Open Source Music Fingerprinter Gets Patent Nastygram

Nushio writes "The code wasn't even released, and yet Roy van Rijn, a Music & Free Software enthusiast received a C&D from Landmark Digital Services, owners of Shazam, a music service that allows you to find a song, by listening to a part of it. And if that wasn't enough, they want him to take down his blog post (Google Cache) explaining how he did it because it 'may be viewed internationally. As a result, [it] may contribute to someone infringing our patents in any part of the world.'" Update: 07/09 00:31 GMT by T :Story updated to reflect that Shazam is multiplatform, not Android-only, as implied by the original phrasing.

Comments

What's that song?

[UndyingShadow]

Is that a Barbra Streisand song I hear?

Re:What's that song?

[bit9]

Indeed. I've found that one of the best ways to discover cool new open source projects is to go to Slashdot and search for "C&D".

Re:Shazam...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because iPhones suck.

They're actually being fairly reasonable

[Rogerborg]

I mean, on the spectrum of software patent insanity, they're being relatively restrained and civil. They seem genuinely to be trying to head off competition for an invention that they are implementing and selling - which is the point of patents - rather than acting like patent trolls and trying to gouge money for something that they never implemented.

Of course, it sucks, software patents doubleplus bad, Fight The Man, counter sue them for a hundred beelyon Euros, Attica! Attica! Attica! and so on, but comparing a couple of polite "please don't make us do anything you'd regret" emails to Adobe's assraping of Dmitry Sklyarov is rather hyperbolic. And yes, I have a "Free Dmitry Sklyarov" t-shirt, thanks for asking.

Re:android hate

[nitehawk214]

Commas, will be misplaced.

Re:android hate

[Anonymous Coward]

"nazism" is a proper noun, and should be capitalized.

Re:Well, really...

[SkunkPussy]

essentially the patent office is liable for contributory violation of patent law because by publishing the patent they are encouraging someone somewhere in the world to violate the patent.

Re:Shazam...

[ff1324]

Before it was a call in service, it ran in my head....

But the storage device was buggy and lost information on a regular basis, had considerable system down time of 6-9 hours daily, was poor at multitasking, had considerable power demands, and was very poor at recognizing crap like rap, hip-hop, and techno. I'd post more about my brain, but some lawyers have already told me it's not really mine anymore since I'm married.

Send them this:

[Tablizer]

Dear Shazam,

My algorithm is not the same as yours. Specially, it differs in this key code section:

while (shazam==evil_patent_troll) {
    shazam.bake_in_hell(temperature=EXTRA_HOT);
  }

Sincerely, Timothy

HOLY FUCK SELF-REFERENCE

[spazdor]

This comment... While it itself has "-1 Troll" moderation status, it's self-referential and, it seems, a little bit ironically prophetic. Which, IMHO, deserves a +1 Funny or Insightful, depending on which kind of pedant you are.

But the moment it earns that +1, it loses that magical quality and is once again an overrated comment which ought to get a -1 Troll. Which in turn makes it a pretty cool comment.

This... This is Epimenides' