
HipHop: A "Popcorn Time" for music - galapago
http://gethiphop.net/
======
Argorak
> 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.

~~~
TilmanGriesel
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

~~~
hiphopapp
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.

------
daGrevis
The main selling point of Popcorn Time is that it allows to watch movies more
easily than solutions that asks money for that. I don't think music industry
has this problem — there are services like Spotify, Rdio and many more that
offers painless listening.

That aside, the app looks really polished and I'm glad it has Linux support
backed in.

~~~
lawl
Spotify randomly deleted my offline library on android. Of course when I was
traveling and didn't have a data plan. Canceled my premium subscription a
month ago or so. This happened multiple times to me.

Yup I'm at the point again where maintaining my own library is more convinient
again. It's exactly the DRM shit I won't put up with. Also spotify, rdio etc.
Are _exactly_ the same price with the same restrictions per plan (in .ch at
least). Price cartel, oligopoly?

~~~
duiker101
Spotify did the same to me, multiple times. Last time yesterday when my pc
randomly lost permissions for offline storage.

But that is not an excuse. The music industry in trying to provide alternative
ways, and I extremely appreciate it and think that we need to be supportive.
Only by supporting this changes we will ever see any improvements, we need to
find a middleground that can satisfy both parties. Spotify offers a great
service on a great platform. It can have his hippicus but that can happen with
everything. What would happen if the player app you are using to play your
offline library breaks and you have no data?

~~~
lawl
Usually the media players I use, they uhm play media. Like in open(...,'r').
And _should_ it break my library then I have backups, because there is no DRM
with the only usecase of trying to annoy me.

So no, I don't support them. I use Steam though, I think they got DRM right
for the most part. I'd prefer no DRM, really. But with Steam I don't notice
any DRM. That's good enough for me. I only use it in online mode though.

~~~
miah_
gaben has said numerous times that he cares more about cheaters than pirates.
Steam implements anti-cheating technology, but afaict many games don't include
DRM unless the publisher demands it.

------
angusb
I know that there's a kick to be got out of circumventing the draconian rules
big music/film industry lobby into law, but what do the writers think about
independents that they effectively take down in the same blow? This is a
genuine question, not an attack.

I've spent a lot of time studying/writing/playing music and through that have
got to personally know many of the most talented and versatile musicians I've
ever come across. These people are skilled like Douglas Crockford, John Resig,
you name it. But they have to make the assumption that the music they want to
do - their own music - will never make any money in a recorded format, forcing
them to do wedding gigs during the day instead.

I'm interested to know what people think about this. Do people think that the
end (taking power away from big music industry) justifies the loss for those
small-time players, or is it something that simply hasn't been considered at
all?

Do you have a justification for saying that all music should be free, or is it
just that it would be nice if all music was free?

~~~
krig
> I'm interested to know what people think about this. Do people think that
> the end (taking power away from big music industry) justifies the loss for
> those small-time players, or is it something that simply hasn't been
> considered at all?

My opinion: The end justifies the loss.

Secure and private file sharing is going to be essential for ensuring liberty
in the future. I am absolutely convinced about that. You can't have that and
make piracy impossible at the same time. The people who make tools for
circumventing digital restrictions today are doing the groundwork for
essential technology of the future.

~~~
louhike
Why is it essential? And why is this liberty? People may disagree with you and
tell that musicians must have the liberty to get money from their music
through sales. Can we really force them to give it for free? Music production
cost a lot of money and involve a lot of persons to work on it. Musicians
already have to do a lot of gigs to cover the cost of recording music. Even
artists like Jeff Buckley had to work a lot to repay the studio.

~~~
krig
It has nothing to do with music. The sharing of music is only a side-effect of
free and private sharing of digital information in general.

There are a number of drawbacks with enabling private digital communications:
It makes the sharing of copyrighted works possible without the possibility for
law enforcement to intervene, it enables the spread of child pornography or
other criminal and morally unjustifiable information, etc.

The thing is, that is a price that is worth paying, because the alternative is
a complete loss of liberty. If the government can prevent you from sharing
music, it can prevent you from sharing anything. This may not be a problem for
you personally right now, but it is a huge problem for people living in North
Korea or Syria, for example.

Besides this, it is not at all clear that private sharing of digital
information is automatically detrimental to musicians. While it is easier to
share music for free, it is also easier for the musicians themselves to reach
out directly to their fans. Whereas it used to be the case that you needed a
record deal signed with a major label to have anyone even hear your music,
these days you can become a major star, making a comfortable living off your
music without ever signing a contract with a major label.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "Besides this, it is not at all clear that private sharing of digital
information is automatically detrimental to musicians."

Seems like this would be pretty easy to work out. Look at the amount of money
musicians made 30 years ago and compare it with today.

>> "Whereas it used to be the case that you needed a record deal signed with a
major label to have anyone even hear your music, these days you can become a
major star, making a comfortable living off your music without ever signing a
contract with a major label."

This needs to be proven. Show me some of these big stars. If I look through
the top 100 albums or singles I doubt I'll find 5 that have done it without
the help of a label.

