For a couple of days now, there has been an uproar on the RuNet about the fact that the largest social network VKontakte has begun en masse deleting music from users’ audio recordings. Music is deleted, of course, for a reason, but at the request of copyright holders. Only if previously such requests were isolated and, accordingly, audio recordings were also deleted in a very limited quantity, then this time we are talking about the mass deletion of music.
That's what makes the noise.
This mass “cutting out” of music from VKontakte has not yet affected me in any way and has not particularly excited me. And this news appeared on Seoded.ru not to talk about the process of deleting audio recordings itself, but to discuss:
- A). Why this removal was possible;
- b). Why did they start deleting music from VKontakte right now?
- V). What to do next.
Let's do this.
Users are massively complaining about problems with the VKontakte social network.
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On the evening of September 15, around 21:30, VKontakte users reported that they could not see their audio recordings both in the web version and in the social network application.
Some lost all tracks at once, others lost only part. In place of the music, a message appeared on the social network: “Here you can store your audio recordings.”
This collapse will forever remain in the memory of our generation. My audio recordings disappeared and I was left with an existential emptiness... #vkontaktelive
— Andrei Raspopov (@AndreiRaspopov) September 15, 2021
my VK audio recordings... more than 1500 songs just disappeared?? I am shocked. how to live now
- ? (@TbI_MOE_MOPE) September 15, 2021
Uh... Has everyone lost their audio recordings? pic.twitter.com/R0JqDZ3FjU
— shumnyi.a (@shumnyi248) September 15, 2021
At the same time, the VKontakte music itself is played. Users also have access to the “Popular” section. For some users, it opens automatically when they go to “Audio Recordings”. In this section, a line appears at the top with performers suggested for listening.
Additional Information
If the user cannot figure out how to restore music in VK after deletion, he should talk to the support agents of the social network and ask them why the audio recordings are not being returned.
You should not download and install special applications that allow you to return the track list. With their help, the account owner will not be able to listen to music back. He will get nothing but trouble:
- loss of finances if the program is paid;
- loss of personal data and account control;
- introducing viruses to your computer or smartphone.
Of course, some proposals do not promise such difficulties. But they are not capable of giving a positive result.
VKontakte is not working
About an hour after users began complaining about missing audio recordings, at around 10:20 p.m., the social network partially restored the section. However, music has not returned to everyone and not in full.
So, for example, in the mobile application only part of the list of audio recordings is visible, while in the desktop version a message appears: “Unfortunately, the Audio recordings section is temporarily unavailable. We are already working on troubleshooting. Please try again later."
In addition, the social network itself is working intermittently. Thus, some users report that they cannot send a message, access their page at all, or do not see friends online.
VKontakte has returned the Apple Audio section to the iPhone application
§ 1. Why did deleting music from VKontakte become possible at all?
The answer to this question, I think, is obvious to anyone who follows the life of the Runet: as a result of the recent sale of a stake in an offshore company that owns VKontakte, this social network has changed owners and new owners in the matter of deleting music in particular and respecting the interests of copyright holders in general much more accommodating than the previous ones.
Pavel Durov was far from being so accommodating. But this does not mean that Pavel Durov is a scoundrel, and the new owners are good guys. Compliance in matters of removing pirated content only indicates that the new owners of VKontakte need this for some reason.
And this is the most interesting thing in this whole story.
So far, two versions come to my mind as to why the new owners of VKontakte agreed to massively remove pirated music from users’ audio recordings. More precisely, for now I can clearly formulate only two versions:
- § 1.1 Copyright holders (owners of the rights to music removed from VKontakte) gave Ilya Shcherbovich money to purchase VKontakte.
In my article about the sale of VKontakte, I suggested that the state was behind Shcherbovich and that it gave him the money to buy VKontakte. But why not assume that I was mistaken and that the money was given to Shcherbovich not by Rosneft and others, but by the Western giants of show business? Then the reasons for purchasing change, but the logic remains the same: people still buy VKontakte in order to manage it.
What do copyright holders get in this case? A fairly significant Internet resource with pirated content comes under their control: they can now remove any illegal content from it (music, video, etc.) and turn VKontakte into a tool for promoting (and monetizing) legal content. Agree, quite a tempting prospect.
Three things speak against this version.
