Technology

Its as if law makers don't learn from history. Do they not know what happened in the 90s and early 2000s when stores wouldn't sell M rated video games or CDs with mature content labels? We found ways to get around that. We would go to stores that didn't check or care, got our older sibling or friend to buy it for us. We burned copies of our friends CDs, or downloaded stuff off line with Limewire and Napster.

Same shit when there was prohibition in the US. People drove cars across the great lakes to bring alcohol into the US. People brewed there own spirits in bathtubs with radiator coils.

If people want to anomalously watch their favorite weird kinky shit or listing to music they like, they're going to find a way. And, if the easiest way to do that is through piracy, that is what they are going to do.

I mean, fuck Spotify and all that, but this one is really the UK government's doing.

And soon, this shit will come to every country. They're all drafting laws to mandate real age verification for adult content. The UK is just the first to implement it.

Back in the day, Grooveshark was the king before all these subscription guys showed up.

The streaming services are run by shithead C-suites who think last quarter is the way it's always been. They forget the only reason most of us use their services is someone more visionary than them made it more convenient than piracy half a generation ago. Let's remind them there's an alternative.

what are "spotify fans"? Spotify paid 150k $ for Trump's inauguration party, f them. They do not deserve my money

This age-verification bullshit is a fine example of how governments represent their rulers, not their citizens.

Considering how much Spotify pays artists per listens, piracy is barely any different in that regard.

If I am paying for my account personally, with a card in my name, what more do they need?

I have never in my entire life paid for a streaming service. I didn't stop pirating when Netflix was the only game in town and cost $8 / month. I didn't pay for streaming even when every normie started getting internet access and "everyone was doing it". Even during the high point of my life where I was not only gainfully employed but also able to accumulate savings I STILL never had a streaming service. You could count the self hosting spotify clone I made as a "streaming service" but I'm not paying extra money or probably supporting people with different ideological beliefs than me in order to use it so that really doesn't count.

Spotify fans?

tf is spotify "fans"? more like spotify "users"

Ngl, right now I'm endevouring to acquire more music in digital file format rather than streaming right now. Spotify is great, especially when your looking for individual songs that you'll only listen to a handful of times, and for discovering music, but once you lose access to it you're pretty fucked.

This is another step closer to requiring an ID to use the internet at all, which is exactly what the ruling class wants.

Fight back wherever you can.

what's even the point of age gating "explicit" music?

"oh no! "Speak To Me" by Pink Floyd has the fuck word in it! can't let my kids hear it!"

Who could have guessed this very obvious a most expected outcome?! Not Spotify, I guess.

Bandcamp, Soulseek, Navidrome, ListenBrainz.

Has been a pretty solid Spotify-replacement stack.

I don't mind giving my date of birth to all the services I already pay for with credit card but face scanning? That's just creepy. Fuck off.

Seriously, fuck Spotify and anyone else using that error-prone, intrusive, insecure bullshit.

I mean, the Spotify CEO invests in AI weaponry being used to murder kids in Gaza so the morally correct thing to do would be to leave Spotify over that.

Never understood Spotifys appeal. Youtube has always been better imo.

I'm returning to car boot sales to buy cubic meters of CDs.
That, and BandCamp.

Age verification is a great success I see. I feel so much safer now with this shit in place so kids can't watch porn...

A VPN is a must if you wanna go down this route

Soulseek (and I recommend the Nicotine+ client over the official one) is a fantastic source for all music in all formats, and particularly obscure off-label shit you won't get anywhere else. You'll even have some success finding audiobooks there, although this is very hit-and-miss. I wish audiobook pirates would use it more heavily. It's P2P, like Napster used to be. You'll have to share something or you'll get auto-ignored by most users.

RuTracker is a great non-private/non-ratio-monitoring torrent site for music (does require a free account though). I've never had a single torrent from there that wasn't seemingly seeded by a Godzilla's dick. Obviously it's in Russian, but there's really no difficulty navigating around. The only thing you might struggle with is signing up for an account, but just have your favourite translation tool open in another tab 👍

If you don't mind slow download speeds (from the likes of RapidGator), I enjoy Exystence. It's a blog that shares link to the latest albums and offers both lossy and lossless versions. Nice RSS subscription to have.

If you do find yourself using RapidGator a lot, don't waste money buying a sub directly from them, it's insanely pricey. Instead, get a reseller like Real Debrid, which costs like 10% as much and also covers you for about two-dozen other file hosters. I highly recommend putting as much distance between your credit card and the company as possible, just for safety reasons. Using PaySafeCard is fine, as Real Debrid will never see your details in that case. I don't have any specific reason to be weary of them, I just don't trust random/small/hitherto unheard of companies as a rule.

Buy and store your own music. HDTracks and 7Digital both sell high quality DRM free downloads, or you can just swing by your local Walmart or Dollar Store and grab some CDs to rip.

Or you could go sailing, that's always an option...

Personally I could never get into the whole Spotify and Pandora thing. I want to listen to what I want to listen to and when I want to listen to it, without ridiculous restrictions and rules. YouTube has honestly been the far better choice for music for me.

Let this be a reminder to never turn away from piracy. It needs to constantly be in the background and if any company gets like they always do, then it comes back out. But if we let the knowledge fade away then it's impossible to rebuild it.

ah from shady porn sites, like spotify and wikipedia. definitely protect kids from porn there. /s