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SoundCloud Halts Volunteer Archiving Project (vice.com)

Slashdot reader nielo tipped us off to more SoundCloud news. Motherboard reports: Last week, a group of volunteer digital preservationists known as The Archive Team announced they would be attempting to independently archive a 123.6 million track, 900-terabyte swath of SoundCloud, the popular streaming music and audio service that recently announced mass layoffs and office closures, sparking fears of an imminent closure. But just as the volunteer archive of SoundCloud was due to be getting started, it's been abruptly called off at the behest of the company... I reached out to SoundCloud for more information, and a spokesperson responded with the following written statement: "SoundCloud is dedicated to protecting the rights and content of the creators who share their work on SoundCloud. We requested the Archive Team halt their efforts as any action to take content from SoundCloud violates our Terms of Use and infringes on our users' rights... SoundCloud is not going away -- not in 50 days, not in 80 days or anytime in the foreseeable future..." But that hasn't stopped some individuals on Reddit's r/datahoarder subreddit from attempting to gather their own personal archives of as much of SoundCloud as they want and can afford to host.

21 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Re: copyright is a crime against humanity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Stealing my ideas and claiming them as your own is also an affront to my humanity.

  2. not in 50 days, not in 80 days by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...so...90 days then, thanks for the heads up

    the death spiral has begun

    1. Re:not in 50 days, not in 80 days by KiloByte · · Score: 2

      ...so...90 days then

      Why this unwarranted optimism? Be realistic, 81 at the most.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    2. Re:not in 50 days, not in 80 days by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A couple of weeks ago it was reported that Soundcloud cofounder Alexander Ljung said the company only had enough money to survive until the fourth quarter of this year — which begins in 50 days.

      Soundcloud responded to this with an official statement saying "SoundCloud is fully funded into the fourth quarter."

      Note that they don't say they are fully funded to the end of the 4th quarter, just "into" the 4th quarter.

    3. Re: not in 50 days, not in 80 days by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Sure, but they have to pay royalties to labels for songs listened to by paying SoundCloudGo+ users since the deal last year. If those royalties are "per licensed song played", the $10 a month subscription fee may not cover it for heavy users.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  3. Re: copyright is a crime against humanity by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 1

    Stealing my ideas and claiming them as your own is also an affront to my humanity.

    Freely using/sharing what is public and unlimited is different than stealing or unfairly claiming the authorship of what you didn't create.

    Since some time ago, all my public online activity can be considered public domain. You can freely use any of my stuff with no restriction and without having to refer me as its author (it would be nice though). A different story is you unfairly claiming to be the author; in that case, you would be lying or even stealing.

    PS: just the idea is usually worth pretty much nothing.

    --
    Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
  4. Re: copyright is a crime against humanity by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 1

    I think is pretty good and I want some level of protection on it. My ego demands it.

    I wasn't trying to convince everyone to rely on a format which works for me (mostly via code samples of my work by being hired to develop whatever), but perhaps not for others. I was simply clarifying the difference between using what is publicly/unlimitedly available, stealing and copyright. Additionally, this is a pretty complex reality; for example, SoundCloud aren't the authors of the songs and their copyright claims are about restricting the redistribution of what others created.

    --
    Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
  5. Re:copyright is a crime against humanity by Kjella · · Score: 2

    See my sig -- we're getting more and more proofs that copyright is one of worst long-term evils.

    Yeah, that you can't copy music for free - other than those the artist has given permission or that's older than Mickey Mouse - is clearly one of the true great evils. I mean it's not like the world is now accumulating every shitty two-bit wannabe who knows how to abuse an instrument and there's enough music, TV series, movies, porn and computer games to waste several lifetimes. It's not like we got any more serious issues going on we should fix first...

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  6. At least the mass layoffs came first by PrimaryConsult · · Score: 1

    Good luck coding around the attempts at mass archiving without any programmers...

  7. 90 days by Chewbacon · · Score: 2

    She conveniently left out that typical interval. I'd say 90 days, sound cloud will be no more.

    --
    Chewbacon
    The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
  8. Re: copyright is a crime against humanity by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    creimer, the three seats you take up on the bus are an affront to the rest of humanity.

    Not only are you posting in the wrong thread, you're posting under a story that creimer hasn't even posted in yet.

