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Audacity facing scrutiny after new privacy policy allows data collection, makes app 13+
Muse Group (the owners of MuseScore and Ultimate Guitar) recently acquired Audacity in early May. On July 2nd, a new privacy policy for the app was posted to the app's website. Audacity did not previously have any sort of privacy policy in place for the app on their website, so there is no prior archived version of this page before its original publishing on July 2nd.
Much of this new privacy policy is harmless and, realistically, only exists for protecting the interests of Muse Group in any instance of legal trouble. However, users are frustrated over some of the choices made in this document.
Notably, the privacy policy includes the following: "The App we provide is not intended for individuals below the age of 13. If you are under 13 years old, please do not use the App." [...] In addition to the concerns raised by educators, the privacy policy seems to imply that if contacted by law enforcement, there is no limitation on what data they may collect.
See also: Audacity has been acquired by Muse Group, which also owns MuseScore and Ultimate Guitar (May 4)
Audio editor Audacity has the audacity to add telemetry collection -- and users are not happy (May 8)
Telemetry Debate Rocks Audacity Community In Open Source Dustup (May 17)
Audacity reverses course on plans to add opt-in telemetry after outcry (May 17)
Audio editor Audacity denies spyware accusations (June 6)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 06 2021, @10:30PM (2 children)
until a fork comes out victorious! there can only be one...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 06 2021, @11:59PM
There is a fork on github. [github.com] It should be seen as a bargining chip. Tantacrul did good work on Musescore, his sybillius videos were brilliant. [youtube.com] Seems like a decent guy so I'm hopeful he can work with the new owner to fix the privacy issues with telemetry.
Audacity is clunky anyway, someone should update Sweep. [metadecks.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @12:58AM
That onky works on 13 of the 436 current Linux distros...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 06 2021, @10:33PM (2 children)
Why did they buy audacity in the first place? What do they want out of it?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 06 2021, @10:53PM (1 child)
Because it's considered the dumber of the two most popular DAWs (the other being Ardour), and being dumb appeals to Mac-faggots who did all their work in GarageBand but are too broke to afford a new Mac to show off to those around them.
Now let's talk about Ardour -- they make you pay for the precompiled version. Looks like Linux is no longer "free as in beer" if you want to do anything other than browse the web or edit text files, unless you want to spend more time researching and tweeking than actually using the program. Welcome to 2005!
If you want to record music on Linux without either of those two, for free, then you're stuck with the typical Linux compromise of shitty and cryptic UI's, crash-causing bugs, drum machines without time signatures, and incompatibility with all the third-party plugins you like...although it's not like Audacity and Ardour also don't have those problems to some degree.
That is the kind of world you get when Purple-haired Jewish trannies dominate your OS/app ecosystem. Modern Linux is like the COVID vaccines, only greedy salivating Jews are pushing it, but there are a lot of those noisy fuckers to create the illusion of consensus (when, in fact, it's consensus by gunpoint since the woke mob took over). The rest moved back to Windows, where shit just works, or on to something else like BSD that has all the functionality of 2002-era Linux.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday July 07 2021, @02:27AM
Personally, I think
you are full of shitmistaken [slackware.nl], but I was amusedLa politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Gaaark on Tuesday July 06 2021, @10:52PM (4 children)
did Audacity ever do music over a network? My memory says no.
For playing music, i just use Plex: wireless it to my headphones and cut the grass or whatever. Easy peasy since i already have it set up for TV, movies...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 06 2021, @10:53PM (2 children)
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 06 2021, @10:59PM (1 child)
In some of my distro hopping, Audacity was installed by default, instead of something like VLC or whatever. Yeah, it's an editor, but it's also a player.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 06 2021, @11:26PM
It's as much a music player as Microsoft Word is a txt file reader.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @09:25PM
plex! lmao. what a fag.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday July 06 2021, @11:01PM (2 children)
Screw Audacity. Real men make music in Emacs [vimeo.com].
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday July 07 2021, @12:04AM
I use ed. :-} Too nerdy?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @12:52AM
E-what? I bang rocks.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RS3 on Tuesday July 06 2021, @11:58PM (7 children)
Gave up on Audacity, Ardour, etc., long ago.
I've been using Reaper a lot for recording / editing. Can be a great player too.
Foobar2000, MediaMonkey are great players if you need some fancy features. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_audio_player_software [wikipedia.org]
I usually just use VLC. Does great transcoding, like from .mp4 to .mp3, although UI is wonky. Sometimes it just does nothing and you have to try try again.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Wednesday July 07 2021, @12:10AM (2 children)
I still play mp3s with Winamp.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @04:27AM (1 child)
It really whips the llama's ass!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @09:54AM
A distant relative of mine owns an event space and DJs from time to time just for the fun of it. As a joke at his own wedding there, they kept playing that clip randomly in the mix. It was often enough that you definitely noticed at least once but not too much that it felt overdone after you did. As people got drunker, they literally started cheering when the DJ played it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @12:17AM (3 children)
Think of all the "fun" [github.com] you're missing!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @08:46PM (2 children)
Let me get this straight, the fuckwits at 4chan tried to murder the lead Tenacity developer because it conflicts with their joke fork? They are making it very hard to oppose the death penalty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 08 2021, @09:08AM
From one of the threads he linked:
That's more believable than the story about 4chantards banging on his windows in Palo Alto.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 10 2021, @12:58PM
That "lead developer" is a liar and/or schizo. Nobody banged on his windows or stabbed him in the arm.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/sneedacity-tenacity-harassment-controversy [knowyourmeme.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @02:48AM
It sounds like they said "crap, we need a privacy policy. Grab some boilerplate apps are using these days"
(Score: 3, Funny) by Eratosthenes on Wednesday July 07 2021, @03:32AM (1 child)
So, some descendant of the Korean royal family (defunct) purchases something, that was an open-source free software thing, and now it is being filled with white space and whored for profit? What do we do, Soylentils? And When do we do it?
AuckFudacious! (OK, not quite the same ring to it, needs more cowbell.)
Ἀριθμητικὴ εἰσαγωγή
(Score: 2, Informative) by Eratosthenes on Wednesday July 07 2021, @04:49AM
Oh, what sad days are these, when even a appeal to the founding cry of Soylentils can be modded Flamebait! Someone should be asshamed of their self.
Ἀριθμητικὴ εἰσαγωγή
(Score: 3, Informative) by Fnord666 on Wednesday July 07 2021, @04:50AM (6 children)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @05:43AM
This whole article is weird, trying to argue against this weekend's problem with the previous problem's various outcomes from several weeks ago.
This weekend, there are problematic things with the privacy policy, and everyone claiming it's not a problem is arguing for/against the previous case with telemetry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @02:27PM
For now...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @09:34PM (3 children)
Where is the option to get the version with no telemetry? If there is no such thing, then telemetry is not optional.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Thursday July 08 2021, @12:20AM (2 children)
Unless I'm misinterpreting this statement, it sounds like if you build from source the telemetry functionality will not be compiled in at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeVilla on Friday July 09 2021, @06:19AM (1 child)
But if some windows user just downloads it from the official website, they get the voyeur enhanced version. Now I can't recommend friends download it any more. They aren't going to have a toolchain installed much less know how to use it.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Saturday July 10 2021, @03:24PM
This is true. My hope would be that someone would do a voyeur free build and make it available for download. Hard to know who to trust though i guess when you're downloading binaries.