Will Google Uphold its "Do No Evil" Motto With Muziic?
Going beyond traditional media players, teen developer David Nelson has created Muziic Player, an application that harnesses the power of YouTube to offer music lovers around the globe access to the world's largest searchable database of songs.
Self-described as "a free and legal" application, Muziic lets you stream music from YouTube without ever again having to visit the site. And therein lies the rub. Could this legal application be seen as not so legal by Google?
"It's really the first 100% free, legal method for listening to digital music," said 15-year-old Nelson in a press release. "Typically, free music services are not completely legal; on the other hand, legal music services are not usually free," he said.
We downloaded the application and had a quick look. It's an easy to use media player that looks great, and has much the same functionality as other media players; it lets you build playlists, organize songs etc., but has one enormous advantage over others: its media catalog is YouTube.
The inner workings, however, appear to be what makes this application "legal." In a nutshell, the application works by searching Muziic's own index of YouTube music, and then streams the music directly from YouTube, thus avoiding any potential legal issues.
YouTube has contracts with various recording companies, and artists are paid royalties based on the number of times their song is played. Because the music is played from YouTube servers, artists will receive payment. A win-win situation according to Nelson. "Because of YouTube's contracts with the record labels, satisfaction can be reached for our listeners and the artists themselves," he said.
While the artists may get their royalties, sidestepping YouTube and the ads the company has been carefully positioning on the site over the past year may not exactly please the search giant, as Greg Sandoval, over on CNET pointed out yesterday.
"This site has yet to receive the blessing of Google, the large recording companies or the scores of film and TV rights holders who filmed the many live performances on YouTube. I doubt these companies will welcome a service that makes it easy for users to avoid YouTube ads. They certainly won't allow the Nelsons to profit without at least receiving compensation," Sandoval wrote.
Sandoval, who contacted YouTube Saturday night, was told that this was the first time YouTube had noticed the site. "We're looking into it now. On a preliminary review, however, it appears that the site violates our API terms of use," the spokesperson told CNET.
However, it will be interesting to watch what the company, whose mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, will do with this young entrepreneur and his wish: to organize the world's music information and make it universally accessible and useful.
We like this application and will be keeping a close eye on it, but as always would love to know what you think. What do you think about applications like Muziic, and what do you expect to hear from Google?
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If Muziic was streaming content from it's own servers, it would really be a win-win situation...
but as long as google has to support the (huge) cost of the infrastructure without getting paid back, it's only a win-win-LOSE situation.
Youtube is google.... not google.org and Google's employees deserve to have their pay at the end of the month....
If I was google, I'd try to to find a solution with the author of the app. Displaying google ads on it for example...
To bad, but Google surely stop this..
Maybe if the give David Nelson a check for his effort, and make something useful themselves with this.
Yes, why haven't Google made a music stream service ala spotify? Might be hard to monetize, but I'm sure there's ways to do that here aswell..
Naturally Google has to do something about this, due to traffic (infrastructure as Dave pointed out), but also the the copyright holders of the music videos (Warner, Sony etc.)
Do No Evil!
I expect Google will say,welcome Muziic, I expect Google will welcome Muziic as another follower of Google that support Google to be a better music and Video streaming for people worldwide ,however although Google will embrace muziic since they apparently help Google more "clean and respectable"I dont think thousand recording Company will say the same,and when all company release sue Google for copyright Violation I dont think at this moment Google has a cash to pay all the sue
I think this story kind of over simplifies. Not delving into the issue of whether or not it violates Google/YouTube API Terms of Use; whether the service is legal is still questionable. Not all record companies have come into agreement with YouTube regarding licensing copies of their music (unfortunately). Not every artist song on YouTube is licensed; so the statement where they promote that what they are doing is absolutely legal, is highly questionable.
That's not to say that it doesn't sound cool, cause it does. Just that I wouldn't be so fast at promoting it as legal; unless your willing to say unequivocally, that every song currently on YouTube is properly licensed. And I think we all know, with or without ContentID, that that's just not true.
I think Google should do the same AOL did to Winamp author Justin Frankel - buy the product, keep the guy as a lead developer.
Then try to monetize on the idea.
If every song can be bought with just one click, there is a good chance many songs will be bought... Just to put it on one's iPod for example.
There's always been a common sense thing to apply to scams 'if it seems too good to be true it's because it is too good to be true' - a service that's built around exploiting flaws in Google/YouTube isn't going to last too long.
The argument that the rights holders get paid because Google pays they especially illustrates the flaw - and indeed one that is typical of Free thinking - it's not so much free, so much as someone else foots the bill.
However, it may be difficult for Google to extricate themselves without breaking a lot of sites that use their APIs in more legitimate ways.
LOL. It's "legal" because a 15 year old says it is, and RWW believes him? Pro tip: keep writing about technology, and try to avoid commenting on the law.
How is this the first free legal music service, Spotify and others have been around much longer?
I believe it is a misuse of the Youtube API to stream audio without including the video. Just ask Songza who has been doing this very thing for well over a year now.
I agree with Dave the first commenter. I hope that they will work with the kid to allow ads on the app
If Google allows Muziic to continue unchanged, this would be evil.
Google's compensation system to allow large label music to be allowed on YouTube videos requires that the terms of the YouTube API be followed. Muziic is breaking the terms of the API and, thus, like any other would-be start-up which breaks the terms of the API, they should get a warning. Either follow the terms of the API, or have their access to the API shut down.
Muziic falsely claims that this is a 100% legal way to listen to the music. This completely ignores the terms of the API, which is a legal agreement... one which they are not 100% following. Therefore, Muziic is not a 100% legal way to listen to music. Sure, it's 100% legal to the listener... but it's illegal on the part of the developer.
I love free.. especially if it's music. :P
Raskin's Songza www.songza.com did this a few years ago. The player is more mininalist, and more sources than YouTube are included, but they seem to have their legal agreements in place. It's quite good.
You guys should check out http://songraptor.com too.
Google just announced its plans for a music service with Universal, btw, too. So they are interested in music.
I smell an acquisition. :P
the fact its a desktop app and I need to install something, I can already search for on the web already, kills the deal. fail
Google will hire him or buy his app. Win-Win solution for both parties.
It's Don't be Evil, Not do no evil!
sorry all,
MOGTV has been up for almost 2 years
http://mog.com/watch/tv
there were about 50 articles on it when it launched.
here's one below
http://digg.com/tech_news/MOG_2_0_s_YouTube_Mash_up_What_MTV_Should_Have_Become
Wow dude that is WAY cool!
RT
www.privacy.at.tc
Try http://www.lastvid.com for a very similar concept that is web based. It uses music recommendations from last.fm to help you discover new music as well.
Why would you want to use this program if you can just go to youtube?
I LOVE this player! Very easy and straight forward to use, the best one I've seen. I've got high hopes for this player!
It's ok a little clunky, not that great IMO.
I like the idea behind Muziic. I do think though, that it will have to allow Google ads in the program, or Google will end up suing to get it shut down. I hope they can reach a compromise.
Bloated would be an understatement. That looks worse than MusicMatch Jukebox.
www.spotify.com
Go here and get a real musicplayer with all songs for free.
wow great music
great music?
do think though, that it will have to allow Google ads in the program, or Google will end up suing to get it shut down.
Still going. How about that!!!
Does anyone use spotify? What do you think?