This month in digital music libraries - September 2021
September 22, 2021 in digital music by Dan Gravell
In this month’s edition: stats on streaming, security issues with Synology NASes and musicians winding-up software developers.
Streaming - the state of play
First up, the Covid lockdowns would mean lots of people streaming music while working in their dressing-gowns, or whatever, right? Save me your reckons. Whenever some talking-head appears on the news with one elbow on the desk and starts talking authoritatively about what will and won’t happen in some sphere they don’t realise is too complex to predict I think… stop wasting my time.
Streaming decreased during #covid lockdowns, probably because music streaming is not "standalone", normally done with something else (e.g. commuting, working) https://t.co/St46DhYKu5 - correlation between streaming users and those that "just have music on in the background"? pic.twitter.com/VfFGmiz2jK
— bliss (@bliss_music) August 16, 2021
Meanwhile, it looks like Spotify is not only the leader, it’s increasing its lead…
Spotify vs. a few little tech companies pic.twitter.com/R3OEzCIQDB
— chartr (@chartrdaily) September 4, 2021
NAS security issues
Seems we’re getting more and more of these…
Lookout @Synology users - a brute force attack on your #NAS is possible (if unlikely judging by the number of reports) https://t.co/EUbYr9FxFD Basic recco: tighten authentication, e.g. stronger username/password pairs, multi factor if possible.
— bliss (@bliss_music) August 18, 2021
Meanwhile, on a similar topic, if you stream a collection to a Sonos device from a Synology NAS, you might have to tweak a setting which makes your NAS less secure to get the two working together:
Do you stream your @Sonos collection from a @Synology #NAS? If so, and you're preparing to move to DSM 7 on your NAS, be aware you need to workaround @Sonos's antiquated Samba support - but at least there's a workaround... https://t.co/TzLjXBLduW pic.twitter.com/dX6jAIyHIF
— bliss (@bliss_music) September 20, 2021
More consolidation in streaming
Looks like the mainstream services are bringing in niche services to attract different audiences. The question is: as the services are merged, are the benefits of the original service lost?
Apple have brought the #classical music streaming service @Primephonic . Given classical's traditional #metadata issues in #selfhosted libraries, it seems an ideal candidate for a streaming service. Not that you can't do it yourself of course... https://t.co/HuE3IC5Lj3 pic.twitter.com/Xqnisv9O9V
— bliss (@bliss_music) September 1, 2021
Ed Sheeran and his choice of naming
I’m sure they do this to annoy software makers.
If your creation requires an explanation of how you pronounce its name, isn’t that a bad thing?
Another title to test music services handling of metadata @jherskowitz @stuartdredge https://t.co/FLqZscVeTm
— Pete Armstrong (@PeteJArmstrong) August 19, 2021
Photo by Bruno Bučar on Unsplash
