Most of the discussion and sources of content talk about movies and series.

I’ve been recently looking for psy and techno music, finding FLAC or WAV with active seeders feels like striking gold. It’s definitely been a while since I’ve looked for active torrent sites and it feels more barren than ever.

Edit: Thank you all for all that valuable information. The reddit group really wasn’t this helpful and valued making fun over adding real use able knowledge.

  • carson@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s certainly alive and exists.

    But access to music is easy and affordable. It’s more inconvenient for me to pirate it than just use a streaming service.

    I also listen to a lot of independent artists and rather buy their stuff to support them.

    • kiddblur@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The only music I pirate is stuff that isn’t on Spotify, namely Nintendo game soundtracks

    • yumac@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      I prefer there not being any lag in-between songs, which most streaming services have.

      I usually use a streaming service like YouTube (through piped) to find new artists, then use soulseek to download their entire discography.

      The problem with streaming is that the companies will eventually figure out new ways to squeeze every penny out of you. The once ‘free’ YouTube is now blocking adblocks, and Spotify requires DRM to be installed for it to function.

      For me, piracy isn’t just about convenience or price, it’s mainly about control over the media I have.

    • One_Dollar_Payout@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      The thing is not every popular or moderately popular song is on any streaming site. I’m a fan of 90s and 00s trance music, and there are some notable songs that aren’t available on any of the most popular paid services, or are available only in newer, re-recorded versions or remixes - some of them are available on Spotify, but not all. YouTube Music has such an advantage that you can listen not only to the songs uploaded by record labels, but also to countless additional songs available on YouTube, however most of the time they are in worse quality (AFAIK max audio bit rate in YT videos is 128 kbps). So while streaming services are now affordable and have very extensive audio library, they have some shortcomings that one can only fill with physical media or piracy.

    • somedaysoon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I agree, Nicotine+ and Soulseek is the way to get music these days.

      And for those saying using streaming services is easy and affordable so they don’t bother, I would remind you, it is… for now.

      Look at what has happened time and time again with all these companies and how they just slowly squeeze their users over time or just flat out kill the service entirely. As someone that is really into selfhosting, and prefers to be in control of my data and privacy I would urge you to move away from those services. Setup Airsonic, Funkwhale, or some other streaming music service and control it yourselves.

      • Gray@lemmy.ca
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        You’re not wrong and I’m happy that piracy communities exist in spaces where access is easily cheap and accessible if only for the days that those industries get greedier. But for now, I’m happy to pay when it’s affordable and easy to access.

        I half agree with what Gabe Newell said in regards to piracy being a service issue and not about price. I think it largely is a service issue. Access is the greater problem. Price is secondary as long as it’s somewhat reasonable. I don’t pirate video games because I can get them reasonably, but he is a smidge wrong insofar as I don’t buy the outrageously expensive games. Steam’s major success is having good sales that keep me away from pirating because the possibility of games I want going on discount at some point is realistic. It’s telling that the only time I did dabble in video game piracy was to relive my childhood memories of Nazi Zombies from the Call of Duty video games. I dabbled in it then because Activision is selling their decades old games for outrageous prices considering their age and their “sales” are weak considering the already overinflated price. I refuse to pay for that. And so I sailed the high seas.

        The music industry is still affordable and accessible, so I don’t feel that pressure at all. Back when Limewire was around the pressure was there partially because I was a kid and didn’t have much money and hunting down CDs I wanted for the obscure music I liked was challenging. It was mostly an accessibility issue that Spotify fixed. If their prices move beyond my means then that relationship will no longer benefit me and the sails will raise once more.

        • Yote.zip@pawb.social
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          1 year ago

          You can do both - pay for music when it comes from sources like Bandcamp, Qobuz, etc where you get to own the FLAC file. Don’t pay for things like Spotify where the music you’ve “purchased” is not yours to keep.

      • Odusei@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Can’t. I’m addicted to the algorithms. Music discovery guided by AI is too much fun. If I was only using streaming services to listen to music I already know or the new albums from artists I already like them I’d be with you, but now I’m hooked on finding new stuff.

        • minnix@lemux.minnix.dev
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          1 year ago

          Funkwhale is federated. I have discovered lots of good stuff on there via other servers. Not algorithmic, but once you find a server that appeals to you, there’s a lot to dig into.

        • Snapz@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          “Guided by AI” I think you mean algorithms programmed according to strict music licensing contracts from the labels that say a service needs to suggest label-preferred “complimentary” artists over actual similar music that you would like based on a collection of characteristics in a given song/band’s sound signature.

      • Zapp@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        If you close your eyes, you can metaphorically hear the tides changing on the music streaming industry. The fall of Netflix is such a stark reminder of how fast these convenient services can morph into user hostile experiences.

        Plus, there is the added philosophical discussion about what it means to allow a centralized corporate media conglomerate to curate your music for you. I’d imagine that their insentivisation structure over what should be heard is different than yours.

        For serious though, I hypothesize that your library/playlist data (xml, maybe? somewhere? I’m just starting the journey of offloading.) is more valuable to users than the music itself. Next step is figuring out how to export Spotify’s data.

    • MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Alive and well is doing some heavy lifting if you consider being a husk of your former glory “alive and well”. Yes you can definitely find stuff there that can’t be found anywhere else, even through conventional means. But it’s certainly not the soulseek of yesterday.

    • PrometheusG@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Oh wow! I’ve exclusively streamed for a number of years now, but used to be pretty active on Soulseek (+10 years ago). Totally forgot the name until you mentioned it. Glad to hear it’s still up and running fine.

    • atlasraven31@lemm.ee
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      It’s pretty amazing but I listen to a curated stream of Goth and EDM. I buy what I really like on Bandcamp.

  • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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    why pirate when bandcamp has everything I want on FLAC for pennies

  • t0fr@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I buy on Bandcamp and pirate through Soulseek (specifically Nicotine+).

    I also buy Vinyls.

    Torrenting music has been pretty trash for me so I haven’t bothered in ages.

    • kelvinjps@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      bandcamp

      I didn’t know about bandcamp. I’m gonna buy some albums there. The music is drm-free? I think that what bandcamp and itch.io are doing should be the future of the industry.

      • t0fr@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Yes, the music there is drm free. Keep in mind it’s not ALL music. It’s mostly music from independent artists. But they are the ones that need the most support. So go all in!

      • Ganbat@lemmyonline.com
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        1 year ago

        IMO, Bandcamp is one of the best places to go if you actually want to support artists. Spotify and other streaming options tend to be the worst.

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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        1 year ago

        Bandcamp is pretty great. I usually stream from their app but you can download music you buy in a bunch of formats.

        I like their writeups they do sometimes (like a “best doom metal from Texas” deep dive)

        They do Bandcamp Fridays sometimes where they yield their share of the sale to the artists.

        I’ve also had artists write back a few times when I put a comment in the box when buying stuff. Most notably an invite to a show they were playing once.

        They did get bought by epic though so they’re not indie anymore. A bummer. But epic hasn’t shit it up yet so far as I know.

      • I am become Noodle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        I bought music from several artists on Bandcamp and could not download some of it 12 months later. Artist unresponsive, Bandcamp support unwilling to help. And now Tencent has it’s tendrils in the company so expect it to get worse.

    • Laice@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      what exactly is soulseek? is it p2p or download from a server? Is using a VPN recomended?

      • t0fr@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Soulseek is p2p. I prefer to use a VPN but it is not necessary. What is necessary is port forwarding if you want to share your own files. You can either set that up in your router, or through your VPN if you’re using one (it must be a VPN that supports port forwarding)

      • monotrox@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        its p2p download from other users, if you want to share your library you should probably use a VPN. You dont have to share your library but its kind of frowned upon to not do it.

      • agarwaen@lemm.ee
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        It’s p2p, and the protocol is not very secure. You should probably use a VPN, yes. The content shared is really good, even if it has slowly decreased along the years. Just be selective about who you tell about slsk to help keep it under the radar, please. First rule of the blue bird is : don’t speak of the blue bird.

    • M_Djallo@feddit.it
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      1 year ago

      Is nicotine working good for you? Last time I tried it, it was missing some search results that were instead appearing in soulseek-qt client

      • t0fr@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Nicotine is working fine for me. Although I’ll have to check out soulseek-qt myself to see if there is any difference in search results Up until now, I haven’t had problems finding anything unless it was something that was released within the week (usually singles)(which I just rip from youtube)

    • Fluid@aussie.zone
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      Bandcamp is great. Fuck corporate labels who prevent artists from releasing their music privately on the platform. It’s an abhorrent business practice.

  • zerocool@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Since Apple Music / Spotify I don’t find it necessary. Far more likely to pirate TV / movies because they’re spread out across so many different services and require so many different subscriptions.

    • stebo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Yeah except I use Spicetify on windows and some “premium unlocked” APK on android because the ads are (intentionally) annoying as hell

    • d_cent@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Same. I would love for someone to create a real debrid - stremio equivalent for music instead of video.

      • zerocase@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        I am working on just the thing! Hopefully will manage to have some sort of music suggestion embedded into it as well without the need of Spotify or whatever algorithm people use. Currently working on making it accessible for people to export their libraries from whatever streaming service they’re using.

  • ashok36@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I have Spotify through a family plan but I do download backups for when the enshitification happens to them.

    I just use lidarr with the deezloader script. Sign up for a month of deezer premium every six months and just download my back log. For $30/yr I always have a relatively up to date, lossless quality, music library backup.

  • Heldenhirn@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    I’ma get hate for this but I’m not pirating out of principle but when I think something it’s to expensive for it’s price. I live in a country with good salaries and have to work less than one hour for one month of endless music. To me that is a good deal but I am aware that it is not to everyone especially those from other countries. I mostly pirate Movies and TV Shows because you would need to pay over 50€/month to get access to all services.

