This month in digital music libraries - March 2022
March 24, 2022 in digital music by Dan Gravell
This month we’ve seen yet more innovation on software music players. Also: thoughts on streaming, both regards its impact on piracy and also its impact on music collecting.
Niche music players
More new software music players this month - it seems that despite the dominance of streaming as the mainstream “listening point”, innovation still occurs on music players. Sometimes, like here with Doppler, the software is aimed at a type of music listener. In this case “people who buy music” (excuse the typo in my original Twitter post).
If you're on the Mac ecosystem, Doppler might be worth a look - "Built for people who like music" https://t.co/1evaJGw8pm by @BrushedType pic.twitter.com/NSf1TA20o3
— bliss (@bliss_music) February 28, 2022
On a similar note, BlackPlayer looks pretty slick for Android:
Nice looking music player for #Android https://t.co/ypJG6k4W8C pic.twitter.com/fgzydvl3LS
— bliss (@bliss_music) March 2, 2022
Also, Plexamp got a new update:
Looks like @plexamp has well and truly jumped from being a will-they-won't-they-ditch-it skunkworks project to being a full-blown, long-term, bet-your-setup-on-it music player. https://t.co/7RVadgTYpT pic.twitter.com/XZLu582Vlr
— bliss (@bliss_music) March 12, 2022
Price didn’t beat the pirates, friction did
It’s an opinion I’ve long held: the early 00s peer-to-peer music sharing phenomenon did not merely occur because the music was free, it occurred because it was easy to access music too. It was a fore-runner of frictionless streaming.
No, piracy didn't go away, the market merely changed. If you want to download music illegally or get a movie for free, it's still possible and not particularly difficult. So why isn't it seen as such a big problem anymore? It has a lot to do with our innate laziness and...
— Andrew Fraser два слова (@Arfness) February 23, 2022
But how much of an impact did those 00s days have? It’s clear on this chart of CD sales. Look at when CD sales started plunging - it’s way before streaming in the late 00s.
The damage to CD sales was done way before streaming. https://t.co/nFqbtiqdRx @digitalmusicnws pic.twitter.com/1lYlxgnejB
— bliss (@bliss_music) March 8, 2022
Collecting music and digital libraries
Some thoughts on an interesting article about how collecting music works in a digital sphere; the impact of streaming and how it changes your relationship with music.
Some thoughts on "The Digital Death of Collecting" (https://t.co/jni9fHS5wK) by @chaykak (thanks Kyle!)... 🧵 (photo: @Clem_ono ) pic.twitter.com/DO3mhorthf
— Astiga (@astigamusic) March 10, 2022
Photo by Bruno Bučar on Unsplash
