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Comment by Argorak | Hacker News Reader

> We believe that listening to music should always be free and available to everyone, and that only owning it should bare a cost.

I hate this entitlement. As if it was their decision. As if they were running a social movement.

I am all for open access to arts, but this is the artists decision and not some programmers, just because they can.

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Completely right! They have to build a spotify / popcorn clone for open, not for commercial music.

I took a short look into their source code and I discovered that they are using youtube (google video) for playback, the iTunes API to get the top list, LastFM to get the covers. One song is round about 20MB because they play the entire video. Nothing more then a youtube fronted stitched together from 3 API's and inspired by Popcorn Time. I think google will block it as soon as they can.

And after a short try I mentioned that some songs are only bad covers from private people. Well ... yeah

Except Google cannot block it so easily : API calls cannot be filtered out from legit ones using API keys or IP addresses

HipHop is using Youtube's 128kbps or 192 audio stream only. It fallbacks on the video in the rare cases Youtube does not provide audio streams.

I hate the "have your cake and eat it too" mentality. If you want to control distribution don't put things on the Internet. This isn't 1999, what happens when you put stuff on the internet is well-known at this point. If you're unhappy with it, start a new network that has DRM baked-in so this isn't an issue.

Even if the artist chooses not to distribute digitally, it may well appear online in some digital format anyway.

Only if they are creating art that is inherently digital.

Any art form can be converted to a digital format against the artist's will.

Much of the music available of on youtube was not released by the artists.

If the statement were "we want to make access to freely available music easier" (and we cannot police how it got to our sources) - sure. Go with it!

Exacty.. Is it also their "belief" that artists that worked hard on something should not be paid for what they made? Because then I think that would be as awesome as: Hey I have an idea, and you can be my partner. There is no money involved now, but would you be willing to work for a year without pay? See you Idea-Man

> but this is the artists decision and not some programmers

I think you meant to say "it is the copyright holders decision and not some artists"

Who to assign the copyright to is the artists decision, so it is - ultimately - the artists decision.

> I am all for open access to arts, but this is the artists decision and not some programmers, just because they can.

Looks like this very app proves your assertion wrong: programmers -- by creating this app -- made it so listening to music is free.

I'm not commenting on the moral aspect of it, only the practical.

> I'm not commenting on the moral aspect of it, only the practical.

I would accept the practical part if they hadn't put out that statement.

I am commenting on the moral aspect of it, not on the practical.

As I said below, if this is backended on YouTube artists will collect royalties provided they are collecting them.

I absolutely agree. Plus how is 'owning music' different from being able to always listen to it for free?

I'm on the way of building an open source spotify-alike app. For now it already has a server and a osx web-based client app. https://github.com/knoopx/headbang.app

You should join the HipHop project, you could contribute a lot

"We believe your HipHop software should be open source and available for everyone to investigate."

it is

https://github.com/hiphopapp/hiphop

I assume they mean "bear a cost", unless this is some UK/US spelling disagreement.

They are collating youtube content... So... everything you said is a bit ridiculous.

Not the parent but I agree completely with him. First of all YouTube content is monotised by video ads which you won't be able to see with this. Secondly their statement that: "... listening to music should always be free and available to everyone, and that only owning it should bare a cost" is nothing but greedy and entitled. Nobody has the right to decide that something someone else has spent time and money creating should be available for free without the creators having a say.

Not to mention the fact that the music industry has made music incredibly cheap and available over the last few years. $10 per month for access to most of the music ever recorded on all your devices is an incredible deal. And it's available to almost everyone in the world via streaming services like Deezer (which is available in over 180 countries).

> First of all YouTube content is monotised by video ads

None of that money goes to the artist... that goes to google... So you are okay with someone else making money of the free labour of artists, but not someone NOT making money of the free labour of artists. Interesting position.

> Nobody has the right to decide that something someone else has spent time and money creating should be available for free without the creators having a say.

The creator does have a say. They can not release the content, they can DMCA the youtube videos, etc etc.

Who decided that you should pay for culture? Who has the right to decide such thing? If society disagrees with that decision is that not another "piece of culture" ?

> None of that money goes to the artist... that goes to google...

Youtube uses an ad-revenue sharing program. So video creators/uploaders do get a share of money from the ad, even if it is marginal.

A tiny fraction sure. But google make a lot more.

So your real issue is with the YouTube API for not supplying ads with content?

I take offense in their statement, not the methodology. As I said in other responses: sold differently, I would be perfectly okay with what they are doing.

So you have no problem with the actions... just the rhetoric?

That's an interesting position I've encountered the opposite before, but not this.

Does the rhetoric really matter?

What kind of question is this?

Ask any politician, public speaker and successful fundraiser whether rhetoric matters.

me too! for music there are good and paid consumer solutions. i like popcorn, because they are (at least i hope) pushing the movie industry into the right direction...

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