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.
Qobuz is awesome and still 100% french. Also the platform which pays artists better then spotify
Thanks, I’ll prefer Bandcamp.
Now seriously: Does Qobuz have a equal catalog to Spotify and a bigger/more mainstream catalog than Bandcamp?
Yes, Qobuz is significantly more mainstream than BandCamp. I don’t know if the catalogue is on par with Spotify or AM or whatever, but most popular music is on it.
Bandcamp is like an indie zine that occasionally ships with a burned CD from a local band that has to live in the same rented house with no A/C and a half empty bottle of makers mark in the fridge.
Qobuz is a record store.
Good to know.
Didnt get that impression from Bandcamp but maybe that depends on the artists you listen so.
I’d say I get the impression way more with Soundcloud.Holy shit 😂😂 Accurate
you guys need to understand that there are no goodguy rich folk
YSK he’s ukrainian and has since decades lived in the west, US/Shitrael.
He’s a jewish zionist POS.
So he’s a western oligarch, but don’t let facts keep you from blaming ‘the Russians’YSK that he grew up in Yaroslavl, Russia to Russian-speaking Jewish parents. Calling him “Ukrainian” just because he was born in Odesa during the Soviet Union is misleading. He had/has close ties to the Russian state and became wealthy off of Russian oil and aluminium deposits in the 90s.
So yes, you can blame “the Russians”, but you should rather blame the system.
He emigrated to the US in 1978.
He has dual US/UK citizenship,like many horrible zionists. Studied at Columbia.
“became wealthy off of Russian oil and aluminium deposits in the 90s.”
Like many western oligarch who leeched the ex-soviet states under Gorbachev and Yeltzin, the sell outs.
These are facts, completely ridiculous to demonise Russia for this american-brit POS just bcs he has Russian roots.
" but you should rather blame the system."
What system?
If you mean the US/UK horrible imperialist and colonial warmongers and genocide supporters causing misery in the world then yes.
Glad they are circling the drain, their time is over.
You can cry about evil Russia, China or whatever, that won’t change reality.You know what’s completely ridiculous? Your black or white view of the world. Reality is that there is no benevolent state or any kind of financially succesful entity that isn’t built on some form of exploitation. The Western system is evil. So is Russia for sure. China. UAE and the Saudis. You have India now rising by building strong ties with USA and Israel. There’s no geopolitical force that’s built on good. That you’re incapable of realising that and just go “West bad so everyone else good” is quite telling about you. Besides, Russian Jews - strongly overrepresented in the oligarchs statistics - traditionally have strong ties to the Israeli state and Zionism. Russia’s - like everyone else’s - current interests are only based on what they perceive to be the most gainful. If Putin could’ve benefitted from siding with Israel instead of the China-Iran-Assad axis he would’ve done so immediately. To even suggest that Russia is anti-Zionist out of benevolence is insane.
Besides you now say he has “Russian roots” but right before you were attempting to convince people that he was “Ukrainian”. So
There is no discussion which one is the evil one.
The US (and vasals) with it’s eternal wars, meddling and regime changes, 800 bases around the world threatening their enemies.
Or Russia, that had no choice but to react against NATO and their expansion right up to the border with the inevitability of nukes too close to defend against.
Oh no, they’re so horrible!
Really give it up, the majority of the world doesn’t give a fuck about the western russophobia and knows who’s at fault.
Asia, Africa or S-America know who to xhose between Russia, China or ‘the west’ who have done nothing their entire existance but colonialism and leeching.
Now go cry somewhere else, you bore me and haven’t got a leg to stand on.
Might as well be shilling for Shitrael, which I also have no tolerance for.
