Kim Dotcom's new music streaming service | Hacker News Reader

Kim Dotcom's new music streaming service

baboom.com

140 pointstogether_us103 comments

Kim Dotcom is an evil genius and a remarkable marketing guy. During his whole career no doubts he made a fortune out of other people work BUT, still, he can't be considered responsible for it because - in fact - he had MILLIONS of users who actually used the pirated content megaupload made available (and i dare anyone here to throw the first stone if they never used megaupload). So, while i'm not yet sure i like the guy, i still consider the megaupload affair a huge mistake.

What is astonishing anyway is what he made out of the whole situation. No doubt most of the people out there would have been simply destroyed by events. Not only he wasn't, but he managed to launch two different businesses that still surely has a lot to show in the future.

Regarding this specific music project, i can only say that i agree with him. Paying for the music you like IS the new model , so far he looks like one of the few who understood it (together with Spotify, which is in fact doing the same).

PS: I really like the album he made available for free.

Kimble is a fraud and an asshole. The only things he's good at are marketing and scamming. Just take a look at his history- insider trading, selling userdata from a BBS he ran to a lawyer, scamming the german telcos... the list is quite long.

He's a good marketer, but one of the worst people I've read about. There's a file of his quotes (from the CCC mailing list) circulating, if you know german you should try reading that. Really gives some insight into him. For example how that l33t hacker cred he has is all for show– I wouldn't buy anything about free speech from him either. He's only interested in money. I remember one quote from one of his teachers about how Kimble was the most antisocial kid he ever teached LOL.

TLDR: You really shouldnt like the guy, read a bit about him and you'll figure out why.

EDIT: Here's the quote file: http://babsi.de/KIMBLE.txt

> The only things he's good at are marketing and scamming.

He's also apparently quite good at Call of Duty[1].

[1] http://www.kitguru.net/software/gaming/jon-martindale/kim-do...

> ... a fraud and an asshole. The only things he's good at are marketing and scamming

Are you talking about AirBnb and their Craigslist scamming?

> He's only interested in money.

Meanwhile venture backed start-ups are doing God's work, right?!

How has AirBnb have any relation to Kim Dotcom.

How does another company in tech spamming, have anything to do with whether it's morally right or wrong with another company using such tactics?

Two wrong don't make a right..

>Are you talking about AirBnb and their Craigslist scamming?

What? I don't even know if Kimble and AirBnB are connected...

>Meanwhile venture backed start-ups are doing God's work, right?!

If you do a Ctrl+F "venture" I'm sure you wont find any occurences in my post.

I believe he's comparing the less than above board things dotcom has done to the sidestepping of the law that AirBNB actively endorses. Basically saying that HN is all about companies like AirBNB because they hatched here while they aren't that much better when it comes to working within the law and playing by the rules. I could be mistaken though, correct me if I'm wrong yapcguy. Not saying I fully agree just trying to make sense of his post for you!

You are 100% correct.

I should have used the /sarcasm tag so zwdr didn't take me so literally.

i always recommend the dossier at attriton.org: http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/kimble/

> "Merry X-mas & a hacky new year by KIMBLE"

> 19 - 21 December 1996

He's horrible!

In all seriousness, I've had a quick read through (with the finest of Google's translations) and I'm not sure what you're drawing exception to. There's stuff that just sounds like satire and other BS, but I can't figure out why you wrote what you wrote.

EDIT: For a bit of background: He and the CCC were never really friendly with each other. He tried to fit in the german hacker culture, but everyone knew he was a fraud.

For example, he tried to recruit young people on the mailing list into shady jobs with promises of easy money (that he didn't have back then). There are a few other stunts, but generally he behaved like a 14 year old asshole with a big ego and too much time on his hand. Didn't help that he tried to bullshit everyone about how much money he made (DATAPROTECT LOL).

Maybe that didn't get through the translation.

> He tried to fit in the german hacker culture, but everyone knew he was a fraud.

