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Comment by sundaeofshock | Hacker News Reader

I know I’m in the minority here, but I hate it. The artist created created a song of a particular length for a very specific reason. I prefer to listen to a song the way it was meant to be listened too.

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They created it that length for their reasons. You might want it a different length for your reasons. It's not clear that their reasons trump your reasons, given that your modification has no effect on them whatsoever.

That’s fine, as long as you have obtained permission from the copyright holder to create a derivative work. Otherwise, their reasons very much do trump your reasons.

Sharing a derivative work could breach copyright, but if you are doing it for yourself you don't need permission.

I choose to listen to songs by an artist because I enjoy the choices that artist made.

That's fine. Other people make other choices.

Sometimes they create music at a particular length because that's what worked well on radio, or TikTok, or for a club set. I would go so far as to say that song length is probably chosen for some specific non-artistic constraint more often than it is chosen for some reason intrinsic to the art. So changing the music to accommodate your own constraint, i.e. "this is the part I like when I'm working out and wish it was longer" seems completely reasonable, and isn't even justified in being considered some sacrilegious act.

adding to this, how streaming made rap songs shorter: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/considering-the-rise-of-the-s...

I don't remember exactly but back in the radio days, songs had to be a very specific length to be a pop single.

Do you ever decide to stop playing a song before it is over, or do you refuse to because that would be a violation of the artists intent? Likewise do you ever listen to only some songs on an album, or do you always play all the songs on an album from beginning to end?

Where do you draw the line between acceptable "edits" vs unacceptable?

This is thinking from a bygone passive-media era--the one of television and radio--where you were forced to be the passive consumer and had no choice but to obey your mass media masters with respect to what they delivered.

There are so many tools to customize and make your audio experience your own. Ultimately my ears are my own and I love living in a world where I can precisely control my audio experiences.

Baffling comment. Practically every trailer has music cut to length.

this seems to assume artists are infallible and in total control of the creative process. I would never assume either to be true.

You can still do that.

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