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November of 2012 we have been trying to get these fools to allow us to change an accidental (or otherwise) thumbs up or thumbs down to the opposite, or simply remove either choice, and they still haven't implemented such a basic feature. It's ridiculous. And it's things like this that will continue to ensure they never get any money from me.

https://community.spotify.com/...

You wouldn't give up any more if you bought a CD from a store with a credit card.

A. I use cash, as should everybody who doesn't want to give 3% of their income to Visa/Mastercard.
B. Bullshit. https://www.spotify.com/us/leg...

From Spotify's Audio Settings page:

The desktop app’s standard quality is Ogg Vorbis 160kbit/s.

Premium subscribers can choose to switch on High quality streaming, which uses 320kbit/s

I don't know if it is feasible to demand an api for media data which the copyright holders will demand DRM, but spotify already has an API for everything else- I get the impression you can do *everything* with the api- skip tracks, get information, tell it to play certain tracks, but have the music actually play through their DRM software. So, 90% of what you want.

Official Spotify API
Of course there is a python library for it too

"Installing the official app was not an easy affair, however" Really? This is not way easier?: https://www.spotify.com/nl/dow... Any and all updates are automatic...

I have been using Spotify with their official Ubuntu/Debian package for years. Native "apt-get install spotify-client" seems far cleaner than a Snap for .deb based distros.

The Linux interface looks pretty much identical to the Windows interface (minus a bit of high DPI support) and lets you download the songs for offline listening. Desktop notifications (for new song, etc) even work in my XFCE environment.

You can sign up with just an email.
If you signed up with Facebook and just want to use an email, they will break the connection to Facebook and bring over anything for you.

https://support.spotify.com/us...

Less of a shit has never been given about Ogg Vorbis.

Ogg Vorbis is probably the most used codec of them all, as it is used by Spotify.

What if all the switches get stuck on destroy?

They can't even get basic UI stuff down after all these years. Why they think I'd give them any money for a service missing such basic interactivity is beyond me.

https://community.spotify.com/...

Interesting.. I've never noticed the broken shuffle feature your described. I do listen to a lot of shuffled playlists.

The shuffle thing on Spotify has been a problem forever. If you look at the Spotify forums, you'll find dozens of threads of people complaining about it.

https://community.spotify.com/...

I did like the genre searching better in Google Play. I preferred the interface and the way playlists were managed better on Spotify.

I agree on both counts. I'd been a Spotify subscriber since about the time they started their premium service. I just got irritated one day and thought I'd try an alternative. Since I had just bought a Google Project Fi phone, it came with 90 days of free Google Play music and I tried it and I've stuck for about six months now. Still keep that Spotify icon on my desktop though, in case I want to switch back.

Here is a possibly related complaint from almost three years ago.

They also sell your username if someone higher on the social ladder wants the one you're using.

Hey, maybe that's how they can finally monetize Slashdot. I'll put up $5 for "CmdrTaco"

Find these fuckers and execute them live on PPV. Maybe that would put a damper on this shit.

I have a musical suggestion for you.

Depending on the breach or hack, a hit and run they got passwords. If they set themselves on the server for a period of time (by Spotify's very nature) it could cause unforeseeable damage to the users.

From the ToS

7 Rights you grant us

"In consideration for the rights granted to you under the Agreements, you grant us the right (1) to allow the Spotify Service to use the processor, bandwidth, and storage hardware on your Device in order to facilitate the operation of the Service"
https://www.spotify.com/us/leg...

As open as they were about this breach, they may never take or mention any steps taken to protect it's users.

This album was recorded on a 10 year old HP Pavilion single processor laptop with 2G RAM on Arch Linux with Audacity using $50 condenser mics through a Mackie FX12 mixer. A video of one of the songs was created with OpenShot on the same equipment.

Does anything but ads actually use Flash in this day and age? I haven't had it installed for several years!

Let's see... these are just some results using Firefox 41.0.1 on OS X Mavericks:

Spotify: "To enjoy Spotify, please install Adobe Flash. It's free."

Pandora: "In order to use Pandora internet radio, please upgrade to a more current browser or install a newer version of Flash (v.10 or later)."

Hulu: "Hulu requires Flash Player 11.0.1.152 or higher. Please download and install the latest version of Flash Player before continuing."

I'm sure there are plenty more, but just these three are enough to prove that you're dead wrong -- or just trolling. And no, there's no love lost between Flash and me, either.

RT.

Having a child effectively made people, on average, four years older than their real age in terms of musical tastes.

