Music Piracy Is Back in a Big Way

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 619 points – 8 months ago

Music Piracy Is Back in a Big Way—Especially From YouTube

Visits to music piracy websites went up more than 13 percent last year, a new report says. The majority of those visits were to sites that allow users to download the audio from YouTube URLs.

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I know this does not make me look good - but I am a YouTube Premium subscriber. I had Spotify, but they jacked up their family plan rate, and it was only a few bucks cheaper than Premium, then I got the ad-free (without adblockers). I mostly did it to help my kids avoid the toxic ads that are littered into the kid content. The main reason I stick with some of this stuff is for the discovery. Pandora was great, Spotify is ok.

Regardless - the smart playlists, and AI stuff on YouTube music is AWFUL. I cannot put into words how bad it is. Spotify got it right about 1/4-1/2 of the time. YouTube, maybe 1/100. Constantly recommending a country, which I cannot stand. When it isn't doing country, it recommends hard rock/metal which I also do not listen to. I feel like I need a new way to find music, then I could sever ties with all these trashy subscriptions.

I have started buying vinyl with the digital downloads when I find a great album. I feel better doing it this way. Most of my music is not super big name artists.

Not been my experience. Yt music playlists are really good for me and I've discovered a lot of new music through it.

That surprises me, but I suppose it had to work for some listeners or they wouldn't have gotten it past testing. I have even tried clearing my listen history and starting over - still comes up with country and (going to clarify) 'metal' . I like rock and alternative and some forms of pop, as well as a bit of hip hop. cannot fathom why it suggests what it does.

Do you ever thumb down anything, or do you just skip the stuff you don't like?

Every time. I am not sure it actually changes anything. I have submitted feedback and bug reports to YTM as well. Just generic replies.

I feel you. Feels like the algorithm just does whatever now, on main YouTube and Shorts it is awful as well, constantly showing me the same 5 shorts and recommending me channels I have asked to "not recommend" multiple times. No amount of disliking and clicking "Not Interested" seems to help, at least not for longer than a day.

I dunno, sorry to hear about your experience. I've never had a thumb downed song come back up, not ever. And it absolutely affects what kinds of things come up in my radios.

I never thumbs up or down and I find the recommended albums and "Mixed for your" playlists are pretty accurate. I hate that my grandfathered price went up last December tho

I don’t pay for anything YouTube-related but not at all surprised they recommend shit that is irrelevant.

I’m the opposite as you and enjoy metal/rock as well as rap/hip hop. But I am constantly being shown “recommendations” for pop and anything I’ve literally never listened to. Also tons of live performances I just don’t care about.

And what’s funny is there is a way to tell YouTube that you don’t want to see certain videos of non-music stuff, like if I don’t want to see anything from LTT when it’s recommended. But for music? Lol, nope. No such option. It’s so stupid…

I just listen to playlists that people make or youtube videos of song genres or artists that I like.

Soulseek if you don't mind data hoarding.

I have yt premium for the same reason. Toddlers have little patience for ads on their Kindle fire, and they get upset when they click one to buy a luxury watch and can't figure out how to get back to cocomelon.

I actually like the service and feel it's fairly priced. So I don't mind paying for it. I stream yt music all day at work.

I still havent found anything can match the experience of finding music from online discussions or list hopping on RYM.

Last fm users with similar taste can be a gold mine

What is rym?