this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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I want to start releasing my own music and have no interest in the corporate streaming platforms. I have only a basic conceptual understanding of torrenting but it seems to me like a nice way of sharing my music with people directly.

What do I need to do and consider in order to make a music release freely available in this way?

Currently my knowledge and experience is limited to using an application on my computer to search for and download files from others but I'm willing to learn.

Any advice or signposting much appreciated :)

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Been telling ppl they have a better chance of eventually blowing up on Funkwhale and then making money off their fans in the future than they do organically any other way now. Im delusional about the fediverse tho.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I don't think you're wrong. I think the big corporate music streaming platforms are basically a low key scam. They are effectively pointless (beyond free file hosting), unless you are one of the 0.001% of artists that are heavily promoted on them and are an insult to musicians everywhere. More musicians need to reject the proposition of being one of the bottom stones that holds up their pyramid. I would rather my music was unknown on independent sites than unknown on theirs, where it will only add value to an exploitative business model and help to further entrench it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Put it on your website and it will end up on a torrent site if anyone wants it.

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

I'll do that too but I would like to get actively involved in a music release pipeline that I think could be really positive. I guess I want to give to the listener as directly as possible.

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

OCRemix.Org already does this with their music, so its possible.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Nothing to worry about unless you've signed a contract with someone. Normally when you sign with a record label you're selling them the rights to your music, so they could sue you if you try to give it away or sell it without them being involved. Record labels are known to be pretty predatory...

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

Thanks for the link - been down a rabbit hole for the last hour or so! Really interesting. I've never really dealt with crypto but direct transactions look awesome. The fact that it uses open protocols is great too.

Have you released anything on it or are you a listener?

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

It's built around bitcoin and does not have any shitcoinery.

I'm a listener but value for value is definitely the future. I have myself paid people for thier music & know lots of artists that have made more than they did on centralized platforms.

You can find way more information on nostr too: https://primal.net/wavlake

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

On the technical side of things, in order to create a torrent, you can just use something like QBittorrent to do the job. I've never uploaded something to a public tracker, but private trackers just have you fill out a form and upload the torrent file. Be sure to seed it, obviously.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Thanks 👍 I already use QBittorrent for downloading so I will look at that. What does it mean to 'seed' a file? And would the QBittorrent application need to be open constantly for this to work? If so, I may see about installing it on a VPS instead.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Seeding is a good way to be a good pirate. Some sites show your seed to leech ratio. As a rule of thumb, I usually try to seed double what I leech, but if I find something niche without a lot of seeders I try to maintain until the seeder rate becomes healthy. Simply put, you just don't delete or stop the torrent after its completely downloaded and don't quit your client. Just let it keep going.

You may find that your internet speed drops when seeding. In that case, most clients have a way to cap your upload speeds. Most modern internet speeds can keep up though; it used to be required way back when dial-up and DSL was more prevalent. You know, the good old times of spending three days downloading a movie to find out that it was scat porn.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

The torrent protocol works by having uploader (seeders) users sharing their files to downloader users (leechers). Users are topically both seeders and leechers.

With that in mind, to seed a file means to share it with others. And yes, you need your torrent client open for that. QBitTorrent is amazing and doesn't have much overhead in your system, plus you can limit your upload speed and net upload. Some console-based torrent apps are even lighter. No VPS required unless you have specific constraints.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

On top of what everyone else has said you could always use soulseek as a way to get it out there

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

Thanks. How does Soulseek work?

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

It’s peer-to-peer like torrents, but on its own network. Use can share anything but it’s primarily used for music. You set a folder to share from and if someone looks up a file you have, they can download it from you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Great, thank you 👍

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

What this dude said.

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