~~~
krig
"major star" may have been a bit strong, of course you won't make it onto the
top 100 lists since those are completely controlled and owned by the major
labels.

Making a comfortable living without a label contract is certainly possible. 2
seconds of googling found this person:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordis_Unga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordis_Unga)

------
rjtavares
The name is really confusing. A music app called HipHop that isn't focused in
hip hop music in particular? That's like naming a bookstore "Comics" and
selling all kinds of books.

Rapgenius may be branching out (and I have the same doubts in them keeping the
rapgenius name), but at least they actually started with rap.

~~~
papa_bear
In your example, I'd argue that hip hop is a more dominating segment of music
than comics are of books. Maybe a book store called "Novel" that sold all
kinds of books, which sounds less far fetched for some reason.

~~~
rjtavares
Dominating in youth, not well respected by older people, getting into the
mainstream because people born in the 80s grew up with it... I don't know,
comics sounded like a good counterpart.

------
janus24
It use youtube to have the file of the track
[https://github.com/hiphopapp/hiphop/blob/master/coffee/_play...](https://github.com/hiphopapp/hiphop/blob/master/coffee/_player.coffee)
And lastfm/itunes for the information (artist, title, cover)
[https://github.com/hiphopapp/hiphop/blob/master/coffee/_Trac...](https://github.com/hiphopapp/hiphop/blob/master/coffee/_TrackSource.class.coffee)

~~~
suoloordi
I think Youtube won't like it when third parties use their content, but hide
the video player.

------
jdswain
This kind of app appears to be prohibited in the YouTube terms of service
[https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms](https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms)
:

II. Prohibitions

Your API Client will not, and You will not encourage or create functionality
for Your users or other third parties to:

8\. separate, isolate, or modify the audio or video components of any YouTube
audiovisual content made available through the YouTube API;

9\. promote separately the audio or video components of any YouTube
audiovisual content made available through the YouTube API;

So I can't imagine it lasting long.

~~~
runeks
The response to that would probably be for HipHop to integrate code used to
download YouTube content (like that used by [https://rg3.github.io/youtube-
dl/](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/)). API access isn't necessary.

EDIT: Looks like they already use a YouTube downloader, and not the API:
[https://github.com/hiphopapp/hiphop/blob/master/coffee/_play...](https://github.com/hiphopapp/hiphop/blob/master/coffee/_player.coffee#L2)

------
terminalcommand
For those of you who get the error of libudev.so.0 library. Following commands
will help.

1) sudo apt-get install libudev1 2) ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libudev.so.1
./libudev.so.0

\--You could put this part in a batch file --- 3)
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(pwd):$LD_LIBRARY_PATH ./HipHop $ _

------
d135_1r43
As a part time musician who needs to spend around 10k for a new album I find
this frustrating.

~~~
scotchmi_st
With due respect for you as someone trying to make money as a musician, your
problem is that no-one knows your music, not that people are 'stealing' it.

------
afro88
The first thing I thought of as a successful independent music producer - are
my tracks on there? And why are they trying to steal away my 0.000000001c that
Spotify pays me? (exaggeration for effect)

Also, why the opinion that listening to music should always be free? How is
that a worthwhile cause? It's like saying driving cars should be free, but
owning one should cost money.

edit: Just saw that it uses Youtube for the source files. Do the plays count
against the Youtube video then? If so, great.

