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Vcc8 t1_j6h35qd wrote

It would've probably become popular either way. But maybe it helped a little bit

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garyinstereo t1_j6h3iym wrote

Just as part of the convo, I loved ripping my CD collection and dragging it over to my iPod. I definitely pirates songs too though

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frothy_ t1_j6h741o wrote

Remember those horrible audio watermarks people would put on the track and you didn't know it was there until you were listening to it on the bus or something

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zachtheperson t1_j6h7ykq wrote

Yes and no. "Music Sharing," as it was called in the day was pretty popular, and most people just saw it as no different then burning CDs or making mix cassette tapes for your friends. In the same way people would record movies to VHS when they came on TV and share them with friends as well, and nobody really thought about it as "piracy." So when the internet became good enough to share large amounts of songs, everyone just kind of continued doing the same things, just on a larger scale.

So it wasn't necessarily that people thought "Finally! A device all my pirate music!" but more that they already had a library of music acquired from "multiple different sources," such as ripped CDs, friends CDs, and yeah, some they downloaded online. The iPod just gave them a device that let them easily carry around that library, no matter where the songs came from, even if piracy helped make those libraries large in the first place.

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EVMad t1_j6ha6cb wrote

I had a lot of CDs so I ripped those over. It was way easier than getting stuff on my MiniDisc machine and I didn’t have to mess around with fiddly small discs, everything was on the one thing. The big difference though was the iTunes Store. To get a single track you could just get it from the store and it was cheap so I never saw any reason to pirate anything. That’s all that was really needed, a good store with reasonable prices. Despite the DRM (which the music industry required) it was still a good deal, and eventually with enough traction Apple was able to get the DRM requirement removed (Jobs wrote a really good letter to them about why DRM was pointless as it just encouraged piracy)

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Chalky_Cupcake t1_j6hefyx wrote

Havent fkd with iTunes for a while but you used to be able to upload a cd to it and have it be in your library. So when ipods first hit you used your existing music collection to create your ipods music library. It was everything.

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EveSixxx t1_j6hegbb wrote

For me it did. I ripped all my cd’s to my iTunes then hit limewire or Napster or whoever to add what I didn’t want to buy a full cd of. Lots of one hit wonders who weren’t worth the $12.99 for the whole CD.

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ballsoutofthebathtub t1_j6hiucn wrote

F for everyone who didn't pirate music and instead built vast iTunes libraries costing thousands only for streaming to come along a few years later.

I mean they did support the artists by doing this, but it just feels like the music industry had its fun getting people to buy the same album again and again every time a new format came along.

As other people have mentioned though, CD ripping was a huge thing and was built into iTunes, so you could easily fill an iPod with music you had technically paid for.

I personally went through phases of all-out Limewire piracy, CD buying and legit digital purchases. It was just kind of messy and as a young person I couldn't afford to buy every song I wanted to listen to. Streaming definitely came around and tidied the whole thing up.

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Weary_Ad7119 t1_j6hlt1r wrote

Yes. Nobody had 100s of GB of music legally 🤣

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mikeldmv t1_j6ho0bw wrote

iTunes before Apple Music was the shit.

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dctu1 t1_j6htjik wrote

There were a lot of different mp3 players on the market, each one trying to be the next big thing, and being able to have a single device have all your music was such a game changer at the time.

The way I remember the iPod though, and having it launch along with iTunes actually played a big role in steering music back away from piracy. So while it did help make pirate easy and popular, it also adapted in the end where most other players/companies did not

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FullRollingBoil t1_j6hyaqd wrote

Probably, but the iTunes Store reduced piracy when it went up

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maverick57 t1_j6i07fs wrote

I'm confused. Easier than what?

People were filling Walkman's and all of the various knock-offs with "free pirated music" in the 1980's.

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Ok-Pressure-3879 t1_j6i4jai wrote

Absolutely. People were able to put their music collections on their ipods. But the biggest thing was being able to access insane amounts of music that were potentially unavailable to you.

Imports, live versions, demos, out of print, or even too expensive. Suddenly you had access to things you wouldn’t believe. The biggest issue now for me is because there is this giant web of publishing restrictions albums I used to have are essentially gone. I had 15k+ songs on my old ipod, when that went i lost so many live concerts and stuff that wasnt sold in the US.

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Hattix t1_j6i6utp wrote

Nah, everyone had 60,000 CDs they needed to digitise at the time.

It wasn't remotely related to the completely coincidental rise of peer to peer file sharing, which happened at exactly the same time.

0

tacknosaddle t1_j6i7gpw wrote

Replying to Chalky_Cupcake (#1,608,313)

When the iPod hit it wasn't long before Senuti (iTunes spelled backwards) was available. It was software you could put on your computer which allowed you to grab music from another iPod and upload it to your library then put on yours.

So you could rip all your CDs, but then swap iPods with your friends to grab the stuff they had which you didn't & vice versa.

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powkiddyv90dangit t1_j6i84fp wrote

i still can't get over how complicated it was to transfer music to my ex's ipod. one accidental slip up and you could accidentally delete everything from the ipod when it has to do its synching process. i wanted to throw that thing against the wall so many times.

1

Edigophubia t1_j6i8sjj wrote

Replying to tacknosaddle (#1,614,555)

Back in the college dorms, when itunes let you listen to other people's libraries on the same network (basically the whole building), there was of course software that allowed you to download it as well. And every itunes update made it stop working, until the next update of the download software. God, so much music

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BlunderFunk t1_j6ia1g6 wrote

I still use an ipod classic to this day....and yes with pirated music, but I also support small indie bands by buying their records and going to their gigs

0

hillean t1_j6iandn wrote

1000% yes

iTunes would accept any mp3 you threw at it back in the day, so you didnt have to pay a cent for a device full of music.

