this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023

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Privacy

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Any way to listen to music (privately?) (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by TheAlchemist@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I'm going insane. I cannot for the life of me find a suitable way to listen to music privately. I'm on iOS, and I don't know whether to just stick to Apple Music or give up on music in general (I tried, TRIED to go local, but all the apps are shitty). Any way to listen to music and not have your data compromised? Should I just stick to Apple Music and hope that laws change (maybe something like EU's DMA?)

Edit: Hey all! First of all, thank you so much for all the recommendations! I've discovered so many great apps and tools I didn't even know existed (and it has also brought my hopes up for privacy in general). Even though it's still not perfect, I've been using foobar2000 on iOS, downloading music I find (I'm still using Apple Music for discovery, but will probably stop when my subscription ends this month). For desktop I'm using HyperPipe, which although a little buggy at times is so awesome! One thing I do miss about this system is the lack of lyrics. Apple Music has such a beautiful UI when it comes with lyrics, but you can't have it all when it comes to privacy it seems. Thanks for the amazing discussion! I'm so far loving Lemmy ;)

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[–] Xirup@lemmy.dbzer0.com 55 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 children)

I'll be honest, the only way to listen to music privately is to download it. (And using an opensource music player)

There are Github repositories with CLI programs to download complete Spotify playlists with Youtube and also download their metadata.

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 years ago (2 children)

there are also CDs and vinyl 🤷

[–] metaStatic@kbin.social 11 points 2 years ago

something brilliant I've found with modern vinyl is a lot of them come with a download card so you can get lossless files.

now if they would just fucking advertise which ones that would be great.

[–] carloshr@feddit.cl 5 points 2 years ago

This. There was music before the internet.

[–] Zetaphor@zemmy.cc 7 points 2 years ago

I wrote a few scripts to automate this entire process for me:

https://zemmy.cc/post/25500?scrollToComments=true

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[–] HumanPerson@sh.itjust.works 25 points 2 years ago

I use a jellyfin server plus finamp for ios plus totally legal downloaded music that was 100% legally obtained.

[–] Zorque@kbin.social 24 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Do people not just download music anymore?

[–] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago (5 children)

I'm 26, and don't know anyone, myself included, who purchases and downloads music to any significant degree. Essentially everyone I know just uses streaming platforms.

[–] Zorque@kbin.social 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Sounds terrible for privacy.

[–] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 15 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Respectfully, I think you may be drastically overestimating how much average people care about that.

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[–] SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Part of my job is traveling by air, so I got a $30ish sandisc mp3 player with a 200+gb sd card. I have a bunch of music and sometimes podcasts on there. Saves my phone battery, has zero ads, and as a bonus it has fm radio for surfing the stations below as they fade in and out every minute or so.

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[–] shotgun_crab@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

This is always surprising to me. I can understand streaming video due to their high file sizes, but audio (even FLACs) is a lot smaller in general. The only reason I use spotify sometimes is to discover new stuff.

[–] guyrocket@kbin.social 22 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I still buy CDs. And back then up to play in my truck. And rip them.

I still think OWNING media is a good idea. No privacy issues at all.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 years ago

Most of the stuff I listen to isn't mainstream and the band are on Bandcamp. It's great being able to buy the FLAC version right away.

[–] LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Always this, never let physical copies die. They can't revoke shit legally bought and personally archived

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[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 13 points 2 years ago

Have you considered Funk Whale, the Spotify of the Fediverse?

https://funkwhale.audio/

[–] Nikls94@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You could get Spotify and switch it to private.

I don’t really care about other knowing what music I listen to and even use the “AI" to give me songs that I might like. Most of them are not my type but there is 1 or maybe 2 every week that are good that I’d‘ve never searched for.

[–] ExLisper@linux.community 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Exactly, what are the privacy risks of letting someone know what type of music do you like?

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[–] poofbirb@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 years ago

an MP3 player like foobar2000 ...?

[–] StewartGilligan@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you want something on Android, check out ViMusic. It uses YouTube Music as a back-end and can recommend stuff based on what you listen. It also supports offline playback. On desktop, you can use Hyperpipe. It also uses YouTube Music as its back-end.

If you want ultimate privacy, then download your favorite songs and use VLC or self host them and stream it from there.

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[–] Cowremix@artemis.camp 8 points 2 years ago

Classic iPod or mp3 player? Also, the “Music” app on iOS still works like iTunes. You can load albums directly from your computer, even without an Apple Music subscription. Or you could get a Walkman.

