Show HN: Spodcast, a Spotify podcast to RSS proxy | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Spodcast, a Spotify podcast to RSS proxy

github.com

123 pointsOurgon37 comments

Spotify should be ashamed at their attempt to ruin podcasting by denying their basic foundation in RSS. Great project but why support Spotify exclusives at all.

For the same reason that I sometimes run Windows applications using Wine on Linux even though I dislike Microsoft's PC hegemony: because the podcaster is supposed to have something interesting to say, because the application is needed to perform a task for which no native or cross-platform alternative exists. As long as I can use the tools at my disposal to create a door in the wall around Spotify's garden I'll use them.

Hmm this seems a bit involved but maybe I'll check it out. I've mostly stopped listening to Joe Rogan's podcast simply because Spotify is a terrible podcast platform and I don't really want to support podcasts moving to platforms over RSS.

I stopped listening entirely when he moved to Spotify because a) I don't use Spotify and/because b) their app nor web will run on the "old clunkers" I use for these purposes which tend to be off-line when I'm out in the woods or fields. The recent brouhaha around Rogan piqued my interest to find out why what he and his guests said that was so deplorable as to cause a media storm. Spotify still won't run on my potato, hence the need for this tool.

If you already have an environment capable of running Python and PHP setting this up comes down to the following command:

   $ tar zxf spodcast-0.3.1.tar.gz
   $ cd spodcast
   $ pip install .
   $ spodcast -c /mnt/audio/podcast/spodcast.json --root-path /mnt/audio/spodcast -p -l /home/exampleuser/spotify.rc

That's pretty straightforward actually. I mostly just skimmed the GitHub. I have a server already at home so why not add this small feature to it right? :)

Indeed.

Start here: https://github.com/Yetangitu/Spodcast/releases/tag/v0.3.1

Given all the brouhaha around Spotify hosting "controversial" podcasts I cobbled up a tool to actually listen to those things using my favourite podcast listening devices: old phones. They support RSS but have long since fallen off the radar for app and web developers. Question and suggestions welcome, may the source be with you.

Or, you know, just refuse to support Spotify's destruction of podcasts by not listening to any podcasts on Spotify.

The one nice thing Spotify has, at least with Rogan, is the video included in the podcast so you don’t have to switch over to YouTube. I wish Overcast had this!

That's what this thing enables you to do: not listen to any podcasts on Spotify. You can listen to them on your Gameboy Advanced for all I care, as long as it supports RSS it should work.

If you mean to totally eschew any podcast hosted on Spotify that'd be throwing out the baby with the bath water - sometimes someone says something interesting on the other side of the wall after all. If Spotify clamps down on tools like these a better case can be made for podcasters to leave the walled garden, until such a time and as long as they allow access to their content using free-software tools they're just one other actor in the market albeit an oversized one which tries its best to create a walled garden.

I'm willing to not feed podcasts that feed the beast. It's for the good of those podcasts, too. Though I understand why this app exists and people would want to use it. If I was willing to listen to a podcast that is exclusive to Spotify, I'd do it with something like this.

Information wants to be free but sometimes it needs some help in finding freedom.

I really dislike using Spotify for podcasts since I already have a proper podcast app (Podcast Addict), so some shows I like to follow that have gone spotify-exclusive just completely drop off my radar (e.g. Last Podcast on the Left). This is a great solution. Any chance you'd offer a docker image for easy deployment?

LPOTL is now off spotify and available normally again.

Wish I could say I was rushing back but other podcasts have filled in during the 2 years they've been gone. That's just my personal experience, though.

I'll give it a try one of these days.

Same here. There's no value-add to the user for turning previously open podcasts into Spotify exclusives. I understand that Spotify and podcasters have to pay the bills, but they're not even trying to counter-balance the user-hostility with some benefits like ad-free listening or a proper podcast UI. And it's not like Spotify is desperate to have paying customers; they're one of the largest subscription streaming platforms around!

Spotify realized that they'll never be profitable with music, the labels have the upper hand and can just raise their share whenever Spotify increases revenue. For exclusive podcasts, they own the entire chain.

