

YC Startup Going into Beta: Reble.FM Music Sharing - nmeyer
http://www.reble.fm

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jmtulloss
I prototyped something like this recently and enjoyed it quite a bit, so I'm
glad somebody else has tried to make it into a business. I, for one, am a bit
skeptical for a few reasons.

1\. The barrier to entry is pretty high. In a world dominated by web apps, who
wants to try a heavyweight Java app that might take a full 2 minutes to get
set up? We live in a 30 second world these days.

2\. Home routers are messy. People who aren't tech savvy aren't going to want
to mess around with opening ports. UPnP helps this, but I've found that it's
unreliable on many popular, low quality routers. Users who download the app
and then find that it doesn't work oftentimes will just give up instead of
diving into the router.

Of course, maybe I'm underestimating how much the average consumer can get
done these days. It'll be interesting to see what kind of coverage this gets,
especially since I'm working on an app that approaches the problem more in the
style of Anywhere.FM.

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rms
This is cool, but I don't understand why I would use this over an uber-piracy
service like waffles.fm. I'm provided with all of the flac rips I could ever
want in a way that enables high-quality music discovery. I just don't think
free music that exploits a peculiar hack of legality can ever win out over DRM
free piracy. If someone finds something they like on reble.fm, they have to
pirate it anyways to get it onto their iPod, except for the people that buy it
through your iTunes affiliate link.

It's tough to compete with free by being less free.

If anyone wants a waffles invite, by the way, send me an email.

~~~
manvsmachine
Depends on who your friends are. Some of my friends are DJ's, and they have a
lot of music that you'd be extremely lucky to find via waffles, torrents, etc.
I myself have music now that, if I lost it, I possibly would not be able to
get back.

~~~
rms
Waffles really has quite a collection. Much better than whatever you can find
on a public tracker or p2p and it's all high quality and transcode free. It is
not quite Oink yet, but it'll get there eventually.

I'm curious if there is anything in particular from your collection that is
unlikely to be on waffles.

~~~
manvsmachine
not a whole lot, but on the hip-hop side of things, I have some album advances
with tracks that didn't make the final release, and a couple of albums that
got shelved and never actually came out. Others would just be specific mashups
/ blends that DJ's might just do live on air; a lot of them record their
sessions and trade tracks with each other, but they're not going to put it up
on p2p.

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axod
So streaming a friends music collection to your PC is fine, but streaming it
to an ipod isn't? I'm not sure the legalities of this hold water personally.
Such muddiness when it comes to this sort of thing.

~~~
greendestiny
It'll be interesting to see how it plays out legally. I'm glad some people are
prepared to push the laws even if I'm not sure I'd take that risk in my own
startup. I guess the legal analogy they're going for here is that you are
lending your friend the song, just like lending a physical CD. It sounds
pretty reasonable but the law isn't really defined by what sounds reasonable.

I think with the restrictive nature of this service the RIAA et al might see
it as being in line with their view on a music purchasors license.

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DaniFong
Congrats guys. I've wanted something like this for a long time. It's a pity
you can't play something simultaneously though. I suppose intimate listening
sessions will have to stay in real space.

PS: I never thought I'd say this, but I love the license agreement. :-)

~~~
nmeyer
Thanks =)

Yup, RL does have a purpose still.

If anyone wants someone to share with, guessing my username would probably
work.

~~~
herdrick
Congrats, Nick! Way to go. Catch you on the other side.

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nanijoe
I would have thought this was a fantastic idea....before Anywhere.FM . Of
course my opinion counts for little since I did not download the software, and
have not actually seen it work

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jwinter
You can't find a particular song from your friend's collection via
Anywhere.fm. You can only listen to their playlists and skip at most 3 times.

~~~
nanijoe
I've been ab;e to skip much more than 3 times...by refreshing my browser

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makaveli
Nick--assuming that the users of Rebel.FM are liable for direct infringement
(which seems likely), the way in which the software is marketed may affect
Rebel.FM's liability. (see MGM v. Grokster:
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-480.ZS.html>). [This is not legal
advice--just pondering.]

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pistoriusp
Wow, looks really cool. I haven't tried it yet because I'm on a Mac... And I
don't think I could convince any of my friends to try it either. It's hard
enough to get them to share their music in iTunes and not to mention having to
install Java.

Just out of interest: Did the FAQ come across as arrogant to anyone else?

~~~
pchivers
_> Did the FAQ come across as arrogant to anyone else?_

Yes. It doesn't inspire a lot of trust in its current form.

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mattmaroon
Congrats Nick. Glad to see it.

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nickb
Sounds cool! Congrats on shipping!

Anxiously waiting for Mac version :)

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manvsmachine
any plans for eventual Mac / *nix support?

~~~
nmeyer
Yep. Working on the Mac version. Linux version should be out about the same
time. The plan is to work most of the kinks out on the windows version and
then get it running on Mac/Linux.

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dhouston
congrats nick!

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ajkirwin
It's an interesting idea, for sure, but depending on just how you bought your
music, you (the user) could get screwed.

Take for instance, buying mp3s from Amazon, and using Reble.FM. That's a
violation of your agreement with Amazon. And other things may have similar
restrictions.

Of course, with illegally downloaded content, you have no worries about how
you can legally use it.

~~~
imsteve
Who cares about EULAs?

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ajkirwin
Well, people were discussing the legality of such a service, so..

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imsteve
EULAs are generally not legally binding. So no.

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ajkirwin
I'm more referring to the Terms of Service of something like AmazonMP3, which
specifically and categorically says that you cannot do exactly what this site
does.

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imsteve
Learn the definition of "illegal".

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pius
A EULA, if written properly, is legally binding but violating it is not
illegal in the criminal sense; it's a tort issue. If we were talking about
violating the DMCA, however, it _would_ be illegal.

~~~
imsteve
Legal advice on the internet...

morons.

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pius
I figured it went without saying that a comment on a forum should not be
construed as legal advice and that one should seek the professional advice of
a licensed attorney for that purpose. I'll say it now for completeness.