    • And009@vlemmy.netOP
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      1 year ago

      Those are cheap in my country and we don’t have access to high quality service like tidal either

    • SinJab0n@mujico.org
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      Nah, not happening. I used to buy stuff from play music because they used to let u download the mp3, flac, etc. Then i would use it for an old android 4 phone wich i use as player.

      But since they kill it im not doing that anymore, i refuse to suffer a netflix 2.o now with more tears for all the money u invested and watching how it evaporates because a suit tough it was something nobody watches even when it’s one of ur more popular shows, or worse, they block ur country and u end up in piracy once more.

      If u wanna use the argument of “but we need to help the creators, bla, bla, bla”, dude if u really wanna help them donate them directly, be it music or series, it has been more than proven that they only recibe the bare minimum by conventional means.

  • Chuuqo@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I have people download my files on soulseek/nicotine+ daily. Plus anyone that would pirate music probably already know how to rip it straight from streaming services.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    Soulseek is the goto piracy thing for music.

    Streaming service ripping is alive and well.

    Youtube scrapers like Newpipe and alternative frontend makes listening easy if you aren’t quality obsessed. This has been adequate for my levels of listening.

    Some private trackers have massive music collection dumps.

    However, I’d say directly supporting artists through storefronts like bandcamp is the best way to go, where it’s available. No DRM, no bullshit, the artist benefits. This, to me, is the best alternative to piracy.

    Napster, Deezer, Tidal aren’t terrible offerings either FWIW.

  • TornadoValley@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    As the normies went to streaming it became more gatekept and toxic. I’m mainly familiar with the attitude of trades only or straight up selling tracks (eg groupbuys with kids paying thousands of dollars for some shitty Kanye mumble demo). The game didn’t used to be like that. The days of the blogs with mega/rapid share links are long gone

    I mean you got all the stream rippers eg SlavArt which is super nice. Soulseek is still alright but getting taken over by traders. RED/OPS around but you can’t just waltz in and I’d argue they don’t compare to what.cd or even OinK. RuTracker still got stuff going on

    But when you’re after actual rare stuff that you can’t just buy or stream it can be real tough nowadays. Scene archives can be nice but very hard to get access and it’s mostly mp3s.

    • hydra@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Fuck traders, if you’re on Soulseek do the right thing and blacklist them.

      • TornadoValley@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Traders are hardly just on Soulseek. Most probably aren’t since it’s so accessible. Most of the traders I’ve seen on Soulseek anyways are scammers who are just sharing RED repositories. Or they’re on dc++ hubs where you can’t have locked files anyways

      • ode@discuss.tchncs.de
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        The best thing good users can do is remain on the client for the long term, ensuring traders remain a small minority. The next best thing they can do is PM traders regularly with requests to share. Make their sessions a pain in the butt due to the private chat alert going off routinely. ‘Hey trader, please open up to non-buddies temporarily, even at a crippled speed. I’d like two items from you. You know Soulseek is a sharing platform, right?’ Some may realise the ridiculousness of their position and co-operate.

        Don’t stoop to their level by blacklisting, either. They will take that as endorsement of their behaviour. (Set 20kb/s down if it makes you feel better.)

        • hydra@lemmy.world
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          ‘Hey trader, please open up to non-buddies temporarily, even at a crippled speed. I’d like two items from you. You know Soulseek is a sharing platform, right?’

          Will try it, thanks. Seems more civilized.

          Don’t stoop to their level by blacklisting, either. They will take that as endorsement of their behaviour. (Set 20kb/s down if it makes you feel better.)

          Thanks for the tip. That seems like a better punishment.

  • hydra@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Soulseek is very much alive, try there. But please try to share your stuff too.

    • And009@vlemmy.netOP
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      Yes for sure, I am seeder #2 for most of the gold I’ve struck in the past few weeks

          • hydra@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            What are you talking about i have tens of gigabytes worth of flacs from slsk

            • Pulp@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year ago

              Of course there are flac. But not everything. And some are locked or very slow or just dont start downloading. Its a bad solution. Way better solutions exist

  • blue_zephyr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Spotify is very affordable and provides pretty much all music on earth. I’m not interested in jumping through hoops to download songs if I can just conveniently stream them all from one legit service.

      • wick@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The state of video streaming is hardly Netflix’s fault. When every channel starts a subscription service and pulls it’s content from the others everyone loses.

        Music streaming on the other hand is a complete experience on every service. It’s kind of a miracle tbh.

  • El Chango Unchained@lemmynsfw.com
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    1 year ago

    Personally, I tend to only pirate music files that I just can’t find anywhere else. For example, audiophile quality 45rpm vinyl rips of albums that might have only been sold in that format once, and for a very limited run. In cases like that, I almost feel a responsibility to maintain a copy because it is something that could very easily disappear from existence.

    The guys doing the rips understand that they might own one of maybe a few hundred copies of a certain album, so they rip at audiophile quality and share.

    • hydra@lemmy.world
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      I feel you, I have one of two known sources of obscure Russian albums in FLAC and I’m more than happy to secure its future by sharing.

  • ඞmir@lemmy.ml
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    You can pay for any streaming service that serves FLAC and rip that. Very easy to do for Tidal and Deezer for example.