So, the tl;dr of the miserableness followed by my commentary:
1. Have to use the Music Manager to upload music; no drag and drop (Yup, that sucks)
2. Somewhat buggy phone app (Sucks)
3. Looks too much like Grooveshark (Uh, I guess? Only so many ways to skin a cat and make a music player)
4. Caches music, and they banned Kongregate for caching Flash games (This is a pretty big stretch, especially since the linked article doesn't even come close to supporting the claim caching was the reason for the ban)
5. It uploads files from iTunes, and Apple has shown a history of disliking that with Palm (A: Who cares if Apple gets mad about what I do with my music I legally purchased B: There is a pretty big difference between uploading music you've purchased from iTunes and iTunes allowing non-Apple products to sync with it)
Seems like sensational linkbait that has a few legit complains and a lot of filler.
Well the meta comment is that nearly every single product Google has 'shipped' lately has been met with 'man this sucks.' followed by a period of iteration, followed by either its death (Wave), zombieness (Reader), or appreciation (Docs). I don't know if the "press" (and I use that term lightly because the community is a mix of professionals and amateurs) really has a process for dealing with this sort of release cycle. People like game magazines with their deadlines were accustomed to getting early beta/late alpha stage games so that they could have a review in print when the game shipped 12 - 16 weeks later but even then there were some interesting failures (when they published a review for a game that ended up never shipping).
For me, the interesting thing about Google's music service (other than Amazon totally toasted them in the execution of this strategy :-) is that they are wading into lawyer infested waters knowingly. That makes me wonder if we're coming to the 'end times' when folks can see the rights strategies (for music at least) finally settling into some new normal for the 21st century.
Now I don't doubt muscians could still shoot themselves in the wallet like authors did with the book deal [1] but they are a bit more willing to taste test this new world.
> nearly every single product Google has 'shipped' lately
Lately? Google Reader was released in 2005 and Google Docs in 2006. Docs was actually built largely from acquired components (XL2Web, Writely, Upstartle).
You probably have a good point in there somewhere, but you need to select better examples to illustrate it.
Yes. See Blizzard Entertainment/Vivendi vs. MDY Industries in 2008, a lawsuit over World of Warcraft bot software. Through a EULA, you can be barred from using software in certain ways; if you use it in one of those disallowed ways, then loading the program into RAM (launching it) becomes copyright infringement, and a plugin that helps you use the software outside its licensed scope is tortious interference with the EULA contract.
actually:
4. Kongregate's app was banned because the intent of the application of to install other applications there by side stepping any mechanisms setup by the Android Market place.
5. I hope Google v. Apple happens over this and maybe we will get a global accessor... oh wait isn't that what they announced?
> It's also worth noting that they're looking to crack down on piracy, so depending on how well it works and how much of your music is illegal, that could be a deal killer for some.
This would be a deal killer for me and nearly everyone I know.
There aren't many better ways to ID people who've downloaded music illegally than to have them upload copies of those music files to a central location where they can be easily analyzed. Hell, I'd love a chance to run stats on that dataset and I don't even have any skin in the game. Some things you could look for:
- Files with the names of known release crews hidden away in an ID3V1 comment somewhere;
- Files uploaded by multiple people with identical incorrect (misspelled arists/titles) or unique (rip logs, comments, ratings) metadata;
- Files with timestamps earlier than the title's official street date (assuming the dedicated upload client preserves those dates);
- Multiple uploads of files with bit-for-bit identical audio content that doesn't correspond exactly to any official digital release (like identical MP3 encodes of a non-perfect CD rip, or identical versions of anything sourced from vinyl or cassette -- like a lot of the stuff on boutigue MP3 blogs);
- Files with audio data identical to anything ever subject to an official takedown notice, or downloaded by the RIAA from BitTorrent, Usenet or a Megaupload-type file sharing site.
Any given release will only have been distributed in a handful of legitimate digital versions -- basically the CD release(s) and any licensed digital download services. Any file uploaded to an online music locker that doesn't match those legit sources will be suspect, and any of those files what are uploaded to Google in bit-for-bit identical versions by multiple people will be a huge red STOLEN flag.
I have very little illegally-downloaded music relative to the size of my entire collection, but I still wouldn't go anywhere near a service like this. The data extractable from the audio files people upload would significantly reduce the effort needed for the record companies to go after even small-time downloaders. That's never really been feasible before.
I would think the music industry isn't past seeding P2P networks with watermarked files and then suing Google to get a court order to scan people's collections en masse.
They can't tell if your copy is legal or not, but if your copy of an album hashes to the same as the copy found via TPB, they'd consider it suspect.
I think there's enough variation in CD ripping software and various encoder profiles that different rips of the same album using different software is not bit-for-bit the same. That would also be trivially defeatable, so I'm not sure what it'd get Google to do that.
Certainly a more "specialized" review, the VentureBeat review looks like it was done by a complete retard, seriously sync /= upload (and upload is slow if you have big files you know? audio snob, yeah right).
Dammit, I'd like an invite, specially since I wanted to build something similar for a while (not so cloudish though) Google got it right for me apparently.
Congratulations, you've named the one popular service that's only available in a few (seven) European countries and not the US. Which has plenty of great alternatives. Unlike Germany, which has one (Simfy), and it's shit.
Nearly everything but Spotify is US first, everywhere else later. Often never. Which only makes sense, since so many major tech companies are American.
It seems like this type of thing provides huge openings for foreign entrepreneurs. See a successful US-only service and copy it, letting the Americans take all the risk of proving it in the market! Why don't we see more of that?
Because it's not the service controlling this, it's the copyright holders. Any service (netflix, hulu, et. al.) that wants to play nice with those in the copyright business have to limit their distribution per whatever licensing agreement they have.
If you have a fairly reliable Internet connection it's worth looking into something like Subsonic instead. You run it but you get tons more features, storage, more privacy, clients for basically every device -- even ones without Flash support, and it's mostly trivial to install and configure. Not for everyone of course.
My setup is a sshfs mount on my phone (Debian-based Nokia N900) from my home "media server". Some day I'd like to set up a VPN & a UPnP/DLNA server to do video transcoding.
It's a testimony to the effectiveness of link-baiting when pretty much the only bad review gets the most attention.
Other than the fact that some of their grievances are unrelated to the actual functionality of the product, they don't seem to realize that it's an invite-only beta.
1. Have to use the Music Manager to upload music; no drag and drop (Yup, that sucks)
2. Somewhat buggy phone app (Sucks)
3. Looks too much like Grooveshark (Uh, I guess? Only so many ways to skin a cat and make a music player)
4. Caches music, and they banned Kongregate for caching Flash games (This is a pretty big stretch, especially since the linked article doesn't even come close to supporting the claim caching was the reason for the ban)
5. It uploads files from iTunes, and Apple has shown a history of disliking that with Palm (A: Who cares if Apple gets mad about what I do with my music I legally purchased B: There is a pretty big difference between uploading music you've purchased from iTunes and iTunes allowing non-Apple products to sync with it)
Seems like sensational linkbait that has a few legit complains and a lot of filler.