Meanwhile readers of "HackerNews" and all the self-proclaimed "Hackers" at YC start-ups and all the trendy new "Growth Hackers" of course have much more in common with the CCC and hacker culture...

> he tried to recruit young people on the mailing list into shady jobs with promises of easy money

Like every entrepreneur at venture backed start-ups, right?!

>Meanwhile readers of "HackerNews" and all the self-proclaimed "Hackers" at YC start-ups and all the trendy new "Growth Hackers" of course have much more in common with the CCC and hacker culture...

Please do a Ctrl+f again, I'm sure you wont find anything about HN or Start-Ups in my post.

>Like every entrepreneur at venture backed start-ups, right?!

Dunno, guess some startups are shady, guess some don't. Can we please talk about Kimble now? You're derailing the topic here.

Not really, he's trying to show that in the context of HN and startups kimble was doing what a lot of people do here, just using a different medium

Yeah, and this is why I'm still trading the precious hours of my life for a few dollars to write code nobody is ever going to use, look at, or benefit from, while he is bathing in money.

The scummy shit he did is negligible.

I think the fact that he's good at marketing doesn't change the fact that he did a lot of morally questionable things.

And I don't think they're negligible– at least not from an ethical point of view.

He's also hilarious, just watch "Kimble goes Monaco" on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZBZV8hFb4 (German, but with english subtitles I think).

"He's a good marketer, but one of the worst people I've read about."

Go and read about Albert Fish. Might moderate your claims about this guy a bit...

>Kimble is a fraud and an asshole.

Sort of like Sean parker, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, ETC...

All criminals. Do you consider them all in the same contempt?

I never used megaupload ... but casting the first stone is always dangerous.

I have an iTunes library of a million bajillion tracks, a habit I picked up back in the 00s when downloading an entire album (or every album!) of an artist you liked was a novel thing and turned everyone into the digital equivalent of hoarders.

And guess what? I pretty much listen to none of it anymore. My daily music dose now comes from Soundcloud, where active artists are putting up new tracks / mixes and giving the equivalent of Facebook likes to tracks that they personally enjoyed. It is a fun way of listening to music, and I often go and buy tracks on iTunes even if they are already free to download (which is the case a lot of the time).

This site has me really excited. The player is slick, the presentation is cool. Kim Dotcom's album itself is competently generic club music, which is more than can be said for a lot of club music.

Exciting!

I'm curious - do you ever use genius to 'rediscover' music from your old collection, or is it just plain better to have a broader range available?

I personally do a little of both - using either my own collection, or pandora and now iTunes Radio. I find myself using iTunes Radio more and more vs my own collection.

I actually do occasionally. Genius can make a pretty good mix from just some random song from years ago. iTunes radio isn't available here, but one of my buddies uses Grooveshark all the time.

Wow, never thought it would be such hate on HN against kim.com?

I think he seems to really fight for internet freedom in more ways than the angry commentators in this thread probably will ever do.

Who cares if he had a dark past. He's already been to jail for one crime in my knowledge and I think he really deserves his money.

It seems you're gonna buy the songs you want to listen to directly from artists with this new service. It can't be anything like pirating? He is really pushing it forward and completes his products with the touch of quality.

The only thing he has ever fought for is his own bank account. He doesn't have a "dark past", but an ongoing history of scamming. You can be assured that he will find the optimal way to scam both you and the artists out of as much money as possible.

Please, enlighten me. Because I have no idea of what you're talking about. Give me some proof.

All I've seen and heard is that the super fiasco on the megaupload case but that's not a fiasco for him, the users or anyone else but the governments involved.

For now, I am still a fan of Kim.com.

If I only ever read my news from sites like torrentfreak, I too would think kim was an awesome, super guy. It's not hard to diversify your news sources...

Who said that I even visit torrentfreak?

/facepalm

People don't have the same view of another person as me, lets make arguments. He is doing good things for some people for sure, because he had lots of support in his legal fight. This guy made money on peoples data? How much did facebook earn of you?

http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/kimble/

It takes a lot of gullibility to be a fan of that guy...