Firstly, Shcherbovich paid more than a billion dollars for 48 percent of VKontakte. And this is a lot of money. And due to their enormity, serious doubts arise that copyright holders would agree to destroy, albeit significant, but still one of many resources with pirated content, for such a sum.
Secondly, Shcherbovich bought 48 percent of shares in VKontakte. And this is not a controlling stake. This means that it does not provide the opportunity to change VKontakte’s policy towards pirated content so radically.
Thirdly, I strongly doubt that the Russian authorities would allow foreigners to buy such an important piece of Russia’s information field. You need such a cow yourself.
Still, there's something to this version, which is why it's here.
- § 1.2 VKontakte is preparing for active promotion to the West.
This could be an IPO, entering new markets, or something else. And for successful promotion to the West, the most important condition is cooperation with copyright holders. Without this, promotion will not even begin.
In principle, if this version is correct, then the new owners of VKontakte may have nothing to do with it at all. It may well be that Durov is still in charge of VKontakte and the decision to remove the music and begin active cooperation with copyright holders is his. A fantastic version comes to mind that all the information fuss with attacks on the traffic police inspector, cooperation with the Kremlin, the sale of 48 percent and so on is just a cover so that Pavel Durov can save face.
In general, many theories can be formulated within the framework of this version. They all have one thing in common - the owners of VKontakte decided to bring this social network to the West.
These were my two versions of why they started deleting music from VKontakte altogether. Now let's talk about why now.
How to hide audio recordings on VK
How to hide audio recordings on VKontakte from friends and users - instructions for the site and for the mobile version
Users of the VK social network share news, videos, music and photos with their friends. However, strangers may visit the page from whom we would like to hide some information. Changing the privacy allows you to make your profile partially or completely private. Below are ways to restrict access to audio tracks.
How to hide VK audio recordings
Each VK user has the opportunity to set restrictions on the right to listen to audio tracks or view photos. To do this, it is not necessary to make your profile completely private; account privacy management is very flexible, for example, one friend will see a certain list of entries, and another person will see a completely different one. The site offers several options for how to hide audio recordings on VKontakte:
- a complete data viewing block - none of your friends will see them;
- creating a list of people who can open songs;
- you can turn off the display of tracks that have been copied to the wall by other people;
- privacy settings via the VK application on mobile.
If you do not want to allow anyone to listen to and view audio tracks from the playlist, then you can make this section completely private. Only the page owner will have the opportunity to listen to them. This manipulation is carried out directly from your account, so you must first log in. Next you will need the following:
- Click on the icon with the name and photo, which are located at the top right of your VKontakte profile.
- Click on the button, a menu will appear where you need to click “Settings”.
- A new page will appear; to close audio tracks, click on “Privacy”, this item is located in the right side menu.
- The fifth line will control the audio display features from the list.
- To completely close them from all network participants, you need to click on the link next to the lock icon and activate the “Only me” option.
Such conditions will force the VKontakte service to display music from the “audio recordings” group only for you; other network participants will not have the right to watch the list update. If you want to share a song with friends, you can still post them on the wall, and they will be available, send them by private message. To reopen the ability to listen, you should select “All users” or “Only friends” in the same section.
How to hide music on VK from specific users
Sometimes you don't want to allow only specific people on your friends list to listen to audio. Perhaps they made fun of your tastes or maybe they are relatives who then look at you disapprovingly after adding the Leningrad song. There is a way to hide audio recordings on VKontakte from one or more people. To do this you need to do the following:
- Click on the personal menu in the upper right corner of your profile.
- Select the settings item and go to the “Privacy” tab.
- You will again need the 5th line, where this time you need to select a different item.
- Click on the link and activate the “Everything except...” option
- You will see a form through which you can add individual people who you do not want to allow to listen to your music.
You can immediately select a group in which certain acquaintances are located, for example, “Work” or “Family”. If you need to close only from one person, then in the line below, start typing in his name in VKontakte. So add everyone who will be on the “black list” and will not have the right to listen to the recordings. Next, click on the “Save” button and close the tab. Using the same path, it is possible to delete a person and give him access again.
Find out how to delete audio on VK.
