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Music Streaming Service Exclusives Make Pirating Tempting Again (theverge.com)
The advent of online music streaming service has made it easier for millions of people worldwide to listen to all of their favorite songs, and convinced plenty to pay for music. But with the space of music streaming service getting increasingly crowded and artists beginning to do exclusive with select platforms, it has again become inconvenient for people to get everything they want with one subscription. The Verge's Ashley Carman writes that this is pushing many people to resort to piracy. Carman writes: Rampant piracy could make a comeback, solely because streaming service exclusives, and complete artist opt-outs, make it impossible to get all music in one place. Last week, Drake dropped two new singles off his upcoming album Views from the 6. The tracks are currently only available on Apple Music. Last month, Kanye West released his newest album The Life of Pablo on Tidal only. It came to Spotify this month after an estimated 500,000 people had already torrented it. Big Sean and Jhen's Aiko released their collaboration album TWENTY88 on only Tidal at first. Beyonce and Nicki Minaj released a Tidal-only music video for Feeling Myself. More than a million people signed up for Tidal over the course of a day just to get Kanye's new album, though it's assumed that most won't stick around. At what cost to listeners are these exclusives being made and where does it leave fans? If users wanted to subscribe to only one service, it would come out to approximately $120 per year. Two services will cost $240, and three services, say, Apple Music, Tidal, and Spotify, will cost $360, which will be a substantial cost to casual listeners.
It took me a second reading to realize that this didn't mean "Drake removed two tracks from his new album, and the only place where tracks 9 and 10 can still be found is Apple Music."
Actually, the copyright owner in a musical work has exclusive right to the music in sheet form (if they composed it) and their performances of it (if they performed it). If you obtain the sheet music, or can play it by ear, you are entitled to your own performance; this is how cover bands are allowed to exist. When you hear of an artist being sued over sampling, that's because sampling is, as its name implies, taking a sample of someone else's performance of the work and using it in your own. There's a pretty big difference between playing seven notes yourself and using someone else recording of those same seven notes; Vanilla Ice was sued for the former, but could have done the latter with impunity.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Not really.
I'm talking about Firewatch, Tharsis and Adr1ft. They're the kind of games you really need to play yourself to realize they're good for you or not.
On a more general note, all decision-heavy games mandate playing before buying. A demo would suffice. If you passively watch someone else make decisions to which you might disagree, you're following their path but you can't tell if the game's something you would enjoy for more than 15 minutes.
OK, Firewatch is a walking simulator but it has absolutely zero replayability, so after playing it for 10 minutes I uninstalled it, deleted the torrent and watched someone else play it.
Sure, I could have gone with the Steam Refund way, but as of now it's tedious and awkward. I really dislike when they need 5 seconds to take your money but 3 days to give them back.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Cover bands are allowed to exist because of music publishing companies like ASCAP or BMI, to whom said cover bands pay a fee for the right to perform a song. There's a pretty standard fee schedule and the paperwork is relatively easy, so it's often cheaper to hire a cover band to perform some song rather than licensing a pre-existing recording by the original artist(s).
And even that seven notes is a risk; muscians have been successfully sued for incorporating a sound-alike riff from someone else's song, even if not sampled.