I read some articles and I knew most of the stuff there. But my eyes hurt after visiting that website but even if it's just a hate site put up I will continue to read the articles and reply you later this evening when I have more time.

But on first glance, it doesn't show any real picture of what happened. Just the typical hate campaign.

A hate campaign orchestrated by Forbes, Wired, CNet, The Register and Businessweek?

Honestly, that just makes me wonder if his biggest crime has been scaring some powerful people shitless.

Fuck Kim Dotcom. He's a scumbag piece of shit who deserves to rot in prison. He plots and schemes way to put hundreds of millions of dollars into his pocket off of the works of others. Anyone who supports him should be ashamed of themselves.

> He plots and schemes way to put hundreds of millions of dollars into his pocket off of the works of others.

And the way the recording industry works is any different?

It's fundamentally different. There's a contractual relationship between an artist and a label. The label may be taking advantage of the artist, but that's what the artist agreed to (albeit unwittingly, I'm sure).

The recording industry at least doesn't run an underground BBS and sells out its users to law enforcement to save itself after being raided. Kimble has always been a self-centred scumbag. I really don't understand why anybody ever trust him again with anything.

You can judge someone both on their merits and vices. Both Mega and this Baboom are pretty awesome and technically amazing. I'm listening to his album right now, and it's actually really catchy and enjoyable. The man has many talents, and he is using them for good at the moment. I'd say the U.S. government is way worse than someone who is 'self-centered.' The U.S. is a war machine, Dotcom is conceited. Now who should we be concerned about, heh.

> The man has many talents, and he is using them for good at the moment. I'd say the U.S. government is way worse than someone who is 'self-centered.'

That's akin to saying "well at least he's not killing innocent woman and children".

I mentioned the US because the charges on him are from the US government, lobbied by corporate interests.

Self-centered does not imply killing in any way, shape, or form. If you use the word akin, try not to be hyperbolic, it makes any intelligent reader immediately discard any validity you would have summoned.

The point was that perhaps we should be setting our standards a bit higher than the US government.

Not really a fan of the vitriol in the grandparent comment, but yes, the record industry is different in that some of the profits accrue to the artists. Maybe not enough, but that's different than giving them nothing at all.

From what Courtney Love said, that's not really true. Well selling records can actually put the artist in debt. The best venue for artist to earn money are tours and merchandise.

"... selling records can actually put the artist in debt."

Yes, of course. It's no different than startups - if you take on $500,000 debt to start your business (a.k.a. make an album, promote the album), you will be in debt until you sell enough product to pay off said debt.

The best venue for artist to earn money are tours and merchandise.

A good new year's resolution for us all is to "Stop talking about stuff you don't know about as though you have experience with it."

Hey another good new year's resolution is to "Don't talking condescending unless you have something valuable to contribute". I.e. give me data showing I'm wrong.

I'm not saying they make lots of lots of money of merchandising and tours, but from what I've gathered they make more of money on those, unless the studio contract takes part of that as well. Basically they earn more money on a merchandise they are on, or a product line they sell than on records.

Your metaphor is more like starting a startup to get famous enough to start another startup to pay the debts of the previous one.

Steve Albini added figures to that : http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17 Pretty famous & old article but still informative.

I don't doubt it's a messed up industry in many ways, but even "messed up" beats "rip off 100% and give nothing back" every time.

For me as a fan of several groups, the key thing, economically speaking, is that the group is able to work on their music full time, thus maximizing their creative output and therefore, as someone who enjoys what they do, the benefits to me.

The problem is that not enough artists think about what they do as a business but as right they have to do what they want.

It's messed up, but the problem is Kit Dotcom steals, but at least he doesn't own any rights to music and you don't own him money once the dust settles. I could be wrong, but he is having making a Spotify clone, no?

If he is making a recording label, I'd avoid him more than the plague.