How to hide your audio recordings in VK on the wall
Sometimes people copy audio not to a playlist, but directly to a VKontakte page. The service allows options to close them if the need arises. Sound tracks are recordings on the wall, so you will have to completely hide everything that will be published on it. The group with songs will be visible if you have not closed it. This is done as follows:
- Open the menu in the right corner of the page.
- Go to the “Settings” section and click “Privacy”.
- The second group of links is the section called “Posts on the page”.
- Click on the link next to the item “Who sees other people’s posts...” and set the value to “Only me.”
- If any music tracks appear on the page from a stranger, they will be hidden from everyone. You can listen to them without any problems.
Why is music not broadcast on VKontakte status?
VKontakte has long been able to broadcast audio recordings into the status of a page or group where the user is at least an administrator. However, not everyone knows how to enable/disable audio broadcasting, because at first glance it is not clear how to do this. Let's look at this feature together and we can adjust the display of music in the status according to our mood.
Song in VKontakte status: how?
So, to enable the display of a track in the status, go either to the Music section and look for the icon marked in the image.
Or open the top panel with a list of tracks (available when you are already listening to music) and select the same icon:
In the drop-down menu we see where you can stream the song that is currently playing on your speakers or headphones. By checking the required checkbox, you can add the track to the status and it will be seen by everyone who visits the page, or share the music with subscribers of one of your communities. This function can be disabled at any time if you no longer want to broadcast your songs and want to remove the broadcast from your status.
searchlikes.ru
Not all tracks are displayed in VkAudioSaver
Over the past couple of months, many people have noticed that not all audio recordings are displayed in the program. If there was a similar problem in VkAudioSaver
, it was quite rare when the user had bitrate filtering enabled, as a result of which songs with low quality were not included in the results. But now things have gotten much worse. VK API simply does not provide more than half of the tracks, citing the fact that they are prohibited by copyright holders.
A similar problem occurs in all applications that use the official VKontakte API. For example in Kate Mobile
for Android
Or in the well-developed Meridian
for Win10 Personally, I also conducted research based on requests for feedback from our users and 2 months ago I wrote to the VKontakte support service, indicating the disappearance of specific tracks from the search results, despite all that, that they are on the site and even play.
To which they answered me like this:
However, it’s clear where the legs come from. It’s not just that VK is involved in legalizing music and entering into agreements with labels (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment). And all this costs money, but so far does not bring profit. Therefore, it is clear that one of the models for monetizing VKontakte music will soon be introduced. After all, today there is a certain audience of users who subscribe to Apple Music and Yandex.Music for a monthly subscription.
— You can listen to the audio recording for free, but a number of new paid functions will appear - for example, adding an audio recording to yourself. If you love performers, you should support them. And musicians must earn money in order to delight you with new songs. On VKontakte, this can be done for the price of a cup of coffee,” said Alexander Blinov, CEO of Warner Music Group in Russia.
Therefore, download everything while you can still download something.
vkaudiosaver.ru
The VKontakte application does not display audio recordings. How to hide audio recordings on VKontakte
Users of the VK social network share news, videos, music and photos with their friends. However, strangers may visit the page from whom we would like to hide some information. Changing the privacy allows you to make your profile partially or completely private. Below are ways to restrict access to audio tracks.
How to hide VK audio recordings
Each VK user has the opportunity to set restrictions on the right to listen to audio tracks or view photos. To do this, it is not necessary to make your profile completely private; account privacy management is very flexible, for example, one friend will see a certain list of entries, and another person will see a completely different one. The site offers several options for how to hide audio recordings on VKontakte:
- a complete data viewing block - none of your friends will see them;
- creating a list of people who can open songs;
- you can turn off the display of tracks that have been copied to the wall by other people;
- privacy settings via the VK application on mobile.
How to block audio recordings on VK from all users
If you do not want to allow anyone to listen to and view audio tracks from the playlist, then you can make this section completely private. Only the page owner will have the opportunity to listen to them. This manipulation is carried out directly from your account, so you must first log in. Next you will need the following:
- Click on the icon with the name and photo, which are located at the top right of your VKontakte profile.
- Click on the button, a menu will appear where you need to click “Settings”.
- A new page will appear; to close audio tracks, click on “Privacy”, this item is located in the right side menu.
- The fifth line will control the audio display features from the list.
- To completely close them from all network participants, you need to click on the link next to the lock icon and activate the “Only me” option.
