[LeeG]

Found this on howardforums -

SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search - Find. Discover. Watch. Listen. Share.

Unbelievable. Streams millions of songs to the iPhone.

Try it.

[icruise]

OK, this has come up before, and I may have been too heavy-handed in my treatment of another member who brought it up. So I'd like to open this issue up for discussion.

Seeqpod apparently works by trolling sites on the web looking for audio files. It's sort of a Google for audio files. That may sound cool, but in reality I think this site is rather questionable in terms of its legality. Most of the stuff I've seen on the site consists of MP3s of copyrighted songs. While Seeqpod would say that they're just serving as an aggregator for content that other people have made available on the web, this is very similar to the argument that Napster made, and we all know how that turned out. If the person hosting the file is doing so illegally, I don't see how listening to it through Seeqpod suddenly makes it OK. It's true that you can't directly download through their service, but they do give you the entire URL, so it's very easy to download the actual files if you should so desire.

The other issue is the Seeqpod is directly linking to other people's web sites without giving them any credit -- they're actually stealing bandwidth from the people hosting the song files.

In short, I don't think MacNN can recommend this site or its use, but I'm going to open up the floor to discussion about this issue. What do other people think about the legality/morality of using a site like this?

[starman]

If you're going to ban this site you might as well ban everything else (Google, torrents, etc.)

[scaught]

It's piracy and stealing bandwidth. If macnn has policies about both of these things (which I think they do) then they should moderate consistently.

[mduell]

If you're going to ban this, you may as well ban links to Google too.

And no, I don't think there's anything legally or morally wrong with deep linking. How annoying would the web be if you could only point people to domain homepages?

[starman]

Originally Posted by scaught 

It's piracy and stealing bandwidth. If macnn has policies about both of these things (which I think they do) then they should moderate consistently.

Most of the crap on youtube is pirated but we're not banning them.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by mduell 

And no, I don't think there's anything legally or morally wrong with deep linking. How annoying would the web be if you could only point people to domain homepages?

You don't see anything wrong with linking to these files without giving the original sites any credit or even (as far as I can tell) providing an easy way to get to the page where the file was originally posted? Bandwidth isn't free, and MP3s use a lot of it.

[starman]

I just don't see the big deal. It's google for MP3s. What credit does google give? Text isn't free either, mp3s are just as much data as text is.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by icruise 

You don't see anything wrong with linking to these files without giving the original sites any credit or even (as far as I can tell) providing an easy way to get to the page where the file was originally posted? Bandwidth isn't free, and MP3s use a lot of it.

The credit and identity of the source is in the URL.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by mduell 

The credit and identity of the source is in the URL.

That doesn't really hold up, for a couple of reasons. First, while it is possible to see the URL, they don't give you a simple way to get to it. I said above that it was very easy to download the original files, but that's only partially true. There's no button that allows you to visit the hosting site, and you can't even copy the URL -- you have to rewrite it by hand. Secondly, all that this will get you is the URL where the file is -- not the page where it was referenced. Of course some of these files are probably just dumped into a directory and placed on a server, but others were used in the context of a page that told what they were, and perhaps had information about how the files could be used. We have no way of seeing that information when using Seeqpod.

A good analogy to me is Google's image search. It does pretty much the same thing as Seeqpod, but in a very different manner. When you click on an image in the search results, you aren't taken directly to that image -- you're taken to the page on which the image was used. That's a fairly significant difference.

However, the copyright issue is by far the more important one in my opinion. I have no way of telling what percentage of these files are copyrighted and which are in the public domain, but a few test searches seem to indicate that a majority of the content available is just MP3s ripped directly from CDs. I even found some iTunes Originals stuff that had (obviously) been converted to MP3.

[starman]

Yeah it takes you to the page but I never, EVER wait for the page to load. I just click on the link to the original.

[gradient]

Every search engine on the web provides access to copyrighted material, whether it be print, music, movies, apps, whatever. I really don't see how this is any different. If people didn't want others listening to songs they have published on the web and using the bandwidth that goes along with that, then they shouldn't be publishing them in the first place.

