I *love* SoulSeek

Soulseek is a lot of fun. I don't do much downloading, mainly sharing o.o.p. stuff--you get a lot of eager "regulars" when you share much good stuff. But when you really want to find some rare o.o.p. single without having to pay absurd money for it--there are good odds you'll find it there. Plus where else will you get messages from Japan to Brasil from people looking for that one Family Fodder EP?

I'm "manireik" on it, if anyone wants to say hello.

i used to be quite anti-filesharing but now i've realised that i was partially in the wrong. sure, artists need to get paid but filesharing spreads the word on great music, is incredibly democratic and can help artists' careers, especially if they perform live. all the new fans who have downloaded their music would be equally as likely to go to the gig as those who bought the record, so maybe this is worth looking at. anyway, i'd disagree about slsk having a "focus" on the sort of stuff buick has said. it has pretty much everything available and you can use the interface to focus on whatever you want, that's the beauty of it...

I hate Soulseek. because it's PC only. us mac users have the right to steal from time to time too!

stop the hate!

confucius said:

I hate Soulseek. because it's PC only. us mac users have the right to steal from time to time too!

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you can get a client that uses the soulseek protocol and attaches to the same servers for macOS
i use it on linux, its (slightly unpleasantly) called nicotine

for macOS X you can get the .app here
or you can get source and compile it from scratch or for linux here

Soulseek rocks it. Though paying for preferential treatment in the queue is dodgy.

It's decent for acapellas

i use a python-based client called nicotine on my linux machine
but i still haven't found the "trapped in the closet" instrumental!

For Mac users there is SoulseeX, and it is OS X native (as opposed to the Python rigamarole of Nicotine).

there's also solarseek (dont' have a link offhand) for mac os x users.
the recently updated tiger-native version is a little iffy tho.

bleep said:

Soulseek rocks it. Though paying for preferential treatment in the queue is dodgy.

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Whoops! Didn't realise the queue jumping thing was dodgy. I used to do it all the time. But not any more. Soulseek is excellent, but I'm actually bored with P2P now. I've still got heaps of stuff I downloaded from there that I haven't even listened to properly yet. These days I prefer to buy discerningly and really appreciate the music.

I really like it for the occasional checking out, but mostly for getting OOP stuff. Feeding the poskets of record collectors doesn't strike me as more moral than downloading stuff.

Is anybody else having trouble with it lately? It just seems like the search results are screwed.

There's a Dissensus room, right?

bleep said:

Soulseek rocks it. Though paying for preferential treatment in the queue is dodgy.

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WELL dodgy.

have you got an emoticon that looks like a pirate?

are you imp[lying that if you dont pay you are not pirating?!?!!

donations are for server upkeep, hardly anyone donates anyway. you arent paying anyone for tunes. i think the people that set the thing and keep it going deserve a donation .hardly anyone does it, (maybe cos its "dodgy"), so they try and encourage people by giving them download priveledges. dont know why you think filesharing is democratic, it can be but most of the time peopel are banning left right and centre, forming unassailable cliques and generally acting like.....well people IRL. its not some anarcho techno love in

ambrose said:

are you imp[lying that if you dont pay you are not pirating?!?!!

donations are for server upkeep, hardly anyone donates anyway. you arent paying anyone for tunes. i think the people that set the thing and keep it going deserve a donation .hardly anyone does it, (maybe cos its "dodgy"), so they try and encourage people by giving them download priveledges. dont know why you think filesharing is democratic, it can be but most of the time peopel are banning left right and centre, forming unassailable cliques and generally acting like.....well people IRL. its not some anarcho techno love in

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no i'm not implying that , that was a joke.
asking people to provide £5 a month for download privlidges is much worse than offering a service like kassa imo. if you are going to provide that service you should at least expect to get nothing for it.
no idea about democracy never seen it .

thats my point though, they are asking for money to donate to support the servers etc:

"We rely on our users to support us. If you find Soulseek(tm) useful, please consider helping us out by making a donation using the paypal button below.

To compensate donors, we offer priority download privileges lasting one month for every $5 donated (all you need to know about the download privileges system is in the FAQ)."

i guess if you think that they are pocketing donations and juts trying to make a buck then it becomes dodgy. but as (as they once quoed) 0.2% of users donate, i dont really doubt their motivation. i cant see why creating an application for users to share files, clearly in breach of cpyright is ok, but to do so and ask for donations to support the service (and reward those that do) is not ok.

ambrose said:

thats my point though, they are asking for money to donate to support the servers etc:

"We rely on our users to support us. If you find Soulseek(tm) useful, please consider helping us out by making a donation using the paypal button below.

To compensate donors, we offer priority download privileges lasting one month for every $5 donated (all you need to know about the download privileges system is in the FAQ)."

i guess if you think that they are pocketing donations and juts trying to make a buck then it becomes dodgy. but as (as they once quoed) 0.2% of users donate, i dont really doubt their motivation. i cant see why creating an application for users to share files, clearly in breach of cpyright is ok, but to do so and ask for donations to support the service (and reward those that do) is not ok.

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no i genuinley think they use the money to support the servers but this to me makes things worse.
no honour.

mms said:

no i genuinley think they use the money to support the servers but this to me makes things worse. no honour.

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I think the keywords here are: "not for profit". There is clearly no business imperative behind the Soulseek network, or the people that give up their time to develop and maintain it. If anything, I see Soulseek as performing a public service

Nowadays I rarely, if ever, buy anything I haven't downloaded or leeched already - I'm just sick of spunking money on stuff that I've been told is the latest must-have only to discover it's actually a bunch of arse (or just plain mediocre). There's just too much good stuff being made and released to get it right every time, and I'd rather reward artists and labels for the quality of their music than the expertise of their public relations team.

If, on the other hand, people download stuff and don't buy *anything* then that's between them and their conscience. Indeed, there's such a strong sense of community of Soulseek that those who contribute nothing new to the network are quickly found out and penalised by others. I find that the system regulates itself pretty well on that front.

I'm certainly unclear as to how Soulseek's current donations scheme makes them worse than, say, Kazaa. Companies like Sharman Networks, which seems content to build a profit-driven business out of other people's labour, are the scum of the Earth, as far as I'm concerned.