[–] Ashiette@lemmy.one 6 points 2 years ago

If you don't want to go local or want a streaming service : qobuz is the less shitty of all options regarding privacy.

[–] airikr@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

I download the music from YouTube (through front-end services like Piped) and play it locally through a music player.

I don't know how it works on iPhone (I have an Android phone), but I can use NewPipe and LibreTube and Seal to download the music. If I'm on the go that is. Otherwise I download the music through ytdlp and transfer the files to my smartphone.

Apple really restrict their users to their own ecosystem.

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[–] utopia_dig@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I'm using Qobuz. Since it is a rather small service, I just hope it is more private than the "big players" like Spotify/Apple Music. But the main benefits of Qobuz are the audio quality and the (afaik) highest payment per streamed song for artists.

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[–] PartyPooper@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Guess I'll be the one to ask. Why do you want music privacy?

[–] ArtisinalBS@lemm.ee 7 points 2 years ago

You assume to know what kind of information is leaking when you use these apps.
How did you come to have these proprietary information?

Unless you have proof otherwise - I'm going to assume that they have access to: My location, my ip, typing speed and common spelling mistakes, IMEI identifiers , installed social media apps....

Now all it takes to make an online profile about you is just one more app or website that leaks the same kind of information

[–] NENathaniel@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yea of all the things to keep private, my music listening habits isn’t one of them. Tbh the algorithms give me good recommendations

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The companies that aggregate data and find patterns in them can probably predict a lot about you from your music listening habits, when they correlate it with data about other people, or even about yourself. The power of profiling isn't in any specific data but in the patterns that emerge when you gather a lot of diverse data about a lot of people.

Listening habits will tell them about your routine, including where you are, when, and when you have time to listen to music (so, therefore, when you don't). If you don't ever listen to music between 8pm and 10pm, for example, it may indicate that you have children to put to bed. If you listen mostly between 12am and 5am it may indicate that you work a nightshift. If you listen between 8 and 9 and again between 5 and 6, you're probably a commuter. When you listen on a computer and when on mobile will tell them something too. And these are only the obvious patterns that I can think of off the top of my head. AI systems running on big data are designed to find patterns humans don't notice.

And of course the styles of music you listen to will be readily correlated with demographic profiles. When you feed data into AI systems designed to find patterns people can't spot, you'll find the most unlikely data reveals things about people that they'd never imagine you could know.

Given this, it's entirely possible that your music listening telemetry could eventually influence your credit score, your insurance premiums, your qualification for security clearances or your employability. You don't know where the data ends up, or with what other data it's correlated. This is why it's desirable in general to keep data private if it's not needed to provide the service.

[–] Grouchy@lemmy.grouchysysadmin.com 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Setup a Koel instance at a host of your choice. Upload your music to it and stream from that. See https://koel.dev/

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[–] willya@lemmyf.uk 5 points 2 years ago

Local with Plex and Plex amp was my best experience. It’s really well done.

[–] Harry_h0udini@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 years ago

For Android- Blackhole | web - beatbumb and hyperpipe

[–] nomadjoanne@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Jellyfin.

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[–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

MP3 files that you own. They can never take them away from you, and you don't have to pay every month for them.

[–] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

Setup your own subsonic or ampache server. nextcloud has an app for that.

[–] hellfire103@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you want a streaming service, you could try HyperPipe. It's an alternative frontend to YT Music. There's also BeatBump, but it doesn't really work.

If you wanted to go local (which I recommend), have you tried foobar2000? It's proprietary, but I trust it and it does its job very well. No ads, no data collection at all, and it plays just about every audio format you'll normally come across (apart from MIDI files). You can also customise it with skins, sync over FTP, and play internet radio streams.

[–] TheAlchemist@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

First of all, I love this thread as I keep finding new stuff I've never heard about. HyperPipe is awesome and it eases my anxiety that there are still private options for music. For foobar, the iOS app is pretty snappy, though it's missing a queue feature. A feature as simple as that is kind of a deal breaker for me. Any hope that there'll be future updates to the iOS app?

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[–] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 5 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Have a copy of all your music and use syncthing if apple allows it that is. Otherwise get a deegoogled android running grapheneOS

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[–] Gutless2615@ttrpg.network 4 points 2 years ago

Gotta pirate it unfortunately. Buy it on band camp and support the artists directly, then host it yourself. Navidrone works great.

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