If they want to be a podcast company, that's fine. What I don't appreciate is the soft bait-and-switch. I subscribed to Spotify for the music. I enjoy podcasts too, but I have my own preferred way of listening to it (Pocket Casts).

What Spotify is doing now is providing sub-par experiences in both. The home screen is cluttered by podcasts when I just want to use Spotify for music (especially infuriating on CarPlay), and the podcast UI is years behind what Pocket Casts offers. It's like they're not even trying to keep up the great service that drew in their customer base in the first place.

Did Spotify at any point try to become a record label? I guess for the money they spent on Joe Rogan they could have signed some less controversial and still pretty popular artists. But maybe the record companies that own shares in Spotify prevent them from doing it.

No just that, if they were to launch their own label they'd be shunned by all the others. You do not get HBO content on the Disney channel after all.

FYI, I just fixed a small problem - two missing const statements - which kept the last release from actually producing RSS feeds - and there I thought I had tested it enough. If you tried it, try again.

I threw out Spotify a few years ago, and used the fact that you can easily find RSS feeds for most podcasts to build a simple replacement. Fun and easy project.

UI is in swedish, but this is how I listen to podcasts these days (it's completely non interactive and only lists my "subscriptions" with a basic audio tag) https://www.marginalia.nu/podcast/new.html

Awesome, this is actually useful!

Good, that is what I made it for - to be used.

Thank you! I was using a 2nd Android browser with a fake User-Agent to use the Spotify web client after Spotifeed stopped working. I'll do whatever it takes to keep all my podcasts in AntennaPod.

It was the demise of Spotifeed which gave me the impetus needed to build this thing, all that was needed was some free time. When than came, this was born. Spodcast's fate depends on whether librespot-python continues to track whatever changes Spotify throws at its (v1) API.

And you absolutely should, I decided to try out Stitcher, and as you can guess, I went offline, listened to a podcast, decided I wanted to relisten to it again, and no go.

Is there a way to bypass Spotify entirely? I don't want to create an account on their crappy platform. I looked for something a while back, but couldn't find anything... I imagine they embed fingerprints into audio to squash any such attempts.

To podcasters: Using an exclusive platform affects your discoverability - the thing that allowed you to grow. It's a privilege to have people spend 1 hour or more listening to what you have to say - you literally cannot buy that reach.

I was looking at doing something similar a while back. But all the “Spotify Podcasts” I saw were using DRMs and just getting rid of this (legally by calling the same stupid Widevine plugin to ask it to decrypt it) was a huge task… and I basically gave up on all the Gimlet shows.

I wonder how this project gets around this? I see no mention of it. So I assume there’s still a way to access the files without DRMs or maybe Spotify stopped encrypting their podcasts? I feel like an idiot for giving up.

This project uses librespot-python to access Spotify, it takes care of whatever is needed to access content. Can you give me a link to one of those DRM-encumbered "podcasts" to test? Thus far I have not come across anything like that.

I appreciate the theory of this project but won't use it. Spotify isn't getting any of my patronage, either directly or indirectly, due to how they are trying to destroy the podcast ecosystem.

Man, I wish this did video too.

I tried pulling the video from the Safari web client as it gave a giant data: uri in the <video> element that I thought I could save but couldn't figure it out.

Adding video support is rather easy, it is just something I never felt the need to do given my preference for audio - which I can listen to while working on the farm etc. - over video. I can have a look at adding it if there is enough demand.

Yes please!

I had a look at including video and it turns out I was premature in saying it would be easy. Currently librespot-python does not support video so only for that reason it is a no-go. If support ever arrives it might become possible but given that Spotify-video is burdened with Widevine DRM it might mean Spodcast would need to integrate a (headless) browser in the process to decrypt the video. So, for now, no video. For the future, maybe but don't hold your breath.

I was preparing to just manually rip shows and privately host my own RSS feed of the audio, but now I’ll be looking into this first. Thank you for exploring this problem in depth!

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