ambrose said:
Agreed. In for a penny, in for a pound I say. If I started using SLSK again, I'd donate again too. Queue jumping rocks!
I *love* SoulSeek
- Thread starter Buick6
- Start date
Agreed. In for a penny, in for a pound I say. If I started using SLSK again, I'd donate again too. Queue jumping rocks!
monkeysblood
born to cry
are there any mac users who can recommend any of the slsk alt versions?
i think i dicked about with nicotine yonks ago cos i felt left out, but it just got on my tits. been using 'aquisition', which is nice n' all but has very little of interest on there.
i think i dicked about with nicotine yonks ago cos i felt left out, but it just got on my tits. been using 'aquisition', which is nice n' all but has very little of interest on there.
Re queue-jumping, from my overly simplistic perspective the point is that once money starts changing hands there is actual revenue, and thats the difference between file-sharing and piracy. If I pay $5 for a months prioritised downloads, thats $5 of actual currency the artists aren't getting a cut of - the fact that it doesn't cover the costs of running the service is immaterial - that simply says to me that the soulseek (business) model is unsustainable.
Don't get me wrong - I have huge quantities of illicit mp3s, but I have so much stuff now that I appear to have satisfied some primal desire to accumulate, and now mostly buy mp3s through Beatport or Juno.
Though partly thats because the stuff I've been finding this year is so satisfying to me that I need look no further.
Don't get me wrong - I have huge quantities of illicit mp3s, but I have so much stuff now that I appear to have satisfied some primal desire to accumulate, and now mostly buy mp3s through Beatport or Juno.
Though partly thats because the stuff I've been finding this year is so satisfying to me that I need look no further.
Bleep you are OTM I think- paying for Queue jumping muddies what are already extremely dirty moral waters. I do love SLSK, but I ensure that when I really like something I have downloaded (and its on an indie label/by an artist with small sales- ie not a multimillionaire who has already been handsomely rewarded enough for bashing out some tunes) that I go and buy the CD. Question arose as to whether it would be better to just give them the money, but the there is the factor of sales of CDs registering with their record company and therefore being a tool used to asses future commercial viability and therefore whether that particular artist keeps their record deal or not...
throughsilver
Well-known member
I apologise but I'm just not following this. Sure, the fiver is a fiver the artist isn't getting, but if someone does not donate to slsk, then the artist still isn't getting that cash, most likely. Maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick, but it's not like I have a music quota, wherein I have to spend a certain amount of money on music, and if I don't donate to slsk, it has to go on records.
If I hear something I've downloaded and really like it, then I buy it in. And I'll donate to slsk so I can hear it that bit quicker.
A lot of the time, if I download, it's something I would ordinarily never have bought anyway - so the 'artist' is not missing out on anything in those cases.
The genius individuals 'rockstars' who wrote the program.
Soulseek is what I think of as a common carrier, like the phone system or internet service providers. They provide a system to search for files, namely music, and give users the ability to establish direct connections to swap data. That's it. They do little to no policing of their network and take no interest in what content actually gets traded. If you donate to help pay for the infrastructure, and therefore contribute something to the system, you are treated as a privileged user.
They've made efforts in the past to release music and help publicize artists who embrace their network. I see this as a net positive.
From their homepage:
The intention of Soulseek(tm) is to help unsigned and/or independent artists find a place in the ever-growing music industry, in a place where discussion and the creation of music can take place. Use of this network for what may be deemed illegal in nature may see users prosecuted by law, and the owners and/or operators of the Soulseek(tm) network do not offer protection from said incidents.
A "good" soulseek user would share only public domain works or their own work. It's widely known that a variety of copyrighted work is available, but that's not the stated intention and is done at the user's own risk.
They've made efforts in the past to release music and help publicize artists who embrace their network. I see this as a net positive.
From their homepage:
The intention of Soulseek(tm) is to help unsigned and/or independent artists find a place in the ever-growing music industry, in a place where discussion and the creation of music can take place. Use of this network for what may be deemed illegal in nature may see users prosecuted by law, and the owners and/or operators of the Soulseek(tm) network do not offer protection from said incidents.
