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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 65 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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 26 points 2 years ago

there are also CDs and vinyl 🤷

[-] CarlsIII@kbin.social 13 points 2 years ago

Whoa, you can store music on CDs? That’ll save me a lot of bandwidth!

[-] 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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[-] Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works 47 points 2 years ago

Yeah. Buy it directly from the artist then throw it all into a self hosted service like plex or jellyfin.

[-] PastorHaggis@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago

Yup. Buy CDs, vinyl or digital from Bandcamp or from the artist direct and then host it on Plex.

I've thought about trying jellyfin but Plexamp is just so nice that I don't think I could leave it.

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[-] Zorque@kbin.social 26 points 2 years ago

Do people not just download music anymore?

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 10 points 2 years ago

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 9 points 2 years ago

Sounds terrible for privacy.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 18 points 2 years ago

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

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[-] SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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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[-] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 years ago

He didn't say anything about purchasing...

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[-] HumanPerson@sh.itjust.works 26 points 2 years ago

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

[-] RVMWSN@lemmy.ml 26 points 2 years ago

I don't think you should expect any privacy on an Apple device

[-] jvrava9@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 years ago

Im on a Jailbroken iPhone with all Apple network requests blocked with AdGuard and no Appleid.

[-] blitzen@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago

Honestly, I’d trust a vanilla iPhone over that hacked together mess you’ve got going there.

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[-] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 4 points 2 years ago

Any way you could share the guide you used?

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[-] guyrocket@kbin.social 23 points 2 years ago

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 15 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.

[-] kick_out_the_jams@kbin.social 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-update

it's worth noting that the first friday of each month they usually forgo their cut so more money goes to the artists.

[-] LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 years ago

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

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[-] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 16 points 2 years ago

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

https://funkwhale.audio/

[-] StewartGilligan@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

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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[-] poofbirb@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 years ago

an MP3 player like foobar2000 ...?

[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

Self-host your library? I don't know why that seems so hard, going by your phrasing.

If you absolutely must listen to music online (I empathise, I need to do so to find new music), here's what I do: Librewolf with Ublock Origin, Cookie Manager, Dark Reader, NoScript + music.youtube.com.

No advertisements, minimal tracking (because you will explicitly disable every other script than the one(s) required to stream music). Use a VPN and fake your user-agent/browser fingerprint for more privacy (haven't done it since I can't figure out how to do so for Firefox).

Cheers

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[-] Cowremix@artemis.camp 10 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.

[-] Nikls94@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago

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 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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

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[-] quantenzitrone@feddit.de 8 points 2 years ago

If anyone is interested, i recently developed my own system of defining my music library declaratively in the Nix programming language and started switching to it. It creates folders as playlists and can automatically download the music from YouTube or SoundCloud. I plan to expand and improve this further.

I doubt this will work on IOS tho, sorry OP.

https://codeberg.org/quantenzitrone/declarative-music.nix

[-] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 7 points 2 years ago

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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[-] Ashiette@lemmy.one 7 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.

[-] Lord_McAlister@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

What kind of psychopath uses Amazon music? Like I'm already appaled people would use apple music, Amazon music just seems mental....

[-] Aatube@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago

Apple Music has very good quality, packs some value, a very beautiful and intuitive UI (if you like apple design which I do), all the features you would expect, and a large selection. I also don't get Amazon though

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[-] willya@lemmyf.uk 7 points 2 years ago

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

[-] Samsy@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

Jellyfin + Finamp is usable, too.

[-] utopia_dig@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

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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[-] hellfire103@sopuli.xyz 7 points 2 years ago

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.

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[-] airikr@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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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[-] PartyPooper@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

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

[-] ArtisinalBS@lemm.ee 12 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 10 points 2 years ago

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 6 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.

[-] 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.

[-] 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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this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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