Renting your music means accepting that it will disappear
coryd.dev
coryd.dev
Archival tools are great for preventing link/content rot, but it feels disrespectful to use them for people who want their content deleted. Should we strive to always try to do the right thing? What do you think?
> [...] a work, when it leaves the hands of its creator, acquires its own personality, its own identity, according to which its course is drawn and it is the irrevocable right of the work to follow an autonomous way which, in the name of any paternity, you have no right to stop, otherwise the state has the same right in the form of censorship.
I think it’s ok to recognize that the artist and I want different things and that’s ok.
But people’s wishes aren’t absolute. And I don’t think it’s disrespectful to not do what people want.
Once an artist makes something and puts it out in the world, they lose control. Visual art is not something that someone owns, so they don’t have a right to decide to destroy or take back what they released.
I expect that this is unpleasant to the artist. But life is unpleasant. And the trade off is that others get to do what they want.
I think this conflict is probably ok and best, as the alternative is some sort of complicated right that would let artists be able to reach into my private collection and remove stuff that is mine, just because they made it.
I’m happier and happier with my historical process of buying some physical media that comes with a digital download that I use while the physical media just sits there gathering dust. But backups are good even if I never use them.
Thanks to the emergence of streaming music services, I largely just don't download music, unless it's something particularly special or difficult to find, which is limited to a some Japanese music that isn't available in the US. I actually think I prefer treating music as ethereal because ultimately, although there are many songs that I am quite fond of, there's no shortage of really great music that I haven't heard yet and an even greater amount of music that I will never hear.
I don't have anything against digital hoarders, but I do think in most cases it's compulsion more than anything driving them to archive all of the movies, tv shows, and music that they do.
(And I've definitely lost some of those songs, and have not been able to find them ever again. At least, in that situation much like you, I have no-one to blame but myself.)
The recent crunchyroll/funimation flaps would prove the wisdom of being a hoarder (of some sort), at least for things you're going to care about some day.
I mean, there is some truth to what you say. E.G. I have gigs of music in my digital collection that was simply "eh, maybe I'll wanna hear it someday" circa 2005 but then I never got to listening to; but that doesn't mean that in most cases it's only compulsion (at least for me, personally).
Digital hoarders are great to have. The hoarders are the ones that often have been the source of otherwise lost media. I just don't think it's all that different from hoarding of physical items. As someone whose natural inclination is to hoard, I've taken measures to prevent that (both in the physical and digital realm).
But fair enough to those that want to curate their own local collection.
Full disclosure: I rely solely on my local collection, but I also think the loss of streaming is not a worry people should have.
They want their chosen new artists to be instantly (and hugely) successful, but it's harder for new artists to gain an audience when people's limited time/attention is being spent elsewhere. They also want immediate feedback on artists and sales. They like to use metrics like "X copies sold/downloaded/streamed in the first days/weeks/months post-release" which don't work out too well when people take their sweet time getting around to consuming the newest thing. They liked being able to drop or stop investing in artists asap when their newest album or song doesn't perform well. Having people listening to what they put out quickly increases the value of the money they spend on promotion of the new material. It allows them to better track/control the conversation surrounding their new material on social media too.
What they really miss is radio. The old songs didn't stick around long, it was a constant stream of the new, and it was where most people got their music so everybody was exposed to the same stuff roughly at the same time. They'd love nothing more than to get back to having that kind of influence on our culture, but for now they'll take what they can get.
Copyright infringement is still rampant on youtube which really gives people a very false sense of security. We've come to expect everything to be available to them, but it's all very tenuous and the music industry in particular is constantly taking steps to lock down our ability to share and access our culture. They're always pushing for youtube to do more to protect their profits and role as gatekeeper even while more and more innocent people get caught up in youtube's shitty enforcement efforts.
For classical music and jazz, I have found Presto Music to be a good place to buy mp3s. The search function works well, and many classical albums come with liner notes in PDF booklets.
Presto also offers FLAC downloads, but I can't hear the difference on the equipment I use so I buy the cheaper mp3s.
I have also bought mp3s from Amazon. I didn't have any problems with the sound quality.
Media wears out. Players go out out of production. Owning recordings means accepting that someday they won’t work any more.
...that's why you format shift (vinyl -> cassette, cd -> mp3/flac)?
Backing up your primary media and the listening to the secondary format saves wear and tear and extends the life of your primary source too.
I have cds I bought in the 90's I can still back up if I feel the need to do so.
I doubt that anyone will be able to say the same about being able to access rented media in the 2040's or 2050's.
I have a setup to discover new music on streaming platforms and backup my liked music onto a plex system