this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2025
57 points (98.3% liked)

Technology

4096 readers
375 users here now

Which posts fit here?

Anything that is at least tangentially connected to the technology, social media platforms, informational technologies and tech policy.


Post guidelines

[Opinion] prefixOpinion (op-ed) articles must use [Opinion] prefix before the title.


Rules

1. English onlyTitle and associated content has to be in English.
2. Use original linkPost URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
3. Respectful communicationAll communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. InclusivityEveryone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacksAny kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangentsStay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may applyIf something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.


Companion communities

!globalnews@lemmy.zip
!interestingshare@lemmy.zip


Icon attribution | Banner attribution


If someone is interested in moderating this community, message @brikox@lemmy.zip.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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. But over time, several issues became impossible to ignore: artists getting paid fractions of pennies per stream, fake Artists and ghost Tracks, AI music and impersonation, creepy age verification complicity and the fact that despite paying monthly, I never actually owned anything. So I decided to take back control of my music experience. Here's how I built my own self-hosted music streaming setup that gives me everything Spotify offered and more.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Few laughable things here:

Artists don’t get paid when you’re using Lidarr and sabnzbd lol. Dudes pirating music while trying to say how badly Spotify pays artists lol.

Your complete library is only available offline if you’re streaming locally or have already downloaded all of your music to every device you want to play it offline on. Don’t know what he means by “limited downloads” for Spotify either.

In this setup he is having data collected and tracked by last.fm, (potentially) whichever indexing services he is using for lidarr, (potentially) whichever download service he’s using for sabnzbd, and ListenBrainz (which even makes all user listen data and text public). Oh and his ISP. And cloudflare.

Hosting your own media library is awesome, just don’t try and bullshit people by pretending that you’re better than Spotify because they pay their artists poorly when you’re stealing from the artists yourself.

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Can't say if he's actually pirating or as he says ripping payed content but it's well established fact that buying a single DVD will earn artist more than a lifetime of streaming.

[–] FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

No one uses Lidarr and SABNZBD to download their purchased content, because that’s not how it works lol. You can’t use sabnzbd or lidarr to download from iTunes or artists directly or anything like that.

[–] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago

Hosting your own media library is awesome, just don’t try and bullshit people by pretending that you’re better than Spotify because they pay their artists poorly when you’re stealing from the artists yourself.

This in general when people talk about piracy. It's great, and sometimes almost needed in cases where companies are making it impossible for people to access the media they want. But stop making it sound like you're doing the creator a favor by pirating.

"Oh I pirated this musicians music, BUT I'm giving them exposure!1!1! Spotify and YT only pay them .0000001 cents per view!1!1"

Sure, they get almost no money via streaming, but at least they get SOME money over time. People who listen, like, and comment on their songs on social media gives them more exposure then you ripping the song for fucking free and MAYBE (not guaranteed for some of you) telling a friend or two about it. Priating contributes nothing to the (albeit evil) algorithm. Like it's the dumbest moral argument/excuse people seem to bring up to defend themselves. Artists do deserve to be paid or recognized in some sort of way. Either stream or buy on bandcamp to support artists. Exposure means nothing when the bills aren't paid.

I hate Google, but I know I don't have the means to buy every single album from the many artists I listen to, so I'll stick with them for now until I start making a plan on how I wanna go about buying their music and streaming it at home.