A web parasite
- Web mine all of the data you can from Last.fm
- Serve their content on your web page surrounded by Google ads
- Profit
That's what MusicSRC is doing. They've wrapped a subset of Last.fm's functionality and data with some Google ads, but they've done nothing new or interesting with the data. Not only are they leeching off of Last.fm's tag data, they are also leeching Last.fm's bandwidth. The hundred or so images that are displayed on every MusicSRC artist page are pulled directly from Last.fm's servers. MusicSRC doesn't even bother acknowledging Last.fm.
Maybe MusicSRC has an arrangement with Last.fm that lets them ignore the Last.fm terms of service, but if that's the case they should be doing something a little bit more compelling with the data than just wrapping it in Google ads. Last.fm has always been extremely generous with their data, and there's a large research community that is depending upon this data. It would be a sad day if Last.fm decided to shut down its web services because of leeches.
In all fairness it seems like MusicSRC is only using the data about the artists. The same data is available from other databases too, right? What they surely are doing is providing a hierarchical and direct (tags) way to get to artist's creations available on YouTube (I didn't find links to mp3s).
What is interesting to observe is that fans have yet another channel to get to digital music. Just goes to show Music like any other art that can be digitised is impossible to pack in a bottle (read DRM or CDs).
So we get back to basic question - how do artists make money? Don't want to say more - our blog and site gives away what we believe in :-)
Posted by Kulpreet on May 30, 2008 at 03:11 AM EDT #
Kulpreet- they seem to be using the last.fm tag data as well as all of their images. The tag data is unique to last.fm.
Posted by Paul on May 30, 2008 at 05:09 AM EDT #
Well, tag data is crowd-sourced. OK, I am sure there is something in Last.fm's terms and conditions that says "all your tag are belong to us." :-)
MusicSRC could have used MusicBrainz for the same data, but they chose to go with the freshest and probably more accurate data. You yourself point out that Last.fm is quite generous with their data. Wonder how much will Last.fm be upset with MusicSRC.
I think what MusicSRC have done is kind of cheeky (yes, I agree with you), but fun.
To make my point about this again, MusicSRC surely helps fans reach more content. How can that be bad for the artist? It could be bad for the middlemen, but certainly not for the artist. Right?
Posted by Kulpreet on May 30, 2008 at 05:34 AM EDT #
Kulpreet - If I were a a principal at Last.fm, I'd be unhappy about a company that used our tag data that took 5 years to collect from millions of users, used our artist similarity data, used our artist images that we have to pay money to license, and stole our bandwidth (just view the source of a MusicSrc page like http://www.musicsrc.com/search.php?query=weezer&x=0&y=0 and count the number of images that are being pulled from Last.fm servers). All without acknowledging that the data came from Last.fm and perhaps more importantly, without providing links back to Last.fm for all this data.
It is arguable whether or not MusicSRC helps fans reach more content, but that doesn't really matter, the point is that MusicSRC is using data and bandwidth without acknowledging the source, and if they don't have permission to do that, then it is wrong and they are a leach.
Posted by Paul on May 30, 2008 at 05:53 AM EDT #
My knee jerk reaction is they're trying to make money without doing any work.
And that's the crux of it really.
In response to Kulpreet, I think everyone can see it's a pretty lame site, so arguing that it helps fans to find more music is weak. And anyway, that is an appalling argument to justify bad business practices, and immoral behaviour.
And fundamentally there is a difference between a small site that is using Last.fm/whatever data for something interesting, or innovative. And a site that is blatantly in it for the ad revenue.
Last.fm give away their data because they like to see what people do with it. I can't see how they would ever approve of MusicSRC - it's clearly no comparison to interesting examples like Muse: http://www.diametunim.com/muse/
Posted by Fab Gordon on May 30, 2008 at 09:02 AM EDT #
found an especially revealing picture here: http://musicsrc.com/artist/Clap%20Your%20Hands%20Say%20Yeah!
This is a pretty lame leech, and sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. last.fm could simply disable deep-linking of its images (no need to stop the data API) and MusicSRC would die, because the images are indeed what makes the website look appealing.
However, I think the presentation, if simple, is pretty nice, mac-zen like, and unclutered compared to last.fm's own data pages. I feel that last.fm could do a better presentation of their wonderful data.
Posted by Marc-O on May 30, 2008 at 10:57 AM EDT #
Sure, I did admit MusicSRC are being cheeky and yes a lawsuit waiting to happen.
But the point remains that trying to jail music or any digital content continues to be challenged and that too more and more directly with each passing day.
The way I look at MusicSRC's cheekiness - if I can stream a video from YouTube, why should I not be able to grab images and tag data from Last.fm? I can imagine a fan wondering what is the difference between the two actions? Even if there are differences, why should there be these differences.
MusicSRC will be interesting to keep an eye on. Will people use the service? And will Last.fm take action?
@Marc-O I found the interface a bit like an ad-farm, to be honest. Maybe the musicsrc team has some interesting background :-)
Posted by Kulpreet on May 30, 2008 at 09:24 PM EDT #
kulpreet asks "If I can stream a video from YouTube, why should I not be able to grab images and tag data from Last.fm?" - that's like saying "If I can borrow a book from the library for a couple of weeks for free, why can't I borrow a book from a bookstore for free? " I don't think a book consumer has any trouble figuring out the difference between the two actions.
If I embed a YouTube video on my site YouTube gets all sorts of benefits. I am showing the YouTube logo, YouTube can make money by showing ads in their player that is embedded on my site, and and the player provides a link back to YouTube. Contrast this with MusicSRC. They've embedded Last.FM content on their site, but they do not acknowledge Last.fm (not even a powered by Audioscrobbler logo), there's no link back to Last.fm and there is no way for Last.fm to recoup the bandwidth costs incurred with embedded ads. Last.fm gets absolutely no benefit at all. That is what makes MusicSRC a leech.
Posted by Paul Lamere on May 31, 2008 at 11:09 AM EDT #
I would suggest taking out the actual links to their website. People can google if they really want to see the awfulness, but linking increases their search rank and possibly revenue from ads, and, if they are marked as a splog, (which the seem to be a new subspecies of,) by google, your own pagerank will go down. (Although that's possibly of less importance.)
Posted by eric casteleijn on June 03, 2008 at 12:01 PM EDT #
and since I'm wearing my pedantic hat: isn't it le*e*ches? :)
Posted by 80.101.121.33 on June 03, 2008 at 12:03 PM EDT #