Music News

Streaming Music Continues to Kill Online Music Piracy

I’ve said it plenty of times: if you’re still stealing music, you’re stupid. Why go to all that trouble when you can sign up to a streaming music service for free and have access to 35 million songs? It just doesn’t make sense.  Yet some people are lamenting the era when people pirated everything they could. This is from Pacific Standard:

Streaming music online, whether to Web browser, desktop app, or smartphone, is nothing new. Even Spotify has existed since 2008. But things hit a breaking point recently with Apple’s entrance into the increasingly crowded market. Apple has two big streaming products: the Spotify-like Apple Music player and the Beats 1 radio station (named after the headphone brand the company acquired). Together, they form streaming’s current apogee: an on-demand music system that exists natively on the world’s most recognizable devices.

The all-encompassing package has been receiving mostly positive reviews so far, both for its design and its recommendation offerings. It’s not so different from Spotify. Users pay a monthly subscription fee for ad-free music, money that trickles down to record labels and artists, dependent on how many plays a song gets. Based on your listens and preferences, the Apple platform will build playlists and make recommendations. Apple Music will cost $9.99 a month after a three-month free trial; Spotify Premium currently costs $0.99 for three months and then the same $9.99 afterward.

In the rush to embrace cloud services and curation, we’ve also lost touch with our proud history of less polished music consumption. We used to be pirates.

Er, yeah. But what’s your point? Keep reading.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 37838 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

One thought on “Streaming Music Continues to Kill Online Music Piracy

  • I’ve been a Slacker Radio premium service subscriber since last October and I love it!

    Reply

Let us know what you think!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.