[BRussell]

Originally Posted by icruise 

The other issue is the Seeqpod is directly linking to other people's web sites without giving them any credit -- they're actually stealing bandwidth from the people hosting the song files.

What about dashboard widgets, like Apple's weather, stocks, translation, etc?

[Mithras]

I remember there was a brief movement in the search sites to support mp3 search -- this would have been in the days of HotBot and Lycos. Before too long the notion was quashed, though.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

What about dashboard widgets, like Apple's weather, stocks, translation, etc?

Those all work in conjunction with sites that have an agreement with Apple. Weather is provided from Accuweather.com, stocks from Quote.com, translation from Systransoft.com. You can get this information from the widgets themselves. Whether Apple pays for the rights to use them (which seems likely), or the companies just allow them to use the information for publicity's sake, I don't know. But they aren't just taking the information without permission.

[icruise]

This page indicates that Seeqpod is trying to get bloggers to submit their sites, which seems strange since it gives them no benefit. They do say that they are going to work on providing more credit, but the article's from 7-8 months ago and it doesn't seem like any changes have been made.

SeeqPod: Bloggers Beware | Puddlegum

[jokell82]

It's not Seeqpod's fault if someone is hosting a copywritten mp3 - it doesn't discriminate in its search. All it is is a crawler that throws away anything that doesn't have an .mp3 extension. If you make the material publicly accessible, the public will access it. Seeqpod just makes the files easier to find.

[icruise]

Maybe, but I think the entire site is predicated on the idea of giving people guilt-free access to copyrighted works. Looking at the percentage of copyrighted files, and the fact that it allows you to easily browse by "popular artists" certainly gives me this impression.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by icruise 

Maybe, but I think the entire site is predicated on the idea of giving people guilt-free access to copyrighted works. Looking at the percentage of copyrighted files, and the fact that it allows you to easily browse by "popular artists" certainly gives me this impression.

But if people weren't hosting copywrited files in the first place it wouldn't be a problem. If the majority of mp3s crawled were independent artists they would be at the top of the "popular artists" - not something Seeqpod can control.

Seeqpod doesn't host anything, just provides convenience. You can accomplish (basically) the same thing with Google - just search using the following string:
"song-you-want" intitle:index.of mp3 -html -htm -php -asp -txt -pls
It'll return any directory listing with mp3s containing the song you want.

[icruise]

In any case, while I still have my doubts about the site, unless I hear differently from the higher-ups at MacNN, we're not going to be taking any particular measures to stop people from discussing it at the moment. However, any posts specifically talking about downloading copyrighted materials using the site will be deleted. Does that sound like a fair compromise?

[starman]

I'm just saying that MP3s have the focus because the RIAA is behind them. The same should go for images/text. Why focus just on MP3?

I could link to a copyrighted image and nobody would give a rat's ass.

[Stogieman]

I dare you to post a Playboy image containing nudity. Let's see if anyone gives a rat's ass.

[gradient]

double dare!

[mduell]

Originally Posted by icruise 

That doesn't really hold up, for a couple of reasons. First, while it is possible to see the URL, they don't give you a simple way to get to it. I said above that it was very easy to download the original files, but that's only partially true. There's no button that allows you to visit the hosting site, and you can't even copy the URL -- you have to rewrite it by hand.

Why is it so important to see the source?
If you want to see where the file is coming from, it's readily available in the page source. Most people don't care at all. In the 'modern' web, the ease of finding content is more important than the actual source; that's why Google is more important than Geocities to me.

Originally Posted by icruise 

Secondly, all that this will get you is the URL where the file is -- not the page where it was referenced. Of course some of these files are probably just dumped into a directory and placed on a server, but others were used in the context of a page that told what they were, and perhaps had information about how the files could be used. We have no way of seeing that information when using Seeqpod.

