Is SoulSeek inherently evil?

Is SOULSEEK EVIL?

  • SoulSeek is EVIL

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • SoulSeek is GOOD

    Votes: 47 82.5%
  • Neither, just BUY THE FUGGIN RECORDS YOU SHNORRER!

    Votes: 10 17.5%

  • Total voters
    57

Buick6

too punk to drunk
I haven't played in a band for over 10 years, but I still buy music (though not as much). I don't know how badly this affects indie bands, since I don't even understand how indie bands/acts sell music these days or how severely has the field changed. I remember how when the label my band was on would release a CD/7" they'd give their local 'indie' record shop maybe 5 or 10 and sell maybe all of them, maybe less, and this would be replicated in similar shops around the world, and we'd get a review here and there that would say how great the release was, but nobody would buy it anyway. Anyway thats all sorta discourse, though I imagine the Internet has changed things marginally

ANYWAY, I only discovered SoulSeek about 3 months ago, just after I finally got a portable Mp3 player 5 years after the fact, and I'm hooked. I understand it's to help promote 'unheard' or more succinctly the 'alternative', indie, or 'cool' hipster' stuff we all crave and define ourselves with etc..etc.It's helpong me listen to, or sample some INCREDIBLE music. On a positive I've found some terrifiec OUT OF PRINT or just RARE material eg: Sonny Sharrock/Pharoah Sanders live recordings, MBV bootlegs from their prime period, Eno/Harmonia combos, DOn Cheery's 'Brown Rice', Les Rallizes Denudes rarities, Sun Ra's 'Space Safari', rare Pink Fairies, amazing KDJ DJ sets with a bloke from the Last Poets! - I mean I've found some really transcendent, life-affirming -mega-rare-hipster stuff that good rock writer mythologise and it's a wonderful thing...That's good and well, but most of these acts, weren't or aren't living in 50 mansions like Elton John or make $1000000 per year off Royalties alone like Lou Reed or David Bowie..So I find that despite the fact I can 'hear' or even 'have' this ultra-rare stuff, it's not doing the artists any financial favour, but it is giving me the opportunity to HEAR their amazing rare works. Mind you, I still went out and bought Eno's remasters, or all the REAL KIDS albums, I mean I still prefer to have the albums with the artwork, liner notes, rather than just a tape recording. I'm not sure how kids who under under25 are with their music consumption, I mean do they still value having a 'physical' musical product anymore in today's Ipod age?

In some ways I liken SoulSeek to taping your favourite radio DJ's radio shows(or pirate shows), before the days of the Internet. I mean you might be able to buy a few of the records they played, but not their rare Can live tracks or whatever. In fact I clearly remember reading a Reynolds piece on the Shoegazers and a Brophy piece written about 6 years earlier on Krautrock bands like Neu, and being totally unable to purchase their records ANYWHERe, even record fairs! (I eventually got a tape recording on Neu75 from a plumber who was a record collector from the 70s!!!) I guess that alleviates the guilt somewhat relating to SoulSeek. I'm surprised no RICH/POWERFUL/INFLUENTIAL 'counter culture' musical identities haven't taken them to court, like say Michael Stipe or Thurston Moore or Henry Rollins or Liz Phair or Steve Malkamus or David Byrne... But I really don't understand how the music biz and delivery/sale of work has changed on the 'indie' or 'specialist' level from 1994 to say now to really make any comments on how inherently EVIl SOulSeek is compared to any other maccinations of the muzak biz circa 2005.

SO do you think SoulSeek is EVIL is it a tool in the 'conspirational' nature of new cutting edge music? :cool:
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
Soul Seek is mad slow, and there like several zillion torrent sites out there. Almost anything you want (or at least that I want) is there for the taking.
 

Immryr

Well-known member
hmm when ever ive tried using bit torrent, ive got a slower speed than on SS. from what i can gather this is due to a small number of people having or sharing the file. what i want to know is how, when you download a torrent file, do you know it will have pleanty of people connecting so you will have a decent speed?
 
D

droid

Guest
It always tells you how many people are sharing (downloading) and seeding (sharing a downloaded file) in yer Torrent application, and that info is often included on the download site as well. If you want to speed up your download, the simplest way to do it is just to increase yer upload speed.
 
Pearsall said:
Soul Seek is mad slow, and there like several zillion torrent sites out there. Almost anything you want (or at least that I want) is there for the taking.