How to hide music on VK from specific users
Sometimes you don't want to allow only specific people on your friends list to listen to audio. Perhaps they made fun of your tastes or maybe they are relatives who then look at you disapprovingly after adding the Leningrad song. There is a way to hide audio recordings on VKontakte from one or more people. To do this you need to do the following:
- Click on the personal menu in the upper right corner of your profile.
- Select the settings item and go to the “Privacy” tab.
- You will again need the 5th line, where this time you need to select a different item.
- Click on the link and activate the “Everything except...” option
- You will see a form through which you can add individual people who you do not want to allow to listen to your music.
You can immediately select a group in which certain acquaintances are located, for example, “Work” or “Family”. If you need to close only from one person, then in the line below, start typing in his name in VKontakte. So add everyone who will be on the “black list” and will not have the right to listen to the recordings. Next, click on the “Save” button and close the tab. Using the same path, it is possible to delete a person and give him access again.
How to hide your audio recordings in VK on the wall
Sometimes people copy audio not to a playlist, but directly to a VKontakte page. The service allows options to close them if the need arises. Sound tracks are recordings on the wall, so you will have to completely hide everything that will be published on it. The group with songs will be visible if you have not closed it. This is done as follows:
- Open the menu in the right corner of the page.
- Go to the “Settings” section and click “Privacy”.
- The second group of links is the section called “Posts on the page”.
- Click on the link next to the item “Who sees other people’s posts...” and set the value to “Only me.”
- If any music tracks appear on the page from a stranger, they will be hidden from everyone. You can listen to them without any problems.
How to block music on VKontakte from friends via phone
To quickly find out about all changes in the account and the arrival of new messages, people install the program on their mobile VK. This is an official application that helps you access your profile via the Internet from your phone. There is a way to hide audio recordings on VKontakte from your smartphone if you are connected to the network. This is done as follows:
- Log in to your account. Call up the main menu with a slash to the left.
- Scroll down the page until the word “Settings” appears, tap on it.
- Go to "Privacy".
- Fifth
goodlikes.ru
VKontakte told what happened to music on the social network
The appearance of restrictions when listening to music on VKontakte has raised many questions among users of the social network. To reduce tension, the VKontakte team has prepared answers to the most popular questions about music on the social network. And we made a summary of these answers:
Is it true that VKontakte music has become paid?
No, you can listen to music for free, but with restrictions. A paid subscription will help remove restrictions, but it is not necessary.
Why were there restrictions?
VKontakte is “legalized” and simply complies with the requirements accepted in the music industry and which have long been working in other streaming services.
Why now?
Are these all some new rules? No, not new. The first seizures of music began back in 2012, and in 2015 they had to completely turn off music in the iOS application. It's not so bad now.
Can I continue to listen to music without a subscription?
Yes, you can listen to tracks online for free - on your desktop or in an open mobile application. But sometimes there will be advertising.
What does a subscription give?
There are no advertisements and you can listen to music without restrictions and without the Internet.
What is the Boom app?
This is exactly the music application where legal music is collected, where you can save songs and listen to them without connecting to the network.
Why pay for a subscription if you haven't done anything new?
In fact, the VK music service has been significantly updated and continues to develop. Are there other ways to remove restrictions?
Yes, you can become a VK Mobile subscriber and get unlimited access to everything on VKontakte, including a music subscription.
. Why are some tracks withdrawn?
Because the copyright holders decided so.
I still think you're just greedy.
I'd rather pay for other music services! It's not all bad:
- all main features of the service are available for free on desktop and mobile applications;
- VK still has the largest music collection;
- your playlists and favorite music are already here;
- for free listening, VKontakte offers the most lenient restrictions; for paid listening, it offers the lowest cost for an individual subscription among music services.
Read the full answers to questions about VKontakte music here.
The restrictions on listening to music in the mobile version of VKontakte, which users of the social network encountered on October 1, were extremely negatively received by the audience. Users once again called on Pavel Durov for help (#durovcome back) and demanded the return of the music (#bringbackthemusic). Particularly enterprising people decided to simply not update the VK application and listen to music without restrictions (the limit is provided only in the latest versions of the application). True, this solution did not work for long - already at the end of last week, audio recordings in the old VK began to show an error.
