i took a look at how people make money off other people's music—some famous, some unknown—these days on streaming services. it even happened to me kind of.

there's a narrative that DSPs "fixed" music piracy - idk if that's completely true! it just looks different now.

lmk what yall think

this is why physicals will always be the real deal

imo physicals > pirated > streaming

for sure. when u buy physicals do u listen to them in that format? or do u rip the cd to a digital library or something

I mean as long as the internet continues to exist in its current state where there is free use practically everywhere that is impossible to entirely monitor there will always be some form of theft/piracy.

Streaming services objectively did reduce piracy to a major extent though, that’s not really arguable.

definitely reduced it. but there are dudes making a lotttt of money off new kinds of music piracy

I can't watch rn but I assume it's about people uploading leaks/unreleased stuff on Spotify?

I've heard the Alex G unreleased Spotify page makes basically as much as he does

yea exactly haha thats the major example. but its not the only one—people upload old frank leaks, some so old that people don't actually know it's frank lol. i just had one of those new carti songs autoplay for me on spotify

and there's also a NYT article about people uploading other people's soundcloud music and stream farming it to make money

I'm cheap as f*** (anti-consuming). I didn't use streaming and downloaded music to my iPhone until summer last year Got free Spotify with my carrier plan so that worked out itself

Eh, not to seem like an a****** but this whole era of unreleased/leaks being put on streaming services isn’t really the same because

1. If this is stuff from years ago that will never ever be released by the artist officially, what are they losing from people listening to it? They were never going to make money from the songs either to begin with as they never would be released

2. If the services like Apple, Spotify, etc remove the songs because they aren’t official uploads by the team they’ll still appear online via sites like YouTube and file sharing sites. Once something leaks it leaks.

3. If someone uploads leaks on those streaming services I’ve always thought it was just dumb of them to do. Now the labels can just sue them and make sure they get no money earned from the music. You uploaded someone else’s art and it’s tied to your IP, bank/payment info, etc.

I don’t see how this is piracy in terms of the commonly accepted definition

Piracy implies you could pay for something but you choose not to and obtain it illegally

Leaks/unreleased cannot be paid for directly and you would be paying for a subscription already

ur not an a****** at all, i appreciate the response. i agree piracy is a much smaller fraction of the music industry than it used to be. but i think its a lil bit hyperbolic when the DSPs claim to have completely solved the problem, bc clearly they havent, plenty of people are uploading unauthorized stuff on there and flat out getting away with it

i agree that the artists probably wouldn't mind that people listen to them—the issue is that someone else is generating revenue off of it. ur right, some labels prob sue, but they have to find the song in the first place. also, some songs were never officially released and thus harder to prove who really owns it

there's a section of the video where i talk about a new phenomenon where people actually rip unreleased music off soundcloud by relative nobodies, upload it as someone else on spotify, and stream farm it. they do this bc spotify cracked down on just uploading white noise for stream farm purposes, so now these people find actual music that isnt already on the platform to use

A future leak just started playing randomly after my playlist ended on AM

piracy is the unauthorized use or reproduction of someone else's work

some people take the unreleased music of other artists, put it on streaming services, and then make money off of those streams. that's piracy

the listeners arent the pirates, its the people uploading it. my fault if that doesnt come off clearly

this s*** has been happening so much

Piracy will never die.

no doubt. but it does look way different than it did haha

good work

Real

I have a vinyl collection, someday I would like to record them slowed down, as the player has a pitch slide.

bring back the mediafire era

Both, I got a cheap little FLAC player to play the ripped files, but I also have a CD player that’s also a receiver for my turntable

i was a zippyshare kind of guy

bro ur username is hard are u greek

Yes, Greek American