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.
Please just tell me that Qobuz is fine. My last straw before going back to piracy.
I’ve been buying mostly mostly from Bandcamp. It’s worked out well. I have a big library, and the people making music got paid.
FYI bandcamp was acquired by Epic and subsequently sold to Songtrader 2023
Fuck streaming. Pirate all the things!
Any way to get recommendations while pirating?
Last.fm, but pay the artists somehow, concerts, merch or imo one of the streaming platforms.
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.
Tidal was originally European but
DayZJay-z bought it up so it’s technically American now; Qobuz is french but it doesn’t have a “brain-dead radio mode”. Both have unofficial Linux clients.Rn I use tidal because it’s on the top 3 of the ones that pay the most to artists iirc(quobuz is up there too) and it hasn’t had a huge American influence that I know of, but do your own research on the alternatives to see which suits you the most, there are tons of articles about them all.
What’s brain-dead radio?
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.
Bandcamp is pretty good, though. Especially on Bandcamp Fridays where all the profits go to the artists. Plus, I like getting FLACs.
Problem with Bandcamp is they got bought out, first by Epic Games and then by Songtradr, and each time it’s gone through enshittification. Bandcamp Fridays used to be a weekly thing but got changed to (EDIT: semi-monthly) with little announcement, and then half their staff got laid off to pad the bottom line. Even with all that they’re better than the alternatives, but they’re still on a decaying trajectory.
And included in half the staff was every member of their union bargaining committee. The workers got done dirty when that sale to Songtradr happened. I’m not even sure if Songtradr has recognized the union yet. They had just won their election (overwhelmingly) and the sale happened right after that.
