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Comment by rhn_mk1 | Hacker News Reader

This is classic victim blaming.

RIAA not liking what users do caused RIAA to do user-hostile design, from which we're still suffering. Bad users, bad!

Thankfully Spotify came out and it reduced music piracy far more than all the RIAA lawsuits combined by simply offering better service than both RIAA (who wanted to sell albums only) and pirate sites (that didn't offer discovery features and there was no quality control).

As GabeN said - piracy is a service problem.

> that didn't offer discovery features and there was no quality control

Pirate sites generally had better quality than iTunes (which was 128kbps for way too long), and were often ripped from a better sounding source or master because the people uploading albums were dedicated fans of the material. One great example is the soniclovenoize uncensored stereo version of "We're Only In It For The Money".

Don't know about iTunes, but some music on pirate sites was only available in 128k or below. I'm so glad that I don't have to hunt for quality releases on those sites any more.

Spotify doesn't have this problem.

Spotify is infamous for paying artists poorly, but not being on it is risky for an artist due to its popularity. I don't know that it's fair to say it solved the problem, at least from the perspective of artists.

For the vast majority of the artists record studios also paid poorly, if at all. And even for the greatest names, you'd better have a very experienced agent and a team of shrewd top crack lawyers or the studios would surely rip you off. The recording industry was always a very shady business.

> pirate sites (that didn't offer discovery features and there was no quality control)

Remember what.cd?

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