A "good" soulseek user would share only public domain works or their own work. It's widely known that a variety of copyrighted work is available, but that's not the stated intention and is done at the user's own risk.
What we're talking through are the classic moral arguements for and against piracy of any kind. I've seen it most thoroughly discussed in the software world.
Sure, a lot of the time piracy protection merely infuriates legitimate users, and someone using your software may at some point decide to pay for it, and (in the monopolistic model) at least they aren't using someone else's software. But at the other end of the spectrum there are plenty of little fish who get screwed over the moment a crack for their application becomes available. I think this is comparable to the soulseek scenario; not everyone who downloads some tunes and really likes them will actually pay for them - in fact I'd bet it would be a tiny minority that would do so.
I dunno... I don't have the answers. But at some price-point it simply becomes easier for people to do the right thing than to go to the trouble of warezing something. For me that point is around the US$2 mark for tracks as part of a single release. Less than that is "good value", more than that (tracks at US$2.49 on beatport) and I start to get very selective. Something like the e-music service represents fantastic value for money - it only sucks because we've become accustomed to the selection/cost of P2P.
Music is luckier than software in a way, because the price per track/transaction is lower so theres less barrier to entry. That said, look at the trend towards (subscription based) web-applications, breaking away from the monolithic OS and legacy application model. The internet is creating truly accessible mass-markets and theres a lot of potential for people to engage fairly autonomously with the marketplace (i.e. the new entrepreneurial class).
Its funny how Google became the old Microsoft became the old IBM became the old Xerox, and the brand-names alone tell the story.
Ramble ramble tangent ramble ramble.
Do these people even exist? This sounds like Napster trying to legitimise its service by saying that its up to the users as to what gets shared - its patently ridiculous given that everyone knows that soulseek/kazaa/etc are synonymous with illicit file-sharing.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
I try to only share stuff that's really hard to get hold of, or things like live bootlegs. There's plenty of that.
bunchoffives
Wild Horses
http://chris.schleifer.net/ssX/
I've been using soulseeX for the last couple of years without problems. The general search never works, but I think that's true for PC users as well. Just make sure you enable it to search chat users and that you're in a few related chat rooms and you'll be fine.
throughsilver
Well-known member
Agreed. Many's the time I've told someone about a CD I'm going to buy, only for them to reply 'just download it!', as though they are shedding some light. The main reason I buy CDs is one I'll mention after this next quotation.
Yep. I see some offishull download systems, and balk at the prices. Granted, they are best for people who only want that one song, but in terms of, say, a new Autechre album, it's not like anybody is going to want the single they heard on the Moyles show. It becomes cheaper to just order the CD from play.com or something.
Of course, the primary reason I buy CDs (and also the reason why I can't get with legal mp3) is for the sound quality. I have a quality, but not amazing (i.e. over a grand for the system, but less than a grand per component) stereo, and mp3 just does not sound as good as a bought CD. Granted, lossless rips sound pretty damn good, but dowloading them is impractical enough that it's probably more convenient to buy the disc.
So as long as artists are making music I like enough to want to hear in proper good quality, I'm going to keep buying. The problem for the music bidneth overall is that more and more people are content with the inherent mediocrity of the iPod or PC speakers...
bassnation
the abyss
yeah, its wicked. the only thing is, i switched to a mac recently and theres not an official osx client. theres a few projects out there like solarseek (http://www.fejta.com/solarseek/) but its pretty buggy. There are others, but they involve messing about compiling shit.
I've now been reduced to using the win version of soulseek via virtualisation of xp, which although not ideal, is way better than the mac alternatives.
Try ssX. I've been using it for a long time with good results myself. Installation doesn't involve CLI commands, compiling or any other tricky *nix stuff.
http://chris.schleifer.net/ssX/
bassnation
the abyss
thanks - will definitely give that a go. prefer not to run windows at all if i can get away with it.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Excellently put.