I'm in my mid 40s and know more about music (emerging artists) now than I did 20 years ago. Part of that is because I don't have children and have been able to spend as much time as I want on discovering new music. I still see plenty of live shows where I'm standing around a bunch of 18-30 year olds seeing a band on their first national or international tour. Another part is that the internet makes it really easy to discover artists. You can follow various online playlists and let them do all the work for you. https://open.spotify.com/user/... (1 song per artist discovery playlist) https://open.spotify.com/user/... (indie rock favorite songs of 2014) End the end, you have to be open to discovering new music and give it time to grow on you. If I hear something and think, "it's ok." There is a decent chance it'll get better with repeated listens. In fact, most of my favorite albums took time to grow on me. The songs that turn me off right away rarely/never will appeal to me with more time.

Having a child effectively made people, on average, four years older than their real age in terms of musical tastes.

I'm in my mid 40s and know more about music (emerging artists) now than I did 20 years ago. Part of that is because I don't have children and have been able to spend as much time as I want on discovering new music. I still see plenty of live shows where I'm standing around a bunch of 18-30 year olds seeing a band on their first national or international tour. Another part is that the internet makes it really easy to discover artists. You can follow various online playlists and let them do all the work for you. https://open.spotify.com/user/... (1 song per artist discovery playlist) https://open.spotify.com/user/... (indie rock favorite songs of 2014) End the end, you have to be open to discovering new music and give it time to grow on you. If I hear something and think, "it's ok." There is a decent chance it'll get better with repeated listens. In fact, most of my favorite albums took time to grow on me. The songs that turn me off right away rarely/never will appeal to me with more time.

Spotify has a playlist called "ESM" for Electronic Study Music... it's a pretty good mix of "near muzak" that is better than muzak: https://play.spotify.com/user/...

//Gotta wonder... would Pepsi, Coke and other "name brands" really lose much business if they stopped advertising? Or would their net profit increase by not wasting $$ on ads?//

There's an album about this, from the group Negativland, called Dispepsi: http://www.discogs.com/Negativ...

The liner notes make mention of their premise that everyone on the planet already knows everything that they will ever need to know about Coke or Pepsi, yet their advertising has utterly permeated our culture.

Spotify link: https://play.spotify.com/album...

Spotify is the worst culprit, since it PAUSES the commercial if you lower your system volume.

I guess the physical knob on my speakers would be getting more of a workout then. Does it also do that in the web player (which they apparently don't show the link to on Windows)?

400,000 plays?

Ok, let's stop and think about that for a moment. If you are a serious enough musician that you intend to do this professionally, let's assume you have put up at least 1 album, which for the sake of argument is about 10 songs. Spotify has 24 million active users, http://press.spotify.com/us/information/. So to make the 400,000 play cut, about 2% of Spotify's user base has to listen to at least one of your ten songs per month. That does not seem unreasonable to me. If you can't make that cut, the professional music gig probably isn't going to work out for you, sorry.

Am I missing something here?

As I was watching the animation, this track started playing. It worked surprisingly well as a soundtrack.

All you need is competing noise. Get a large fan and turn it up, most of the outside noises will be drowned out.

Also, a website like http://rainfor.me/ helps me a lot when I find myself wandering off into my thoughts.

If you listen to music and the voices are too distracting, just listen to good movie scores, classical soundtracks, or something orchestra based like http://open.spotify.com/user/1225153336/playlist/174h1jI74KgCR30U60E5Wt or http://open.spotify.com/user/1225153336/playlist/0zfVN0HOmVKz5CVDNWigXg. I find when I'm programming or studying, having complete silence is great. When I can't achieve that, then I need background white noise and voiceless music.

Just some thoughts based on what I've learned since attending College.

All you need is competing noise. Get a large fan and turn it up, most of the outside noises will be drowned out.

Also, a website like http://rainfor.me/ helps me a lot when I find myself wandering off into my thoughts.

If you listen to music and the voices are too distracting, just listen to good movie scores, classical soundtracks, or something orchestra based like http://open.spotify.com/user/1225153336/playlist/174h1jI74KgCR30U60E5Wt or http://open.spotify.com/user/1225153336/playlist/0zfVN0HOmVKz5CVDNWigXg. I find when I'm programming or studying, having complete silence is great. When I can't achieve that, then I need background white noise and voiceless music.

Just some thoughts based on what I've learned since attending College.

You could also use streaming services instead of downloading. Most of them come with a mobile client that can be used in offline mode.
They do pay their artists fractions of a cent for each song listened to.

To me, this kind of service is clearly the future. It's especially great to discover new music. If you listen to the same 100 tracks all the time, it's probably not cost-effective though.

Some sites I know:
http://www.deezer.com/ (no software necessary, can run in a browser, offline mode with chrome, apps for iPhone and Android)
http://www.spotify.com/ (never used, but they are well established in the market)

iTunes can also do something similar but I don't know their offerings.