The best ways for artists to earn money are not tours and merchandise. I don't know why that assertion keeps getting passed around as fact. No one ever seems to post data supporting it. For your basic indie musician tour (plus merchandise), you're doing really well if you are making enough money to pay for the food and lodging costs of the tour.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml

Here you go the numbers. The High point is your average signed artist gets $23 out of $1000 in sales or 2.3%.

I missed that the parent thread was limited to RIAA signed artists, and reacted to the blanket statement of the parent implying it was a truth for all artists (including unsigned and indie).

Yes, it is true that big-label acts made most of their money from touring and merchandise. My point is that that fact does not translate to smaller-time indie artists.

A lot of people tend to improperly point to the RIAA practices (of capturing most of the licensing/royalty pie), and use it to make the case that indie musicians should also not expect any revenue from their product and instead focus on touring and merchandise. It's a self-serving argument from those that are in favor of "free" streaming music. In other words, there's a difference between claiming that RIAA has historically captured most of that pie, and claiming that the pie doesn't exist.

Why would I say that, when replying to context of RIAA vs Kim Dotcom debate.

>No one ever seems to post data supporting it. //

Fan of irony I see.

> And the way the recording industry works is any different?

"And the way the VC industry works is any different?"

Two wrongs make a right, right?

I think the point of contention is this: if the artist isn't getting paid by the record company for music sales, is ripping it off from them even wrong?

Except artists voluntarily sign contracts with RIAA.

Doubt Kim's service pays anything to the artists at all.

"voluntarily"

Yes, voluntarily. People would kill to get these ostensibly terrible recording ontracts. Because, statistically speaking, the alternatives for artists are to 1) starve to make their music or 2) get another job. Playing live does not make real money to any but the small fraction who are already famous, and guess how they got there in the first place!

You are totally right and I couldn't agree more with you. The thing is that the record companies have created an environment where almost the only way to make a living is signing "voluntarily" with them.

Nowadays a musician is not so different from a software developer. They can work solo or in groups, they can distribute their songs freely or decide to charge for them. But the software developing world and the music world are two completely different worlds when you look at the business model. So yeah, you can voluntarily sell your software to a giant like Google or Microsoft, but I'm not sure that signing for Virgin or Warner is such a voluntary act.

What? Somebody forces them to sign these contracts?

Generally speaking, people should be put in prison only if the prosecution can legally prove they did something illegal. "I totally know he is a scumbag" cause "some unrelated stuff that was totally shade" is not considered proof.

Shady acts on the side of FBI, police and other government agencies are way more dangerous for democracy and rule of law then whatever Kim Dotcom did.

The same goes for criminalization of copyright law, whether by precedent or brought law changes.

"Fuck Kim Dotcom. He's a scumbag piece of shit who deserves to rot in prison. He plots and schemes way to put hundreds of millions of dollars into his pocket off of the works of others. Anyone who supports him should be ashamed of themselves."

Fuck YOU and current copyright. By running megaupload/mega Kim Dotcom did nothing wrong. He created service for sharing information, that is a good thing. The artificial limitations copyright imposes on usage of our technologies is retarded.

> Fuck Kim Dotcom. He's a scumbag piece of shit

Really? Perhaps you work for the corrupt dinosaurs at the MAFIAA or those in the UK/US government? Or perhaps you were easily fooled by the lies fed to you by mainstream media?

Either way, people on HN should remember that Kim Dotcom is one of the few successful .com businessmen to fight against Hollywood & the NSA in the name of internet freedom and privacy rights. Whatever you think of him, remember that the enemy of your enemy is always your friend.

> He plots and schemes way to put hundreds of millions of dollars into his pocket off of the works of others.

Ok, if you have a problem with share-cropping then you should start with Zuckerburg and all the other social networks, not to mention Ariana Huffington who conned bloggers and writers to work for free...

Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

A troll just got 50 internet points on HN. Congratulations.

If it makes you feel better I only got 12 imaginary internet points. I've also been quite consistent in my rallying against Dotcom. It's taking time but most people are coming around to realizing that Dotcom is a sleazy scumbag not worth of praise or support.

