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Music Doesn't Feature In the Pirate Bay's Top 100 Biggest Torrents

journovampire writes Good news for the industry's anti-piracy efforts? Or rather embarrassing for music's appeal in the big, wide world? No single music release features in the Top 100 most-torrented files. From the article: "MBW has analysed TPB’s Top 100 most-pirated files in the 48 hours since its re-emergence. And although you’ll find plenty of movies and a smattering of porn in there, you won’t see a single music release. The Top 4 most-pirated files over the weekend were all movies, led by new Jason Statham vehicle Wild Card. It was followed by three more Hollywood releases – The Interview, American Sniper and Nightcrawler."

14 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Other sources for music by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can find it on YouTube or Spotify, to name but two sources. Full-length movies are harder to come by in this fashion.

  2. More proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Current music sucks so bad Pirates don't even want it.

    1. Re:More proof by aitikin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Rather odd we're even worried about piracy anyway when likely every single one of the top 100 songs is also posted on YouTube, in full streaming HD audio and video.

      You clearly do not know what HD audio is, YouTube doesn't even qualify as decent audio. Very good explanation from an audio engineer (ironically, found on youtube) is right here

      --
      "Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
    2. Re:More proof by bobjr94 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Pretty much. Our kids just listen to songs off youtube all the time on their phones, don't really care if they actually have the song stored on their device or just stream it. Kids now a days have a hard time telling the difference between local and cloud storage and playing or streaming. But youtube does not have HD audio, even their HD sized video streams still have a very low audio bandwidth, about the same audio bitrate as a typical itunes song. And the small mobile sized video streams have pretty low audio quality. But then again most people don't care. What was the joke a few years ago; $250,000 recording session, $100,000 mixing, $70,000 mastering session to a 99 cent song played though $4.99 earbuds grabbed at the market next to the gum and candy.

    3. Re:More proof by geekmux · · Score: 4, Funny

      Youtube sound might not be audiophile-quality, but we're talking about top 100 songs, which are 100% garbage. Means no audiophile's touching any of those songs with a 10-foot pole. therefore your point is moot :)

      Ah, but only if the point could be mute...it would make top 100 listening so much more tolerable :)

  3. Maybe it's because the music industry has adapted? by SirAnodos · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Could it be the music industry has adapted enough that the average joe doesn't feel the need to pirate music as much as other media?
    Yes, the adaptation certainly isn't ideal, but most of my friends now pay $9 a month (or so) and stream all their music and stream most new music. They are letting their personal music libraries slowly bit rot away as they increasingly rely on the cloud and streaming services.
    Plus most digital albums can be bought without DRM these days.
    But movies are a different story. You have to wait before you can even watch a movie in your own home, and movie media is always DRMed.

  4. Re:Younger people don't assign music a monetary va by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > A whole generation has grown up who believe that music is "free".

    It's not just the current generation. This has been going on pretty much for as long as there has been broadcast media. This "it should be free" thing goes back to the genesis of radio.

    There is nothing new about "payment avoidance" when it comes to Music.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  5. Of course by penguinoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does music cost $20 a song and come with a 5 minute unskippable warning against piracy, and 10 minutes of unskippable trailers for other songs? But for some products if you want quality you have to pirate it. I know some people who will buy a movie to be legit/support the industry, and then pirate it because it is less trouble than the CD.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  6. Holy false dichotomy batman! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or how about the following three factors:

    1. I can buy the tracks I want for a sensible price with no DRM, so I can listen to it how and when I want.
    2. Lots of streaming services if I don't want to buy.
    3. An almost fanatical devotion to the pope.

    Basically street years of getting brutalized by pirates, the music industry wised up and started selling people what they wanted to buy rather than treating people like criminals to be milked for as much cash as possible.

    Oh that and YouTube.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  7. Pfft by Beerdood · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "+ 3 Insightful"

    Really? Has your lawn been horribly trampled by kids lately? There's so much good stuff out there I don't even know where to begin. We're in a golden era of music choice and availability. Not only do we have a plethora of different types and combinations of sounds and rhythms that are available for the mixing (mostly due to electronic music and computers), but this generation has the ability to find any music from anywhere now - thanks to the internet you can find all kinds of obscure stuff from another corner of the world. You have millions of artists to choose from anywhere now - maybe it's your perception bias making you think it's off (because when you walked into a CD / record store 20-30 years ago, they tend to carry only the best material, and you don't have to wade through crap).