~~~
Touche
Why the opinion that it _shouldn 't_ be free? Technology has made it defacto
free.

------
vsakos
It's actually a well-designed youtube client that doesn's show the video to
the users, just the music, am i right?

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

Why?

------
peteretep
I am still consistently frustrated by lack of video content at reasonable
prices, and while I never used it, Popcorn Time seemed like a good thing to
me.

But, music is a solved problem for me, via Spotify, and I find then that my
gut feeling on this is instead that it's parasitic.

~~~
tiglionabbit
For me, video is solved by Amazon Instant Video. They have everything, and
it's usually $2-3 a video.

~~~
kuschku
Again, this is a regional problem – in my country we have no Netflix and
videos on Amazon Instant Video cost at least 7 or 8$ each (just for renting
them for viewing them one time – if you want to view them multiple times, pay
19$)

Which means Amazon Instant Video is, if you want to watch videos multiple
times, more expensive than buying the DVD or BluRay.

~~~
tiglionabbit
Oh, you're right. I guess I mostly buy TV show episodes.

------
SyncTheory13
Since this whole post seems to have turned into a debate on supporting
artists, etc... I'd like to add the idea of going to as many concerts as
possible and supporting local/small music at a mich higher rate
thannational/international acts. Even when attending a major concert, a higher
percentage of the merch and ticket sales, etc. reaches the actual artist.

I understand this isn't an option for everyone but I think more people should
consider it.

------
YungLean
Where are the tracks coming from?

~~~
skimmas
youtube

------
mkesper
I like exploring rarely heard and legally downloadable music on
[http://www.jamendo.com](http://www.jamendo.com)

------
conatus
If this is backed out by YouTube then the artists involved do receive the
royalties from plays provided they are hooked up to a payment collection
agency, which are geographically specific.

I searched for one of the artists (Talk Less Say More) from my label (Records
On Ribs - [http://recordsonribs.com](http://recordsonribs.com)) and it
instantly played.

------
glomph
If it sources the tracks from youtube I don't really understand why it needs
to be a native app. [http://streamus.com/](http://streamus.com/) is a pretty
neat chrome extension that does very similar but there are also plenty of
websites that do this.

~~~
tedivm
Some people like native apps. There's room for both here.

------
jbverschoor
Nice! I like to listen to some japanese artists, which are not available on
spotify etc. Here they are!

------
tpio
It seems the quality of many of the songs are sub-optimal. Would be nice to
have some sort of bit rate indicator in the GUI so that I could skip the
128kbps songs. Other than that it seems to have everything I've looked for

~~~
giulivo
quality indeed is my main concern too ... I haven't started using any of the
cloud services simply because none (that I know) provides lossless music.

~~~
bmaland
WiMP recently launched a lossless streaming service
([http://wimpmusic.com/](http://wimpmusic.com/)). It's not available in the US
though.

~~~
giulivo
thanks, they seem to be looking for how much people is waiting for the service
to be available in other countries ... so I just registered!

------
dvabhishek
This is an alternative, depends on soundcloud for tracks. Front-end is under
development though.
[https://github.com/effive/Auk](https://github.com/effive/Auk)

------
beeglebug
Typo: "bare a cost" should be "bear a cost".

------
teknologist
This is nice. Do you think you could add support for the keyboard media keys
(back, forward, pause, etc.) and volume controls present on the standard mac
keyboard?

------
joesmo
Allegedly searches 45 million songs but returns only a few results which
aren't even sortable. Doesn't seem that useful.

------
jdotjdot
When I came across this I genuinely thought it was referring to Facebook's Hip
Hop Virtual Machine--not music at all.

------
ing33k
Looks neat. I want to know if this consumes the same bandwidth required to
stream a video ..

------
roma1n
Popcorn time really filled a void; how is hiphop different from say,
grooveshark or deezer?

------
jpgvm
Interesting. Is the source available?

~~~
galapago
[http://github.com/hiphopapp/hiphop](http://github.com/hiphopapp/hiphop)

------
tragomaskhalos
What's the catch?

~~~
arfliw
It'll probably be shut down by this weekend.

~~~
hiphopapp
Still up!

------
whatcd
No web app?

~~~
Nux
Youtube.com