Blocking you.Don’t you tell me Russia hasn’t been waging wars. That’s an insane statement. Even looking past Ukraine, since the breakdown of the Russian Empire 2.0 (aka the Soviet Union) Russia has invaded Georgia twice, Transnistria, Chechnya twice, and Dagestan, as well as having upheld Al-Assad’s regime - don’t tell me that guy isn’t evil even if he stood up to Israel - and are now heavily involved in Burkina Faso, Mali, and the CAR. Now do you want to talk about all the shit Russia got up to between 1920 - 1991? Or the countless genocides of the Russian Empire as well as the continuous oppression of ethnic minorities in the Caucasus and Siberia, including using them as human meat shields in Ukraine?
The West deserves hate, but so does Russia. Don’t be a tankie idiot. No one is choosing Russia because Russia isn’t that important anymore. Others are choosing China and that makes sense.
Please just tell me that Qobuz is fine. My last straw before going back to piracy.
@[email protected]: Qobuz is awesome and still 100% french. Also the platform which pays artists better then spotify
Bandcamp?
(ignoring the fact that it was owned by Epic. But they still do Bandcamp Friday)I’m trying to focus on European offerings. Bandcamp is based in California, I think. Recent months have shown that US companies cannot be relied on.
Interesting and mostly agreed.
Get Tidal instead
Or better yet buy directly from the artist
I don’t understand the mental gymnastics some people do to reach the conclusion that piracy is the “ethical thing” to do. What about the artists? How is that any better for us? If you all pirate then we go from getting peanuts to getting nothing.
In fact, piracy sort of birthed streaming in the first place. There were Limewire and Napster, then streaming platforms came along to basically legalize piracy… Hell, the Spotify CEO used to be the CEO of uTorrent
People used to upload pirated music to YouTube. So you know what happened? YouTube came up with their song detection system that now pays artists when their track is streamed, even if it was uploaded by someone else. Even if it plays in the background of a vlog. See what I mean? Legalized piracy.
PS: I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed
Tidal is ok, its american though and they suck.
Oh no what will Taylor Swift do? Pirating from someone with $30 versus $2 billion are 2 very different things, bud. Plus non megastar artists typically make more of their money from things like performances and merch these days.
the megastars aren’t the ones we care about making money, they’re fine. it’s the 99% of the rest of the artists that either get screwed by the labels or are independent and rely on fan support
Well if you only listen to Taylor Swift then that’s valid, but most people have a more diverse music taste so for them this doesn’t apply. The artists I personally listen to (and the labels they’re signed to) are often relatively small and genuine, and to them every bit of income is appreciated. Obviously merch, shows, and direct music sales help more, but getting paid more by streaming services sure would help a great deal as well.
The Same with Telegram, his fiunder - Nikolai Dutov still lives in Russia and CEO lives in UAE.
Really sad, I can recommend tidal though
reputation laundering against Ukraine
What does this mean?
This needs a side of creamy Italian
wtf are russian billionaires doing supporting America’s attack dog in the middle east anyway?
He’s pro russia, they like that
And America is anti-Russia, so why would they support America’s attack dog?
Trump and his party are ruining that horrible country rapidly so it’s normal a great part of the world likes that.
The slightly less fascist dems keep their regime’s fascism and horrible abuses for their many many foreign wars so the imperialism keeps running like clockwork because their voters who only care about themselves aren’t bothered by what they do elsewhere and don’t need to complain as they do now.
They are here every day crying about how they want to get back to their perfect democracy.
Genocide, regime changes, wars, kids in cages were OK right up to Trump, as long as it didn’t inconvenience them.Ok, but that doesnt answer my question. What does a Russian billionaire get out of supporting Israel?
Well to start he’s not Russian but ukrainian and since decades a western oligarch spendig a lot of time in the US. (but always nice to smear Russia for everything imaginable) Those countries are 2 birds of a feather and support eachother.
And he’s a jewish zionist with a lot of business interests in Shitrael.Have you tagged as sneaky Russian shill and you never seem to disappoint.
LOL can’t take facts?
Anything against western nazi propaganda is a Russian troll.
Pathetic.
The majority of Israelis are of Russian descent
I use refreezer lol
I remember trying to download Deezer once years ago, but it was like Nope sir not in the United States in this lifetime
Those bastards always literally wanting the world at their feet.
deleted by creator
You lost?
