Why is this stealing? You can already listen to everything that's on Spotify with a free account. You are free to also record the audio while it's playing. I suppose grabbing the actual file should't matter? Or is this about releasing? And robbing people of plays they would otherwise get through Spotify?

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barnabee a day ago | parent | next [-]

> Why is this stealing?

It's not, theft involves taking something from someone, i.e. also depriving them of that thing.

This may be unauthorised copying aka piracy, but it's not theft.

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cm2012 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Downloading it all in bulk is different than personal usage. Its like ai companies hoovering up everything.

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basisword a day ago | parent | prev [-]

If you listen to something on Spotify with a free account the artists still get paid. This isn't a case where you're ripping off so mega-corp. You're ripping off thousands of artists from major label ones to tiny indies. Take the metadata and build something cool. Stealing the files and releasing them is something else entirely.

	▲	prmoustache a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You can record what you play from Spotify and you are already free to play the record again and again and again without the artist being paid. Most people do not because they find it less convenient than paying 20bucks a month or whatever is the current price in 2025 but that doesn't change the reality. For most people the appeal of Spotify is not the music itself but the playlists that are shared thanks to its ubiquity. This is the reason other services struggle to make a dent even if they have better quality, UI and algos. Spotify started by disrupting the market using pirated music by the way so you are pretty much endorsing and encouraging piracy when "paying" your favorite artists through Spotify.
	▲	viraptor a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> with a free account the artists still get paid Unless they're international stars, not really. It's peanuts these days. https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/13djsl9/how_much_d...