On Spotify... http://open.spotify.com/album/5IsQobG67zAoRsVjMdv0Sg

The song is, on the other hand, on spotify Link

How interesting really is this? Not very.Bandcamp already does this. Spotify already does this.

Whataboutery, and irrelevance.

This is a story about a Filelocker service that has been deemed to be a haven for piracy launching a legitmate service directly in collaberation with the artists themselves. Unlike BandCamp and Spotify what its success would tell you is that many Artists aren't having a problem getting into bed with a so called haven for piracy. And a good number of them may even be choosing it in preference to working with all those 'legitimate' labels.

I would find that very interesting indeed.

And, if megaupload was any indication, both services will be much better than megabox.

Hmm, you could be right. Which streaming music service was MegaUpload worse than?

How interesting that Kim Dotcom has his assets seized and his business killed just a couple of months after announcing a new service called MegaBox that would have competed directly and legally with record labels.

The bad news for those guys is that it's still good to go. I wonder if it will be successful.

http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-artists-rejoice-megabox-is-not-dead-120621/

How interesting really is this? Not very. Bandcamp already does this. Spotify already does this. And, if megaupload was any indication, both services will be much better than megabox.

Actually they don't. I have Spotify fully disconnected from Facebook.

Log in to Facebook to create your Spotify account.

See?

There is no other option. So, actually, they do.

Even indie artists have campaigned against these new services. For example, take Spotify, well known European free music service that gained lots of attention. Many indie artists tried the service for several months and when the payout time came, they found out they only got a few hundreds (if even that) from the service. It was serious degrade from their previous earnings. At the same time, Spotify shareholders and investors include EMI, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group. Since Spotify only paid small share to artists, the labels profited from increased stock prices. Because of this, they didn't need to pay artists any share but still profited greatly. So yeah, there you go. Do you really think you're wiser than these guys? Keep trying to get around them, and they will assfuck you even more. Seriously. Do it. If you want to destroy any nice music we have.

Ah, given the blatant relationship between the "old boss" and the "new boss" (as clearly outlined above), I see you have failed to take into account the increase of greed and corruption across the entire organization, old and new.

Oh, deficits can go up, interest rates can go up, prices can go up, billionaires can get richer, but somehow we think that greed and corruption has or will remain a constant? Hardly.

At this point, I have little faith that the artists would be treated fairly no matter what "boss" you point to. As far as how things were back in the "good ol' days" of the old boss, yeah, well my house used to be worth more than 27 dollars back then too.

Even indie artists have campaigned against these new services. For example, take Spotify, well known European free music service that gained lots of attention.

Many indie artists tried the service for several months and when the payout time came, they found out they only got a few hundreds (if even that) from the service. It was serious degrade from their previous earnings.

At the same time, Spotify shareholders and investors include EMI, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group. Since Spotify only paid small share to artists, the labels profited from increased stock prices. Because of this, they didn't need to pay artists any share but still profited greatly.

So yeah, there you go. Do you really think you're wiser than these guys? Keep trying to get around them, and they will assfuck you even more. Seriously. Do it. If you want to destroy any nice music we have.

Umm, Spotify?

http://store.steampowered.com/
http://itunes.com/
http://netflix.com/
http://hulu.com/
http://spotify.com/
http://pandora.com/

What proof do you have that game developers who want to add DRM also want 70+ years of IP protection? I'm a game developer who doesn't want people to pirate my stuff but don't give a fuck about the 70+ years crap - which BTW is irrelevant here because that only applies to music/movies/books and such 'literary' stuff and not games specifically. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

If you make a digital copy of the exact order of 0s and 1s on your computer, you are enjoying the fruits of someone elses labor while denying them just compensation. Stealing is denying someone just compensation. It doesn't have to by physical goods.

You might say why are they entitled to just compensation? Because society has decided to allow artists to choose how they get compensated. Artists choose to create works before they get paid to do so. Or they might get commissioned to create and paid before. Its THEIR choice.

You are free to not support these Artists because you disagree with their business model by supporting other alternatives.

http://www.jamendo.com/en/

http://www.spotify.com/

https://mog.com/

etc, etc

http://www.spotify.com/nl/help/faq/wine/

It works, including the annoying ads.

Because spotify costs money (I either have to pay a monthly fee, or I have to buy a copy of windows or a mac or so). They say this is because they haven't figured out how to display ads on linux yet. Oh and you can't store music locally on linux. This doesn't doesn't sound like the type of software I'm psyched to pay for. Oh even though I might be paying for a "premium" account. It would be unsupported...

first url: http://open.spotify.com/track/6ddLlmOcS6GE7xVRYI0cgH !!

Mainly Ogg Vorbis @ 160kbps. Some tracks are also available in 320kbps if you're a premium subscriber.