What if the file isn't referenced by any page? It could just be found via a directory listing.
What if the file is referenced by multiple pages? Should they be providing links to every page that links to the file?
Again, if the user is really interested in the pages that link to the file, they can throw the URL of the file into Google and see all pages that link to it. Readily available information, but most people don't care at all.

I guess what it boils down to is that if you're interested in the source, you can easily find it. Most people don't give a rats ass, they just want the content.

[BRussell]

Originally Posted by icruise 

Those all work in conjunction with sites that have an agreement with Apple. Weather is provided from Accuweather.com, stocks from Quote.com, translation from Systransoft.com. You can get this information from the widgets themselves. Whether Apple pays for the rights to use them (which seems likely), or the companies just allow them to use the information for publicity's sake, I don't know. But they aren't just taking the information without permission.

I don't know what kinds of rights Apple has. But I do know that many widgets just snag content from the internet outside of their surrounding content. That's their whole point. In Leopard, dashboard will let you make your own widgets using that method. There's a kind of internet etiquette issue, and some sites try to prevent that, but I'd say it's only etiquette and not legality that's at stake.

[Nodnarb]

Ok, all legality and morality aside...

This is one damn cool site. I don't ever see myself using it at my computer, but wow, I can see infinite uses for this on the go with your iPhone...it's like having an unlimited iPod with you 24/7.

I think in a year or two's time, Apple will have implemented something like this. Include a subscription for music in iTunes (been rumored a lot more lately) and then stream iTunes subscriptions to your phone (or 6G iPod?!?!) from wherever you are. Well, a boy can dream, can't he?

[icruise]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Why is it so important to see the source?

I think it's a matter of courtesy, both to the person hosting the files and to the people who might actually care about the context. I don't think individuals hotlinking things is a big deal, but when a site like this bases its entire business strategy off of the idea, I think it bears close examination. If they get popular, they could cause people to go over their bandwidth very quickly, and with no benefit to the person hosting the files.

In the 'modern' web, the ease of finding content is more important than the actual source; that's why Google is more important than Geocities to me.

How do you separate content from source when the content is text, anyway?

What if the file isn't referenced by any page? It could just be found via a directory listing.
What if the file is referenced by multiple pages? Should they be providing links to every page that links to the file?

Google seems to have solved these problems easily enough with their image search.

I guess I'm just confused about what the purpose of this tool is. If it is a tool for finding/listening to copyrighted tracks that people have just thrown up in directories on the web, then it's just Napster all over again, with the focus on streaming rather than downloading. If, as the article I listed above seems to indicate, Seeqpod is trying to position itself as some sort of tool for legit bloggers to get their sites noticed (music reviews, introductions of new bands, etc), then surely the context in which the file was referenced is as important as the content of the file itself.

[drfun]

Well since someone mentioned the google images being the same thing, and rebuttal was also stated.
But you over looked the google search engine, how about when they take cached pages and offer you to look at the cached page and not have to goto the original link?
Some could also argue that this is also stealing the content of the whole page?

And out of curiosity has anyone notice this does not work over the iphone?
It just loads the code for he mp3, does not seem to play the song?
I tried it 2 times and both times it crashed safari.

[icruise]

Some people (not me) do argue that Google caches things unlawfully, although it's a bit of a different situation than this because they actually host the content.

Seeqpod worked on my iPhone when I tried it.

[mduell]

Is the new webclip widget in Leopard 'wrong' because it lets you just see a portion of a page without ads or the rest of the page and without identifying the source?

[delhiboy]

Originally Posted by icruise 

You don't see anything wrong with linking to these files without giving the original sites any credit or even (as far as I can tell) providing an easy way to get to the page where the file was originally posted? Bandwidth isn't free, and MP3s use a lot of it.

As a webmaster, I host a lot of mp3 SAMPLE files (less than 30sec each) on my site. Each file runs 200-300K and there are sites that try and link directly to these mp3's (so that they can pass them off as their own content!). So, my solution is to use the following in my .htaccess file -

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomainname.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|mp3)$ - [F]

this disables all linking to gifs and jpegs also - modify as necessary!