I like him already
Since we are on this topic I would incentivise everyone to take a look at resonate.
They are, AFAIK, the only music streaming service where artists, workers and listeners are owners (aka it’s a cooperative)
This is an interesting idea, but I find their catalogue to be quite terrible for me (so far). Service like this really, really needs big names and much broader catalogue to attract people and start moving. Even though I’m far far from listening to mainstream I literally could not find a single interpret I looked for, and believe me I tried.
Looks like new sign ups are paused right now, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.
Its not even a flatrate
The pricing looks like its stacking quick if you do neither listen to the same songs over and over or entirely new ones, i dont know if I find the pricing fair for the consumer.
Yeah this is not a transparent pricing model. You start at $0.025 and “go up” from there but I can’t find how much. After you listen to a song 9 times and have paid $1.40 you “own” it but can still only listen to it on their service?
This sounds like iTunes with more steps.
I’m not sure where you get the information that it’s not DRM free
They explicitly say you can download songs while not mentioning the inclusion of any DRM
I’m curious where you found that
It’s still not possible, according to the FAQ: Q: Can I download music I own on Resonate? A: In the future, we intend to offer the ability to download tracks that you own on Resonate to your local device. This feature is not yet available.
So for now, it’s just streaming.
Oh wow, so you never own anything then
This is an interesting idea, but I would assume that over time, the number of “owned” streams would dominate the number of “new” streams, and thus eventually their operating costs would reach a point where they don’t have the revenue to cover it…
I guess it depends on how much new music is released, added to the library, and then streamed by the users. It’s a valid concern to be sure, but I wonder if it could be offset by user growth and new music to be a non issue
Even if we assume there’s an achievable rate of growth that can consistently outpace owned plays at any given time, as with every business, there will come a day when growth slows. And at that point, they’ll be forced to solve the problem.
And then there’s all the questions of, can I download my tracks to play offline? What if they go out of business? How many artists/labels are even going to agree to this? What about tracks I buy outside of their platform? And what does “own” actually mean given that you never “own” music you buy physical media for, you don’t have any copyright, you can’t play that media for profit, you just have a license to listen to that copy personally. By default the artist “owns” their art. But do they have to give that ownership up to the co-op?
It’s going to be tough to convince people who don’t care to switch away from spotify, and there’s no reason for someone who can self-host to use it unless it’s somehow more effective at funding musicians than just buying their tracks directly.
I wish them luck making the idea work, but I think they have their work cut out for them.
I think that’s all fair.
I was really interested in the idea of using it as a way of growing my offline and/or self hosted collection. Fair compensation for artists while still being able to have good new music discovery and grow my library at the same time would be really cool.
Still to be seen if they can manage, to your point, but I’ll hold out a little hope until they lose their goodwill
Yeah, i couldn’t find anywhere on their site that indicated I would be able to download tracks I own. That would change the equation I think. Then maybe they only charge for streaming and track download bandwidth. I could behind something like that. Then it feels like a better version of Bandcamp.
Currently I use Tidal to supplement my self-hosted library, but that’s primarily due to music selection and artist compensation. If they didn’t have random tracks I want to play, I would use something else.
I think the stream to own MP3 like you just downloaded from Bandcamp or something definitely has to be the model from the start. Then they can tweak it from there.
At that point their governance structure would show it’s strengths by enabling a democratic decision taking that could solve the issue
Workers, for example, could suggest a small subscription fee that would cover the infrastructure cost, while listeners will most likely object, their view would be valued and impact the approval of any proposed solution
That’s fair, just…for this to scale, it needs to be competitive with existing streaming services. And if the experience for a listener is the same whether a democratic panel raises prices, or greedy enshittification raises prices, there’s not going to be an upside.
To me, the potential upside is identifying the problems with their revenue stream now out in the open, and addressing it now, rather than trying to build a captive audience now and pivot to something more sustainable later (as is the strategy for capitalist startups).