If it would've launched with a pay service, Apple likely wouldn't be the powerhouse it is today.

1

SweetCosmicPope t1_j6ierti wrote

Replying to peggyi (#1,613,821)

I did something similar. I would go to the thrift store and half price books and go through all of the CDs. $.99 for a CD vs like $10 for a digital copy. I'd go and spend $20 in one day and come home with a whole shit ton of music.

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E_PunnyMous t1_j6ig0q3 wrote

Absolutely. It also turned me into a pirate snob. Anything less than 320 kbps is crap.

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R11CWN t1_j6igjn9 wrote

I would have said no, as the same could be said for all portable music players at the time, not just the iPod. And because iTunes became a very restrictive platform which relied on users buying music in order to listen.

I'd say the popularity stemmed from the advertising above all else. The catchy 2d block coloured adverts with the white earphones became synonymous with mp3s and portable music. Even though the competition had superior devices and offered better audio quality.

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MilkfightEnterprises t1_j6ilvxp wrote

The fact that putting all your downloaded music on a single device was a lot easier and more convenient than burning it onto dozens of CDs certainly didn’t HURT its popularity. Nor did the fact that once you purchased an iPod, you could fill it with music without ever purchasing another CD.

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wynlyndd t1_j6in19h wrote

Uh yeah. But it also opened up an easy method to purchase individual songs if you wanted, so while it supported and encouraged piracy, it also encouraged an easy legal method.

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Killawife t1_j6inljs wrote

I've never met another person who even knows how to rip a cd so, Yes.

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ballsoutofthebathtub t1_j6it7g4 wrote

Replying to marintrails (#1,618,894)

Yes they were massively greedy and got punished for it once file sharing came along.

I remember I bought a Prodigy CD which is fittingly called ‘The Fat of the Land’ some time around ‘99 or 2000. For some reason I never took the price sticker off, so I remember it costing £19.99! That’s fucking mental. The minimum wage at the time was £3.60.

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MilkfightEnterprises t1_j6iv7y5 wrote

Replying to R11CWN (#1,616,553)

The iPod was already massively popular when the iTunes store was established. And more significantly, the store’s DRM didn’t prevent anyone from loading their iPod with music from other sources, legal or otherwise.

The iPod was even more popular by the time the 2D colored ads were introduced. There’s no denying that Apple’s marketing is next-level, and plays a huge role in their success, but it’s one of many factors. The iPod simply had better UI, a higher storage capacity, and tighter software integration than any other player available at the time.

It was also a great way to put all your downloaded music onto a single device, rather than burning it onto dozens of CDRs.

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Samsthehungry t1_j6j8oh7 wrote

Definitely.

I remember being so excited about limewire when I found out that excisted when I was quite young. I fully understand problems with it and I'm happy things have changed quite a lot from that. I have also been working in the music industry for a while now so that gives a lot perspective to the way I used to think when I was younger and didn't understand how things work.

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titsandtoots t1_j6j9u61 wrote

My ipod had like 4000 songs on it, all of them pirated.

So yes. I don't know anyone who wasn't pirating the majority of their music in those days.

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jerkstorenumber9 t1_j6jbggl wrote

It's kinda like the chicken and the egg, maybe the iPod helped make piracy more popular?

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reedzkee t1_j6jchoy wrote

i had huge libraries of digital music and i never paid for a single download. i did rip a lot of CD's too, but never paid for a download. so yes.

winamp and foobar2000. never fucked with itunes.

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Longjumping_Ease3689 t1_j6jcutk wrote

Question what is a pirated music like even in Spotify we basically listen to it for free?? 🤔

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deadlyFlan t1_j6jisqz wrote

> Did pirated music filesharing help the iPod become popular?

Yes.

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LNDN91 t1_j6kbpl5 wrote

The iPod had the same effect the iPhone has today: the cool factor. The ads with this cool af silhouettes, the clicky scrollwheel. The amount of storage it had and they way it was cooler than those cheap mp3 players everyone had.

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ProfessorLrrr t1_j6knhvx wrote

I always went to my local library, borrowed some CDs and copied them over to my PC/iPod. :D

Otherwise all my songs were from my own CDs or bought from iTunes.
Though I didn't have a whole lot, as I was still quite young and spent all my money on the iPod itself.

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5150Films t1_j6kqohq wrote

Replying to Few_Faithlessness_49 (#1,614,236)

I have purchased tens of thousands of songs from iTunes/ Apple Music. I also downloaded MP3s of songs I had already paid for on vinyl, tape, and CD. Plus from the public domain. I don't think we should need to pay for royalties more than once. One of my sons suggests that music and films ripped from the web do not cost the producers because those who like the material catalyze purchases by their friends and many of those will pay for royalties. HBO agreed with this suggestion while marketing Game of Thrones which was called the most pirated show up to that time. Clearly there are several different ethical constructs in play.

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akat_walks t1_j6l5221 wrote

Yes. Without pirated media many of the technologies we have now would not be popular or sometimes exist.

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youcancallmescott t1_j6lxyix wrote

My issue, and it was probably the files I downloaded, was that nothing was arranged or labeled (extensively and properly) how I wanted. So basically, yes, it’s straight up what you said, and then I’d get high and go through my library and fix all the information down to applying the best quality album art I could find. Aw man. Miss those days.

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eightezsteps t1_j6nmgo7 wrote

I miss napster and the like, are there any similar sites nowadays?

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