I've heard the p2p stuff is going away on the desktop app, but you could easily get around it by using the webplayer or mobile app. AFAIK, there's no way to limit the upload speed in the current desktop implementation (in the app).
The content is generally pretty good but they depend on the artists/labels getting it into aggregators or making it available. Bootlegs won't be there because that would probably piss the bands off.
Short list of musicians granting permission to have bootlegs hosted on archive.org/etree:
311 Blues Traveler
Camper Van Beethoven Cowboy Junkies
Cracker Dark Star Orchestra
Death Cab for Cutie Derek Trucks Band
Disco Biscuits Donna the Buffalo
Drive-By Truckers Ekoostik Hookah
Elliott Smith Furthur
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals Grateful Dead
Guster Hank Williams III
Hot Buttered Rum Jack Johnson
John Butler Trio John Mayer
Keller Williams Little Feat
Live Music Archive Local H
Lotus Matisyahu
Matt Nathanson Max Creek
Michael Franti and Spearhead moe.
My Morning Jacket Of A Revolution
Perpetual Groove Phil Lesh and Friends
Radiators Railroad Earth
Ratdog Ryan Adams
Smashing Pumpkins Sound Tribe Sector 9
String Cheese Incident Tea Leaf Green
The Breakfast Umphreys McGee
Warren Zevon Ween
Yonder Mountain String Band
Sorry, I should have clarified that comment before posting it.
Many bands allow audience taping but I'm not aware of m?any that allow for commercial distribution of those recordings. If Spotify attempted to distribute those recordings against the bands' policies then it would probably piss off the bands.
That Danny Schmidt is pretty great stuff. You're right about Spotify's lack of content when it comes to stuff like this-- they have all his studio albums but are kind of weak when it comes to live stuff, they have one album. Archive.org definitely fills in this gap (I use it all the time for Dead shows).
Now I see what you were saying. I think the studio process strips the humanity out of music. I have been working on a feature request / outline of functionality for beets and etree that I need to finally submit to sampsyo. How awesome would this be:
Archive.org has a somewhat documented API that describes all of the "resources." A lot of the shows even come with cover art for those that are into that.
The content is generally pretty good but they depend on the artists/labels getting it into aggregators or making it available. Bootlegs won't be there because that would probably piss the bands off.