    Maybe you meant to say "I don't like the top 40 stuff they constantly repeat on the radio or at sporting events or at the bars". Newsflash: every generation thinks their parents' music was lame, but my generation's music was the greatest ever, but my kids listen to complete shit. Talk to a 30-something and they'll think Pearl Jam or Nirvana were the greatest. Talk to a 60-something and they'll think Zeppelin and Queen were the greatest. Talk to a teenager now and they'll think Katy Perry or Taylor Swift are the best evar! Maybe this has to do more with the music you listed to as a teenager shaping your musical tastes (and associating good times with that music).

    --
    Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
  8. I stopped pirating music when iTunes stopped DRM by adric22 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now that I can actually own my own music downloaded legally from iTunes and play it on all of my devices, I have no reason to pirate it. But I still pirate movies and will continue until the DRM issue is resolved.

  9. Re:Why pirate? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some might argue that this is a serious problem-- that the music industry is in a shambles and it's not clear this is all sustainable. Others might argue that this is evidence of where the problem was all along-- that piracy is the result of high prices and poor service, and when people are provided a cheap and convenient product, they're often willing to pay for it in some way. Either way, I don't see much of a reason to pirate music anymore unless it's somehow unavailable through legal channels.

    The music industry has oddly enough somewhat come full circle with Spotify becoming the new middleman. Here in Norway after a dip in revenue from 2009 when it was 15% digital it's now slightly higher (601 vs 592 million NOK) in 2014 with 86% digital, of which 11% is downloads and 75% streaming. During the same period the piracy rate among people under 30 dropped from 70% to 4% of the population.

    Why do I say it's become full circle? Because once again either you accept the terms of Spotify or nobody going to hear about you. And because many people just use it as background noise for popular music creating superstars is still big business, the "long tail" doesn't get anything extra for writing music people care about so a lot of marginal artists are complaining that where they could make money selling CDs to a small but loyal following before Spotify pays them peanuts.

    I guess Spotify lowered the bar on getting your music published, since they don't run out of shelf space or air time. But I don't think it has increased the number of artists who are able to play professionally, though I'm not sure that matters. It's a bit like comparing YouTube with cable TV, maybe a whole lot of well... something beats a couple hundred channels of "professional" TV. But when I've heard friends say "Either you're on Spotify or you don't exist" somebody's holding too much power.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  10. Perhaps the metrics are screwed up... by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "With 1828 ‘seeders’ and just 76 ‘leechers’, True is a fair distance behind the 100th most popular torrent overall: PC game Far Cry 4, which has 1604 ‘seeders’ plus 1260 ‘leechers’."

    Keep in mind that:
    1) Once a "leecher" finishes downloading, they become a "seeder"
    2) Nearly all clients will stop being a "seeder" once a predetermined share ratio is reached

    Considering a typical music album is FAR smaller than a game (probably 100-200MB at most, depending on bitrate for encoding, vs. multiple gigabytes for a game - FC4 is over 10GB I'd guess, I can't view TPB to check from my current location), "leechers" become "seeders" far faster, and "seeders" disconnect from the torrent due to hitting the share ratio cap of the client (kTorrent defaults to 1.30 for example) far faster.

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  11. Vinyl sucks by sjbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's hope vinyl or increased quality isn't just a passing fad.

    I'm old enough to remember when there was no such thing as a CD and vinyl or tape were your only options to get a full album. I do not miss for a moment vinyl records and all the hassles involved with them. If you think vinyl is great you either A) did not grow up with vinyl records or B) you have a fetish for obsolete technology which interferes with your ability to remember why we don't use it anymore.

    Let me remind of just some of the reasons rational people gave up on vinyl records years ago:
    1) Vinyl only sounds good when operating perfectly and most of the time it does not, particularly if the record has seen meaningful play.
    2) Vinyl is absurdly easy to damage and virtually impossible to keep intact with meaningful use. They are flimsy and scratch easily. See point 1 above.
    3) Vinyl is bulky increasing it's propensity to get damaged (see point 2 above) and takes up unnecessary space.
    4) Vinyl record players rely on needles which wear out and regularly damage the very media they are intended to play.
    5) Vinyl stores a relatively small amount of music and does so in a very bulky and non-portable media
    6) Vinyl cannot easily or conveniently be copied to any portable player
    7) Vinyl does not come with digital track data that can be copied conveniently to other players
    8) Vinyl cannot easily be utilized in conjunction with other media such as putting a song into a video.
    9) Vinyl cannot easily be used for other purposes. I can use a CD or flash memory to store other types of data. Not practical with vinyl.
    10) There are non-lossy digital formats which are indistinguishable from even the best vinyl in double blind tests. (If you claim otherwise I'm going to call you a liar)

    Increased quality? I'm on board unless it requires vinyl. If it does then screw increased quality because it is not worth the hassle of vinyl.