this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
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Fuck Subscriptions

3326 readers
20 users here now

Naming and shaming all "recurring spending models" where a one-time fee (or none at all) would be appropriate and logical.

Expect use of strong language.

Follow the basic rules of lemmy.world and common sense, and try to have fun if possible.

No flamewars or attacking other users, unless they're spineless corporate shills.

Note that not all subscriptions are awful. Supporting your favorite ~~camgirl~~ creator or Lemmy server on Patreon is fine. An airbag with subscription is irl Idiocracy-level dystopian bullshit.

New community rule: Shilling for cunty corporations, their subscriptions and other anti-customer practices may result in a 1-day ban. It's so you can think about what it's like when someone can randomly decide what you can and can't use, based on some arbitrary rules. Oh what, you didn't read this fine print? You should read what you're agreeing to.

==========

Some other groovy communities for those who wish to own their products, their data and their life:

Right to Repair/Ownership

Hedges Development

Privacy

Privacy Guides

DeGoogle Yourself

F-Droid

Stallman Was Right

Some other useful links:

FreeMediaHeckYeah

Louis Rossman's YouTube channel

Look at content hosted at Big Tech without most of the nonsense:

Piped

Invidious

Nitter

Teddit

 

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Unless there's some agreement / licensing thing prohibiting it, and considering that lyrics don't change, they should be able to do some caching for a total of 1 API call per song

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You and I can do that but they're not just caching they're redistributing which requires royalties

[–] Burn_The_Right 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Displaying written lyrics does not require a royalty payment to anyone.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

It does unless they agree to let you redistribute the lyrics without one. Lyrics are copyrighted.

https://www.musicconnection.com/copyright-issues-scriped-entertainment-song-lyrics/

https://www.thelaw.com/law/are-song-titles-lyrics-protected-by-copyright-or-trademark-law.317/

You may get lucky and have a band that doesn't care or won't notice your operation, but Spotify has music from the big labels and they do care and they will notice.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Surely the cost of lyrics (regardless of fetching API or royalties with caching) are miniscule compared to the other costs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I assume they are not paying for the lyrics, but for the access to the api. The lyrics are also timed to the music and the service they use might do that for them. So, like you say, serving lyrics data costs very little, but that is not what they pay for.

And to add, I don’t really know anything about how this works behind the scenes.

[–] CriticalMiss -2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Not sure why you got downvoted.. storing text isn’t a lot of data, they can easily do it once per song and wrap it up.

[–] stockRot 7 points 2 days ago

... Why would the lyrics service allow that?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The issue isn't the storage, it's the copyright holders

[–] Burn_The_Right 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It is not a copyright infringement to display lyrics.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

It very much is and Spotify would definitely get sued if they weren't paying. I got a cease and desist for an app I made about a decade ago for this very thing