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Comment by SyneRyder | Hacker News Reader

I'm sad about the lyrics restrictions. I used to have interesting conversations with Claude about music, and songwriting and lyrics. I don't see how my use was harming artists, if anything Claude was introducing me to new artists and new music. I've bought music after recommendations by Claude.

Claude Sonnet 3.6 once recommended I listen to Johann Johannsson's album "IBM 1401 - A User's Manual". No lyrics in this one. Claude's advice was along the lines of (paraphrasing) "Listen to it first, don't look up anything about it. Take notes about what you notice, what you feel. When you've made your notes, then you can look up how it was made."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCiUtRnG-bg

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Great album and backstory. You can't really go wrong with anything he composed. Rest in peace Johann.

> IBM 1401 - A User's Manual

Clearly a rare antique tome that was purchased from an unsuspecting book hoarder, scanned in by Anthropic, and then cravenly destroyed according to copyright law and/or Vernor Vinge.

Same. Now how am I going to know my incredibly trenchant literary references landed? More seriously, I’ve done the same with movies and gotten some really good recommendations.

> I don't see how my use was harming artists

Claude was reproducing their work without payment?

"if anything Claude was introducing me to new artists and new music"

Next time the RIAA goes after someone for downloading an MP3, tell the defendant to use that line.

It is (was) a commonly used defense. It might not hold much weight legally, so its applicability depends upon whether one is interested in the letter of the law or interested in the wellbeing of the recording artists.

I don't know about legally, but practically speaking people downloading MP3s could decrease an artists sales but chatgpt talking about their lyrics realistically can't.

Yeah once you have the lyrics, why would you waste time listening to the song? You might as well get chat gpt to summarise the lyrics into a few bullet points and save you the time of even reading them!

Summary of Song:

Person has feelings. Situation is complicated. Repetition indicates feelings are significant. Several metaphors were used instead of just explaining the problem. Conclusion: still sad, but now with drums.

RIAA doesn't like it, but my introduction to a video game series I've since spent hundreds of dollars on over the years, came from running across one of its soundtrack pieces on Youtube.

There's a reason companies talk about "customer acquistion cost", as you generally need to pay to market your products to potential customers of them.

So free marketing can be a real cost reduction. It may not be enough to be a benefit compared to the cost of piracy, but it's hardly a made-up defense.

Yes, doing bad things can have good secondary effects.

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