    Now, how about trying to stay a bit on topic? Here' I'll show you how it's done:

    Soundcloud is probably hosed, but whether it is or not, it is acting within the law. If you don't like it, whining won't change anything. Instead of whining, why not try to change the law? If you're going to complain that it's too hard to change the law, you still have another alternative - create your own music and set it free.

    Now, if you're going to argue that you don't have the talent or the means to promote it, but that others who do don't have the right to be rewarded for their talent and their work, you're on thin ground. How much of this stuff that you demand be free would you even have heard of? How much would have been created in the first place?

    That's how copyright, by giving a limited set of rights to the copyright holder, incentivizes the creation and promotion of work that would otherwise not exist. If you wanted to go back to the pre-copyright system, then a lot of what you would have available would be that which patrons of the arts are willing to subsidize, both for creation and public performance. Do you really want the rich telling you what you should be listening to? That's far more a form of censorship than copyright.

    (/me awaits the usual flood of hate posts)

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  9. Re:copyright is a crime against humanity by KiloByte · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Please read the second discussion I linked to. It's not about a random person freeloading on that Bieber video, it's about putting massive barriers to creating new works and to transmitting culture.

    Being content that you can live, eat and copulate is what animals do. It's important, yeah, but for me "humanity" means things what make us different from non-human animals, and most of that difference can be called "culture". Copyright is the current biggest obstacle to creation and transmission of culture, ergo, it is a crime against humanity.

    Murdering a person destroys the animal part. Burning a book destroys the cultural part. Both parts matter. And while a single human is (usually) worth more than a single book, it's almost never a single book that gets burned.

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  10. Re: copyright is a crime against humanity by Solandri · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think there's a fair middle ground here. A short-term copyright, say about 20 years, should be enough for creators to come up with ideas and profiting from them, while still promoting the sciences and arts in the long-term.

    Oh, will you look at that. The original length of copyright was just 14 years. Gradually, over the centuries, it's been bastardized to the current ridiculous life plus 70-120 years. Can you imagine if we had to pay for other things for that long? We'd still be paying the progeny of the people who worked on building the Brooklyn Bridge.

    Scale copyright's duration back down to about 20 years (or hell, even 40 years - average length of a career), and most of these problems disappear on their own. Yes you should get credit for and be able to profit from thinking up clever ideas. No you and your progeny should not be able to extract a toll from society in perpetuity for using the idea.

  11. Re: copyright is a crime against humanity by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

    Stealing my ideas and claiming them as your own is also an affront to my humanity.

    That would be plagiarism, which is very different from unauthorized copying. As an artist, I want to be seen and heard as widely as possible, while being recognized as the author of my works. This means I don't care too much for copyright protections, except the part about authorship.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  12. sigh by nnet · · Score: 1

    when you put your data on someone elses computer(s)....

  13. Re: copyright is a crime against humanity by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 1

    you and your progeny should not be able to extract a toll from society in perpetuity for using the idea.

    What a great idea! I think i'll copyright it --- in perpetuity. So my 35th future grandson will still be profiting from this. Super!

    Now all I need is a wife.

    --
    If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
  14. Yet another reminder... by CODiNE · · Score: 1

    Remember kids, "The Cloud" means someone else's computer. And you may have signed over your data to them too! Hope you read all the fine print.

    --
    Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
  15. The cloud = Mainframe and trying to get access to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ....and you are still paying for time on it, either through ads, giving up your privacy or any other means or a combination thereof.

    (Still gets the shivers when "batch processing" ment giving a deck of punch cards with a program to a mainframe operator and waiting hours or days for a printout of the results, hoping you didn't fuck anything up in the meantime)

  16. STFU!!! by CanEHdian · · Score: 2

    If you're going to do this, STFU and just do it. OF COURSE they're going to whine and complain. First get all the meta-data, then distribute the content archiving around the globe (so you can archive 24/7 within 'reasonable hours' and reasonable amounts of data for that part of the globe). Then you just need to keep regular tabs to get new content. Once SoundCloud shuts down, and is gone, you can wait as long as you need before making your archive available to the general public. But the content is saved.

    --
    When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
  17. Re: They should talk to The Pirate Bay by KGIII · · Score: 1

    They don't host much of anything, except magnet links and very small .torrent files.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  18. Re:copyright is a crime against humanity by murdocj · · Score: 1

    How is copyright theft? You can argue that it impedes progress, but it sure isn't stealing from anyone.