this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
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The company is Access Industries and the Founder and Owner is Leonard Blavatnik

Along with what's in the title, he is accused of reputation laundering against Ukraine and has been personally sanctioned by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was also part of a WhatsApp group involving some of the United States' most powerful business leaders with the stated goals of "changing the narrative" in favour of Israel and "helping win the war" against Gaza.

Everything is in the linked Wikipedia article about him, mostly under the "Controversies and disputes" part.

I switched to Deezer after seeing it recommended as a better Spotify alternative here on Lemmy, but after finding all this I immediately stopped using it. It's as bad as the shit Spotify does and has done IMO. I'm not here to recommend or push an alternative, but if I can give info on what I use now if someone asks.

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[–] lechekaflan@lemmy.world 1 points 33 minutes ago

Those bastards always literally wanting the world at their feet.

[–] HurlingDurling@lemmy.world 22 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Fuck streaming. Pirate all the things!

[–] Echolynx@lemmy.zip 7 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Libraries have a ton of CDs too... even newer ones.

[–] HurlingDurling@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago

Yep, but only local artists, this is why I buy CDs when I travel internationally.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

That's how I know my money doesn't end on fifhty hands!

I just wish more artists had like a direct donation address (or do some direct sales on their website), without absolutely any intermediates, so I could pay them for their work. But I'd rather not pay anything that pay most of my money to undeserving people.

[–] HurlingDurling@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago

Bandcamp should be used by more musicians.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 43 points 12 hours ago (6 children)

None of the online music streamers are ethical. Every single one, to varying degrees, robs the artists and enriches their CEO's and shareholders.

Do the ethical thing.

Don't use them, and instead, use a Youtube-to-MP3 converter and steal the music.

[–] tomkatt@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

I dunno, Qobuz seems pretty fucking solid, and still allows for purchasing your music directly in FLAC and other formats. What drama is there about them?

[–] Wiz@midwest.social 1 points 2 hours ago

This past week I found DoubleDouble.top which has superior quality that YouTube converters IMHO.

https://us.doubledouble.top/

[–] derin@lemmy.beru.co 15 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Bandcamp is pretty good, though. Especially on Bandcamp Fridays where all the profits go to the artists. Plus, I like getting FLACs.

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[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 10 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Are you under the impression that this will pay any artist anything?

It's fine to take a pro-piracy stance, but pretending that you're doing it out of concern for the artists is grade A-bullshit.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

You're right.

I should figure out a way to replace the income these artists get for my individual stream. It comes out to fractions upon fractions of a penny.

The point here is robbing the CEO. There's no meaningful impact to the artist (unless you're Taylor Swift) thanks to the way these services are structured.

[–] threeduck@aussie.zone 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I have some music on streaming services, and get a couple of coins every month. If you pirate my music instead, I'll get nothing.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Set up a Patreon and offer exclusive music content to subscribers, sell directly to fans through Bandcamp. With good marketing and social media presence you would get several times what any streaming service will pay you ever. Even if most people are pirating your music. If you are being pirated, you are worth listening to, and that means that people are willing to pay you something. I tell this to all aspiring musicians, companies are not your friend, labels are not your buddies. The pirate is not your enemy, the megabillionaire monopolistic corp is. Many musicians owe their popularity because a music pirate put their stuff online and got them noticed.

[–] overload@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 hours ago

Are you suggesting in the end here that music pirates are paying artists in exposure? Musicians really can't catch a break SMH

[–] bigb@lemmy.world 15 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

Go a step further and use something like Deemix to grab FLAC files from their servers

[–] Anivia@feddit.org 2 points 5 hours ago

Or Tidal-dl-ng for Tidal

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[–] Mamdani_Da_Savior@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

As a fan I kinda view the music business this way

  • Your music brings me in
  • You make money off selling ads on your videos and content and platforms
  • You make money selling merch
  • You make money doing shows
  • You MIGHT make a little streaming, but it won't be much

That's how I see it.

[–] DirtPuddleMisfortune@feddit.org 3 points 3 hours ago

I saw a documentary one, and one artist said: back in the days, you made shows to sell your music (vinyl, later CDs), but now you make music to go on tour and make shows.

[–] obvs@lemmy.world 12 points 10 hours ago (5 children)

I switched to Deezer because I found reasons why all of the others were unethical. What would you suggest for a streaming service whose services are ethical?

[–] weaselsrippedmyflesh@lemmy.pt 6 points 8 hours ago

I would personally suggest Qobuz, as it is demonstrably the service that pays artists the most and has multiple tiers of lossless audio options. The next best thing would be to buy from artists directly, whenever possible (maybe even physical media, if you have a good sound system for that).

People here advocating for piracy sound cute, but I wonder how actual musicians would feel about that.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Pirate everything. Pay directly to artists only when they allow you to do so (like direct sales on their website). If they don't allow you to make money go to them without also paying pigs then don't pay them at all.

[–] COASTER1921@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

What options are there for pirating music? I felt Lidarr was not particularly useful due to the lack of indexers. Unless you like mainstream music it's quite difficult to find many tracks online (and I'm too picky to be okay with YouTube rips).

Considering music streaming isn't fragmented in the same way video streaming is, it's still well worth paying for a music streaming service as part of a family plan imo. There's no other hassle free solution to instantly listen to anything I want and be recommended new tracks based on my listening preferences.

I don't think there's any particularly "ethical" option, until now I've just used Spotify knowing that they're losing money anyway. But it turns out they posted their first profitable year last year so who knows what the move is now. Qobuz claims to be ethical and high quality, but I don't know how good the library is and like with any company they can become evil later.

[–] snekmuffin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

Soulseek has practically everything, outside of the most niche stuff

[–] jwmgregory@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

i wish people would understand that copyright and the entire existing economic system built around art are all intended to oppress the little guy.

i think getting a grip on what you just said here is probably the first sort of real step in that direction for people.

can’t even count the number of times i’ve had someone respond to me with some variation of “oh so you don’t care about the artists’ WORK/LABOR/BALLS then, do you??” as some sort of accusation because i said something negative about copyright… when that’s not remotely the case - for me it’s based in a sentiment very similar to this ethos here regarding piracy. to me, the brain dead people rabidly defending a system where leeches can MitM artists and their clients are the ones who don’t care about artists or their work.

[–] dropped_packet@lemmy.zip 6 points 10 hours ago (2 children)
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[–] psoul@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

I literally switched from Spotify yesterday…

Everyone says bandcamp is a good alternative but the main added value from streaming services, for me, is discovery. I don’t think I can afford the time to go on bandcamp and download every song I like one by one. I would also be lost when in need to discover new music.

[–] ghostlychonk@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

My biggest issue with Bandcamp is that there's so many artists I listen to that just aren't on there.

[–] threeduck@aussie.zone 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I like Tidal, it pays the artists the most of all services.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

Tidal might pay the most of streaming services (others in here are claiming it's Qobuz) but Bandcamp pays the most to artists in general as the purchases pay much higher than streams. Bandcamp charge 15%, everything else goes to the band/label until they hit $5k in sales, and then Bandcamp's fee drops to 10% and stays there for additional sales. If you wait to buy in bulk on 'Bandcamp Fridays', which happen about 10 times a year, the artists take 100% on those days.

Imo Bandcamp is by far the best service for supporting artists.

[–] burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

i cant believe Divers Duomo would do this

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