Sources to purchase mp3s?

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨the_abecedarian@piefed.social⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

On this thread: https://piefed.social/post/1243539 one of the main points of contention is about the tension between how spotify pays artists very little, but piracy doesn't, on it's own, pay them at all.

I'm a heavy user of bandcamp, but i know that it has strengths and weaknesses: it's great for finding independent artists and small labels, but it doesnt have a big catalog for popular tracks.

Do people have experience with other sources for purchasing? What about https://us.7digital.com/ ?

Specifically for self hosting, is there a way to streamline purchases from sites like these into lidarr? If not, is there an automated solution for (1) uncompressing a downloaded archive file from a purchase, then (2) making it conform to a file/folder organizational structure, and (3) having navidrome, jellyfin, etc import it?

Just trying to find workable ideas for owning music and getting artists most of the money.

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ianfraserkrillmaster@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
hot take: if an artist is already popular, then they dont need your support anywhere near as much as a bandcamp artist does. i believe it is ethical to enjoy “popular” music without paying for every megabyte. just go see them when they come to town and buy a t-shirt if the spirit moves you.

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- _NetNomad@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  +1 for Bandcamp. they often run a "bandcamp friday" event where they waive their cut of all music sold that day, so almost everything (payment processors still take a cut) goes to the artist. there are also self-hosted alternatives to bandcamp like faircamp
  
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  - Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Wow, that says a lot for Bandcamp
    
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  - ianfraserkrillmaster@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    i’ll have to check those out!!
    
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  - svddendesire@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Every first Friday of the month if I’m not mistaken.
    
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scholar@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You could also buy CDs and rip them

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- Australis13@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This is definitely a decent starting point but not a complete solution, unfortunately. It's not always cost-effective if you only want a few tracks from an album or need to import it to get it at all (or if it was a limited release it can be hard to find at all).
  
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- tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  CDs take quite some space once you have more than like 50. Selling them after ripping in large quantities is a lot of work. I wouldn’t buy CDs unless I’m really into the physical medium (nothing wrong with that - sadly, most downloads lack high res artworks, booklets etc).
  
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  - seathru@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I just donate them when I’m done. Often you can buy the physical CD cheaper from places like discogs than you can a digital version. So I don’t feel bad giving them away afterwards. Someone might even discover the bands I love.
    
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  - DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    You could always get binders to stick them in to save space that way.
    
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- non_burglar@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Legal, yes. Supports the artist? No.
  
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  - Stillwater@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The artists don’t make money on CD sales?
    
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- Know_not_Scotty_does@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Unrelated but did you know that Libraries oftentimes have cd’s, dvd’s, and even audiobooks available to borrow?
  
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  - frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yes, and while borrowing contributes to their “we’re needed, please fund us” justification, it doesn’t directly support the artists.
    
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riquisimo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Deezer, Qobuz, and Bandcamp. Between those three you should have everything.

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- tycho@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Frequent buyer on Qobuz, I can recommend.
  
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- jnod4@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Can somebody make deezer give regional prices? 15usd it’s a lot of money in some places
  
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  - riquisimo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I didn’t say it was cheap, lol. I saidn it’s where you can buy music.
    
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sj_zero ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I personally used 7digital to rebuild my music collection. They sell good licensed mp3s.

I have absolutely nothing negative to say about them. The prices were decent, the files are boring DRM free MP3s, and they had a really good selection of music.

Honestly it looks almost exactly the same as when I used it for the first time like 15 years ago.
- nix98@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  They also sell flac. Bandcamp is my primary but 7digital is great for popular stuff.
  
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Korkki@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I hope whatever platform you end up using also provides other formats than mp3. Like ogg is superior replacement, or flac for lossless.

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killeronthecorner@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I buy vinyls and merch. It doesn’t entirely cut out the middleman but it’s less morally bankrupt than giving it to record labels

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- onslaught545@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Exactly. I go to concerts and buy their merch.
  
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tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I just set up Navidrome in my lunch break and am looking into exactly this. I hadn’t downloaded/organized my last Bandcamp purchases and now I have 32 zip files on my laptop and am wondering how to get them properly tagged and sorted in the existing library.

I’m rereading this article by @nfreak@lemmy.ml and it seems like beets could be an answer, but I don’t fully understand what exactly it does yet.

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- minimalfootprint@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Beets can organize your music library. It uses musicbrainz IDs to identify songs and albums, it can move/copy the files into folders. You can also convert files right away. I created additional mp3 files and moved Thema into a separate folder for use on my phone to save space.
  
  There are plugins to normalize the volume. Loads of dstuff. You just have to set up a config file to your needs and you are good to go.
  
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- dracs@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’ve just started using beets for organizing my collection. It’s relatively easy once you get the hang of it. Ease I suppose differs based on how organised/tagged your collection is currently.
  
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- AnExerciseInFalling@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Beets is one solution, and I also recommend taking a look at Musicbrainz Picard. It’s a more graphical and user friendly way (though more manual) to identify, organize, tag, and sort music into a preferred format. It’s what I use on all my Bandcamp purchases to clean up metadata and add things like lyrics before it automatically throws it into the right folder
  
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jqubed@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I think I’ve bought from 7digital a time or two in the past and had no problems. Obviously there are issues with Amazon as a company, but I think they were the first big name to offer DRM-free MP3 purchases and I used it a lot back when it first launched, especially since they offered a selection of albums each month for just $5. They should have most mainstream music available for purchase, depending on which country you’re in. According to this Wikipedia page listing music stores they only offer 256 kbps MP3 but I was sure most if not all were upgraded to 320 kbps now, although of course you would have to re-download anything if you had downloaded the lower-quality version previously. That Wikipedia page is a good link to other stores as well, with a number I’d never heard of including specialty stores.

Also, along with someone else’s comment mentioning ripping CDs like the old days, check to see if you have a local record store. It’s been a mantra since at least the Gen-X days to “support your local scene.” I know in Raleigh the longtime staple Schoolkids Records is still alive and kicking, although their Chapel Hill store closed last year. It might take some digging but it can be worth seeing if there’s a local store in your area.

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cantankerous_cashew@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I used to buy from Beatport when I was actively djing. Nice because the tracks are available in 320kbps or lossless. No idea how much Beatport’s cut is though

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ushmel@piefed.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Buy vinyl with download card, sell vinyl without download card. It's..... an option....

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DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I’m not so sure I would recommend 7Digital anymore since they’ve been delisting a lot of stuff lately, meaning even if you already bought it, you can’t download it anymore.

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exu@feditown.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I think Amazon and Qobuz both offer some music for purchase.

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dabe@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Everyone gave good alternatives for where to buy music. As for the pipeline for getting them into your music server, I have Picard running in a container (a couple projects do this, search docker picard) and I have the settings all configured so that when I drop in files to my NAS (though samba or whatever), then I just double click the folder in Picard and hit save and it moves it into my music server’s directories, all properly and nicely tagged (I have the container volumes all set up properly as well)

You can look into beets or wrtag for more automation friendly tagging services.

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marty_mcfly@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I borrow CDs from library, buy from bandcamp and 7digital. I keep audio files on my laptop in a organized folder structure by genre/album and rsync to my Jellyfin. To listen, i play from my laptop to bluetooth speakers and I use the FinAmp app on my iPhone to listen on the road because it has a sweet Offfline mode. Also, i have a nice usb DAC to direct connect (RCA) my laptop to my HiFi system in the basement. I support a local indie radio station which helps with music discovery.

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