Thanks @sailornathan for posting! @eriktorenberg - The fact that the market is so crowded is exactly what compelled us to create bop.fm. With so many different ways to listen, stream and buy music now, we wanted to make one site, and one app that worked for everyone no matter what music service you use, or what country you live in. By creating a universal identifier for music, that's not tied to a file or streaming service, we're creating the best consumer experience for music. You can now have playlists with songs that were only available on Youtube or Soundcloud, all while using you Spotify account to stream music as well, all in one app, and on one website. You can create and share playlists that work for everyone, not just your friends on Spotify. And that's just the beginning. We think what we're building is pretty cool, and there's still a lot to come from us. Happy to answer any questions :)
@sailornathan@eriktorenberg@stefangomez Interesting concept, and possibly a great place to connect all these platforms to one another. Do you foresee any legal complications (as in particular rights from different platforms, royalties, etc.)? The whole royalty/copyright/PRO thing can end up becoming a major quagmire, as we've seen from numerous examples.
@sailornathan@eriktorenberg@stefangomez@adammarx13 Thanks for asking!
To be clear, we don't actually host any music content ourselves like YouTube and SoundCloud do - we simply embed/link to content, just like any blog would do. In fact, we do so in a way that is very artist-friendly - while we allow people to play music through existing sources like YouTube (and pass ads through, so that it monetizes for the artist) and SoundCloud, we actually default to paid streams like Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, and Beats Music, when available, thus driving streaming revenue for the artist. We also enable users to purchase the track (we don't offer free downloads) from any of the major download stores - iTunes, Amazon, or Google Play - which also drives revenue for artists.
In fact, we have lately been working closely with many major artists who have opted to use bop.fm to share bop links to their music with their fan bases (i.e. Lil Wayne, Depeche Mode, Switchfoot, Keith Urban, Ariana Grande, Wiz Khalifa, etc.)
worried about losing Spotify access? from their terms of use:
"Integration with Third Party Services. You shall not create any product or service by integrating the Spotify Platform, Spotify Service, or Spotify Content with (i) any non-interactive internet webcasting service or (ii) with streams from another service."
Pretty clearly this violates ii, no? Like, as in this is the exact thing they are looking to prevent?
@sammybauch Sharp point. If the only relationship we had with Spotify was the one dictated by their public API TOS, then yes, we wouldn't be in accord.
However, thankfully we have agreements and relationships in place with all the music services that enable us to do what we do. This is because we serve as a marketing channel for the music services, helping them acquire new subscribers in ways they can't do easily themselves.
bop.fm for iOS
How Many People Have Voted?
x-hed
Noon Pacific