If this is how you feel about the world, how do you live? Do you simply just not use services you feel have been corrupt? If that's the case the only place you should really be located is the woods without internet.

Say what you want about Kim Dotcom, the guy is a marketing genius.

Before Megaupload he was virtually unknown out of tech/finance circles. Now my mother knows who he is. Albeit, she calls him Dotcom Internet.

No, he was not. He was, among other things, known as a fellon in a pump and dump scheme around letsbuyit.com. http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/kimble/

You're suggesting that he was very well known for that scheme? Not so sure about that...

You gotta admire the guy's drive. Relentless.

The player is also quite slick. No flash, and very responsive.

The video background on the homepage packs quite the punch, really draws you in - for a minute I thought it might be some kind of WebGL.

Apparently they're Portuguese! Congratulations, we sure need more startups around here :)

Yes we do.I also didn't know that they were portuguese

They weren't, I think they had to "hide" there after all the Megaupload drama.

They have numerous remote working developers across Europe. Makes sense their HQ to be there; also, in terms of taxes and etc as far as I know everything is pretty tight.

I like the site. Can anyone give a technical synopsis of how this has been made, perhaps the time frame and complexity of an app like this?

I'm assuming Kim hasn't coded this himself, anyone know if he outsourced to a company?

The Baboom developers page links to 2 open-source projects. One of the web pages, for Mout (https://github.com/mout/mout), is © linking to http://www.millermedeiros.com/ so presumably he's one of the devs.

Satazor is listed as a dev on Mout and also on the other OS project on the Baboom site, Bower (http://bower.io/).

If you really want to know ... http://instagram.com/p/iGuGNvLpwK shows pics none of which are Kimdotcom AFAICT.

There's details about the company behind it: http://baboom.com/developers/ although no word about who works there.

The design and implementation of the site are excellent, it's a shame that the discussion here focused on Kim. There's obviously very brilliant and passionate people behind the site. Possibly the same team that works on Mega.

Yeah that would be something. It really looks in the style of Goolge Music probably heavy with HTML5 and css. Doesn't look like there is flash.

I'm not sure if anyone actually listened to his album but the production on it is pretty solid. I would love to know who made most of this. It sounds like all the pop EDM garbage thats out there right now. A lot of the lyrical content is totally in that realm of meaningless phrases about life and partying. Songs like Keep Getting Better could have me fooled that it was a Rihanna song (really both of the girls Amari and Ilati sounded autotuned like her).

The demo site works well and feels slick. It's a pity I had to listen to his music to try it out though.

Auto-tune is a cool technology but I liked it better when tone-deaf rich people couldn't flatly sing a poorly-written, over-produced song and call it music.

Did he really just make an entire service just to not have a myspace page?

It's also the release of Kim Dotcom's debut album 'Good Times', and also his 40th birthday! :)

I assume he made a deal with the artists and we are not downloading illegally?

Nice design, btw the animation is maxing out my gpu.

There's nothing on the site to download other than his own album in the preview. His video implies he wants artists to upload their music for free, and fans only pay if they enjoy the work. The download tab for an album in the preview has links to iTunes, Amazon and Bandcamp.

I might have missed something (if so please tell me), but the only mention of Kim Dotcom is "Check the first album ever released on Baboom, Good Times by Kim Dotcom", and it's saying what it's saying... and not that Kim Dotcom is actually behind the service.

    We are associated with the same group behind MEGA 
    (Megaupload successor as Wikipedia states), and 
    responsible for the upcoming music service BABOOM.

From their recruitment document

Some more background: http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-teases-new-music-service-...

Thanks

It's like a new myspace.

Kim Dotcom is a maverick.

Wow, Kim's album is actually pretty catchy...

I used Rdio for a few months this it seems like this streaming music business model is the going to be the future..

Personality-wise, he's kind of like the alter-ego of Steve Wozniak.

ha interesting...

The site, including the careers page, is beautiful.

he can also sing ? wow

just like Silvio Berlusconi. And probably one of the Kim-Clan in northern Korea.

With autotune, everyone can sing.

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