And no, you can't record the incoming music as it's streamed over an encrypted session or from the local cache, which is also encrypted. The key to decrypt the data is only availble online from their servers and not stored by the client software.

Some Swedish hackers reverse engineered Spotify's secret protocol in 2008 and created two open-source projects called despotify and openspotify (both BSD-licensed). Check it out if you're interested in the internals. Spotify has also published a number of papers regarding their use of P2P in distributing the music.

There's also an official, C based API called libspotify which was born as a direct result of the despotify project. You need to be a premium subscriber to develop with it however.

Mainly Ogg Vorbis @ 160kbps. Some tracks are also available in 320kbps if you're a premium subscriber.

And no, you can't record the incoming music as it's streamed over an encrypted session or from the local cache, which is also encrypted. The key to decrypt the data is only availble online from their servers and not stored by the client software.

Some Swedish hackers reverse engineered Spotify's secret protocol in 2008 and created two open-source projects called despotify and openspotify (both BSD-licensed). Check it out if you're interested in the internals. Spotify has also published a number of papers regarding their use of P2P in distributing the music.

There's also an official, C based API called libspotify which was born as a direct result of the despotify project. You need to be a premium subscriber to develop with it however.

I've used (the paid version of) Spotify for a couple of years now and I absolutely love it. I can listen to an uninterrupted ocean of music all day long (both at work and at home), keep offline copies of playlists on my cellphone for running etc. and recently I've started to discover a lot of new music by simply browsing recommendations, different labels and so on inside Spotify. I'd say it's pretty rare to see a Party in Norway these days where the music doesn't come from Spotify. (They also have a native Linux client, which is a plus.)

The only complaints I have is:
1) Some music is not available. Sometimes single tracks, albums or even entire artists (e.g. metallica).
2) Some music switches between being available and not. It's annoying to see a part of a playlist I've made suddenly grayed out because "the artist or label has chosen not to make these songs available in your region". And suddenly they're available again for whatever reason.

But overall I'm very happy. Oh and it's also easy to share music. Example: For those who have Spotify, check out these playlists I've published (if the browser doesn't automatically open Spotify, just copy the spotify-url into the search bar of Spotify):
http://open.spotify.com/user/cronius/playlist/7yitDSr8e6uLORAkdA3mxm (Chilli)
http://open.spotify.com/user/cronius/playlist/3flYNN5Oe7dhW3Vths0D7J (Electronica)

I've used (the paid version of) Spotify for a couple of years now and I absolutely love it. I can listen to an uninterrupted ocean of music all day long (both at work and at home), keep offline copies of playlists on my cellphone for running etc. and recently I've started to discover a lot of new music by simply browsing recommendations, different labels and so on inside Spotify. I'd say it's pretty rare to see a Party in Norway these days where the music doesn't come from Spotify. (They also have a native Linux client, which is a plus.)

The only complaints I have is:
1) Some music is not available. Sometimes single tracks, albums or even entire artists (e.g. metallica).
2) Some music switches between being available and not. It's annoying to see a part of a playlist I've made suddenly grayed out because "the artist or label has chosen not to make these songs available in your region". And suddenly they're available again for whatever reason.

But overall I'm very happy. Oh and it's also easy to share music. Example: For those who have Spotify, check out these playlists I've published (if the browser doesn't automatically open Spotify, just copy the spotify-url into the search bar of Spotify):
http://open.spotify.com/user/cronius/playlist/7yitDSr8e6uLORAkdA3mxm (Chilli)
http://open.spotify.com/user/cronius/playlist/3flYNN5Oe7dhW3Vths0D7J (Electronica)

They don't use it at all. I can't recall exactly why, but I think it was something about restrictions for phone apps.

You mean like Spotify? It is almost exactly what you describe and has been around since 2006. It's not available outside of Europe yet though, guess there are some "legal" issues there.

However, the ad financed part of it (there are adfree premium subscriptions with higher quality) has had a hard time raking in enough money for artists to consider it worthwhile, and some have pulled their music from it. Metallica most notably.

I do think that the Spotify model in some form will become very widespread however.

You can import music into Spotify either just from folders on your hard drive or your entire iTunes library.

There is information on how this works on the Spotify site : https://www.spotify.com/uk/about/local-music/

They even have a native Linux x86/x86_64 client under development. http://www.spotify.com/se/download/previews/

Too bad it doesn't work in the US. Sigh. Maybe Russia will want Alaska back as long as we leave Sarah Palin in Arizona.

They even have a native Linux x86/x86_64 client under development. http://www.spotify.com/se/download/previews/

Why not also link to Spotify instead of just shilling? Spotify works on Windows/OSX/iPhone/Android/WP7.