Spotify's Beta Used 'Pirate' MP3 Files, Some from Pirate Bay

Re:Spotify's Beta Used 'Pirate' MP3 Files, Some from Pirate Bay by shawabawa3 on Friday February 28, 2025 @05:20AM (#43203968)

> I am not young, and I was around for both. What was the difference?

imo the difference is that spotify at least tried to hide it

when you searched for songs on grooveshark you'd get names back like "Tame Impala - The Slow Rush (2020) Mp3 (320kbps) [Hunter]"

also IIRC grooveshark never even tried to set up revenue share with labels/artists

Spotify cheated behind the scenes and a veneer of following the rules, which eventually transitioned into actually following the rules and paying out artists

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Re:Spotify's Beta Used 'Pirate' MP3 Files, Some from Pirate Bay by zyberzero on Friday February 28, 2025 @09:42AM (#43206137)

I was using Spotify Beta way back when, and they absolutely had songs named like that as well. I specifically remember one of Pink Floyd's albums (pretty sure is was a copy of the wall) as such.

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Re:Spotify's Beta Used 'Pirate' MP3 Files, Some from Pirate Bay by ilikehurdles on Friday February 28, 2025 @10:23AM (#43206611)

grooveshark aggregated from blogs and other web sources. If I recall correctly you could follow links back to those places. Back then the web was full of decentralized independent writers doing music reviews or producing mixes or capturing new bootlegs from live shows. Grooveshark indexed those and made them playable in one location, but I don’t think it ever hosted any of the files.

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