On this thread: https://piefed.social/post/1243539 one of the main points of contention is about the tension between how spotify pays artists very little, but piracy doesn’t, on it’s own, pay them at all.
I’m a heavy user of bandcamp, but i know that it has strengths and weaknesses: it’s great for finding independent artists and small labels, but it doesnt have a big catalog for popular tracks.
Do people have experience with other sources for purchasing? What about https://us.7digital.com/ ?
Specifically for self hosting, is there a way to streamline purchases from sites like these into lidarr? If not, is there an automated solution for (1) uncompressing a downloaded archive file from a purchase, then (2) making it conform to a file/folder organizational structure, and (3) having navidrome, jellyfin, etc import it?
Just trying to find workable ideas for owning music and getting artists most of the money.
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You could also buy CDs and rip them
This is definitely a decent starting point but not a complete solution, unfortunately. It’s not always cost-effective if you only want a few tracks from an album or need to import it to get it at all (or if it was a limited release it can be hard to find at all).
Unrelated but did you know that Libraries oftentimes have cd’s, dvd’s, and even audiobooks available to borrow?
Yes, and while borrowing contributes to their “we’re needed, please fund us” justification, it doesn’t directly support the artists.
Legal, yes. Supports the artist? No.
The artists don’t make money on CD sales?
Not if you’re buying them 2nd hand on eBay, which would represent the bulk of building a collection.
To be clear, im not trying to detract from the effort, it’s just op mentioned artists not getting paid what they deserve.
Bit of a stretch, but second-hand sales do influence the value of the CD and therefore increase its initial sale price (ie. CDs have extra value because they can be resold).
So buying used does indirectly increase profits, though of course the lion’s share of that is likely not going to the artist anyway.
Sure, I can accept that.
I don’t particularly have an opinion on artist compensation vs listener freedom when it comes to this. Obviously, I would prefer artists were paid what they deserve, but I don’t like participating in the fallacy that the end user is ethically responsible for the bullshit music industry infrastructure not paying artists properly.
I give where I can, but I’m just some person.
It highly depends on their contract and if they are a big name or not. There is a reason a lot of bands tour though as they make a lot of more money from it than CD sales.
Deezer, Qobuz, and Bandcamp. Between those three you should have everything.
Frequent buyer on Qobuz, I can recommend.
Can somebody make deezer give regional prices? 15usd it’s a lot of money in some places
I didn’t say it was cheap, lol. I said it’s where you can buy music.
I hope whatever platform you end up using also provides other formats than mp3. Like ogg is superior replacement, or flac for lossless.
I buy vinyls and merch. It doesn’t entirely cut out the middleman but it’s less morally bankrupt than giving it to record labels
Exactly. I go to concerts and buy their merch.
I think I’ve bought from 7digital a time or two in the past and had no problems. Obviously there are issues with Amazon as a company, but I think they were the first big name to offer DRM-free MP3 purchases and I used it a lot back when it first launched, especially since they offered a selection of albums each month for just $5. They should have most mainstream music available for purchase, depending on which country you’re in. According to this Wikipedia page listing music stores they only offer 256 kbps MP3 but I was sure most if not all were upgraded to 320 kbps now, although of course you would have to re-download anything if you had downloaded the lower-quality version previously. That Wikipedia page is a good link to other stores as well, with a number I’d never heard of including specialty stores.
Also, along with someone else’s comment mentioning ripping CDs like the old days, check to see if you have a local record store. It’s been a mantra since at least the Gen-X days to “support your local scene.” I know in Raleigh the longtime staple Schoolkids Records is still alive and kicking, although their Chapel Hill store closed last year. It might take some digging but it can be worth seeing if there’s a local store in your area.
I used to buy from Beatport when I was actively djing. Nice because the tracks are available in 320kbps or lossless. No idea how much Beatport’s cut is though
I borrow CDs from library, buy from bandcamp and 7digital. I keep audio files on my laptop in a organized folder structure by genre/album and rsync to my Jellyfin. To listen, i play from my laptop to bluetooth speakers and I use the FinAmp app on my iPhone to listen on the road because it has a sweet Offfline mode. Also, i have a nice usb DAC to direct connect (RCA) my laptop to my HiFi system in the basement. I support a local indie radio station which helps with music discovery.
Everyone gave good alternatives for where to buy music. As for the pipeline for getting them into your music server, I have Picard running in a container (a couple projects do this, search docker picard) and I have the settings all configured so that when I drop in files to my NAS (though samba or whatever), then I just double click the folder in Picard and hit save and it moves it into my music server’s directories, all properly and nicely tagged (I have the container volumes all set up properly as well)
You can look into beets or wrtag for more automation friendly tagging services.
there are many mp3 purchasing platform, even Amazon Music! those purchased mp3 file has no drm protection. but for avoiding to amazon msuic bugs, i backup them to my usb with viwizard auido capture), beatport, beatstar(maybe the same? they are not my pick), Soundclick( suprised by its music genres) , and Jamendo.
