Comments for Music Machinery

Comment on Hackathons are not nonsense by Ben Fields (@alsothings)

Ben Fields (@alsothings) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:52:10 +0000

‘Hackathons are awesome’. Yes! I think the problem is that of perspective. I always view hacks as learning exercises, where neat products/apps/whatever are sometimes produced as an accidental by-product, not the expressed purpose. The constraints combine with the ability to do whatever seems interesting or useful, is, I find, highly productive but not in a way that is at deterministic or directly commercial (though certainly commercially useful outcomes are possible). So, perhaps if you look at a hackday from an explicitly commercial perspective, you end up with the wrong idea and they seem rather useless (this can perhaps also lead to some things at hackdays that I’ve never been that excited by, like large cash prizes). But at least to me this all comes down to perspective and expectations.

(Also, thanks for the tourrentplans shout out)

Comment on Hackathons are not nonsense by Tristan Jehan

Tristan Jehan — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:40:11 +0000

When asked how long it took Pablo Picasso to make a painting, he answered 30 years.

Comment on Hackathons are not nonsense by Tristan Jehan

Tristan Jehan — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:37:11 +0000

I once heard Michel Gondry say he constrained himself with material and tools in order to be creative. Others use CGI.

Comment on Hackathons are not nonsense by Arkadiy Kukarkin

Arkadiy Kukarkin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 03:10:12 +0000

To be fair, at least a few of these projects were built largely outside the hack day (Invisible Instruments, in particular)

Comment on Building a Seatwave + Echo Nest App by jsquizzared

jsquizzared — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:17:24 +0000

Really cool and a nice simple to understand demo

Comment on The Midem Music Machine by David

David — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:44:39 +0000

Paul-
Another outstanding hack. What is the music? And can it be generalized to a different track?

Comment on Who is the A$%#hole? by DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:14:10 +0000

The problem is that people don’t care about the platform; they care about the content. You could have the BLT sandwich of music-playing services, but if you don’t have all of Lady Gaga on there nobody will even give you a second look.

Which means that unless the enforcement environment is draconian, people who steal(*) content are always going to have an advantage.

(*) shut up. It’s stealing. And you know it’s wrong, which is why you cry so hard about what word gets used to describe it.

Comment on Who is the A$%#hole? by Tim Sell

Tim Sell — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:55:50 +0000

@colin they keep disappearing because they have no business model. This happens to startups everywhere, it’s not just music startups. Most startups fail before they find one.

Comment on Who is the A$%#hole? by James Gagan (@jgagan)

James Gagan (@jgagan) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:34:51 +0000

I would definitely suggest that popular opinion is not on their side, and let’s not forget their heavy handed campaigns against individual users. Besides, as Colin correctly notes above, the point of my post was that the way forward is for developers and startups to ecschew content from those who would sue them for using it. My hope is someday major labels will give away their content to let people build great apps. But maybe by the time that happens, nobody will care, because there will be enough great content out there that is ok to use without fear of reprisal.

Comment on Who is the A$%#hole? by Paul

Paul — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:04:38 +0000

Hi James – thanks for commenting. Yes, there’s a long list of companies that have tried to build a music startup around licensed content that they didn’t own the content for. Many of them have been sued. Are you saying that the labels should just look the other way when a music startup starts giving away what the legit services like Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, Apple, Amazon and others are paying good money for? Does that really make them a-holes?