I tried BitTorrent for a couple of months - it wasn't nearly as l33t as billed, least of all for music. Good for films and TV though, particularly through piratebay. But I always, always come back to soulseek.
 

owen

Well-known member
i can't offer a moral defence, but if you're on jobseeker's allowance then soulseek is essential...
 

Asger

Matki wandalki
sounds like some of you have problems with port forwarding - thats the normal reason for slow dloads (both with slsk and torrent apps)...
 

bruno

est malade
what soulseek does is disseminate obscurities to millions of people worldwide, from antarctica to the north pole. even if a miniscule fraction of the world population shares your music, is affected by your music, then buys your music as a result of this exposure, it has to be good (unless your music is shit, obviously).

i like what irdial did, post all their catalogue online in mp3 form. i find this ethic inspiring.
 

SIZZLE

gasoline for haters
As a working musician who's sole source of income is music (no day job) I'd say SLSK is a positive force.

I've found that at the level I'm at (couple 12"s, mixCDs and one CD out, album soon) the money that you make from selling recordings is miniscule and usually kept by label, distributor, anyone but me. Gigs on the other hand are where I earn my income and as far as I can see it mp3s, file sharing, etc are all very useful for driving demand there. For sure it's worked that way with grime, there still basically are about 3 buyable releases if you don't live in UK or do international vinyl mail order but there are many more people at the shows who know the tunes, lyrics etc.

I do have a knee jerk response of 'I worked really hard on this, buy it!' but if I keep getting booked for gigs it doesn't really matter if people buy or not, as long as they listen and like it enough to come see me.

I've considered starting to give away more stuff for free online and probably will do soon but I think that this route can only be really effective if you've already generated some fans by going the traditional route. Although myspace and all that may make a difference there. There still is definitely a 'it's not real music unless some label says it is' attitude with un-signed internet acts though.

And I know it's popular to dis myspace but I spend more and more time on there and actually find it really effective for finding music and people that I don't know how I would find otherwise.
 
soulseek is the shit for trax by established artists...

...myspace is pretty nifty for the great unwashed but I reckon it's only gonna be a matter of time til artists will have to pay a hosting fee or a percentage of download and if you don't got the sales you won't be able to pay the rent

might have to bite the bullet but I don't trust murdoch, he's aussie :D
 

bassnation

the abyss
Pearsall said:
Soul Seek is mad slow, and there like several zillion torrent sites out there. Almost anything you want (or at least that I want) is there for the taking.

yeah, soulseek used to be wicked when everyone was still actively sharing - but i get the feeling that people got sick of being leeched plus maybe they were scared away by all the RIAA court cases.

however, can you give me some tips on good BT sites for old skool jungle? no-one is sharing that on SS anymore, apart from me, maybe.
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
SHaring in general and slsk in particular are generally positive. Most downloads are not sales lost since people would not have bought the CD anyway - and anyway, a lot of it is simply unavailable. Like DJ sets. And certainly, most musicians make their money from shows, not releases. There is NO money in vinyl and not much in CDs.

However... lets not pretend that the some genres are not downloaded to death. I'm pretty sure that one of the reasons Grime is in the commercial doldrums is because so many people download rips rather than buy the records. I wouldn't say that this obviated filesharing's benefits though.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
bruno said:
what soulseek does is disseminate obscurities to millions of people worldwide, from antarctica to the north pole. even if a miniscule fraction of the world population shares your music, is affected by your music, then buys your music as a result of this exposure, it has to be good (unless your music is shit, obviously).

i like what irdial did, post all their catalogue online in mp3 form. i find this ethic inspiring.
That's really cool and I think more people should adopt this aproach. Bu that's not a complete argument for (copyright infringing) filesharing; I'd rather it was the artists' decision.

I'd be fairly happy to use slsk if I had fast interweb access at home, since I already spend stupid amounts of money on records, gigs and so on, and would mainly be getting out of print or otherwise impossible to get hold of stuff. Most Dissensians are probably in the same situation. On the other hand I can see why it's got the record companies worried, since we're probably not representative of the general population - I knew a lot of people at uni who had hard drives full of music and no records. But then again, this is mainly going to work in favour of people whose music inspires fanatical devotion but can't afford big marketing and against people who make bland music but have loads of money to spend flogging it, which I'm tempted to think is a good thing.

Moral minefield, innit. But it's certainly not /totally/ evil.

Oh, and the other thing is that if the big record companies are going to try to stop filesharing, I'd far rather they did it by fucking over filesharers (who went into it knowing they were breaking the law) than by fucking over the record public by crippling CD's and abolishing fair use.
 
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