed and sound flawless if the mixing is good. it also isn't dependent on things like the quality or age of the disc. And sure, a bad player might sound a bit worse than a high quality one, but that mostly comes down to the DAC in it, whereas with vinyl depends on the player a lot more by virtue of being a mechanical format

[marysol5]

All audio is "compressed" to an element, there are frequencies that aren't reproduced

[bugufu8f83]

This is complete bullshit, sorry. Digital is more capable of faithfully reproducing sound than vinyl is. Vinyl does not have technical advantages when it comes to faithful sound reproduction. I mean, it literally degrades over time, for chrissake!

I don't know what kind of "compression issues" you're talking about but I strongly suspect you'd be well served by learning about the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem.

[otabdeveloper4]

> Digital is more capable of faithfully reproducing sound than vinyl is.

That's exactly the problem that makes digital unsuitable.

Theoretically digital can reproduce sound faithfully, but if the medium allows sound engineers to compress the hell out of music, then they will abuse the opportunity.

Vinyl is a very limited format and you can't really do any sort of "creative" audio optimization bullshit with it.

[tclancy]

Anyone over forty, beware. Below/ above this line is a rehashing of all of the arguments around CDs from 1982-2020 inclusive.

[meindnoch]

If you have a pretty vanilla taste, sure.

[fl4regun]

here's a counter example: the opening to mirror's edge is not hosted on spotify (last time I checked, in my region at least), and it's an old favourite of mine (and I'm sure many people who played the game too)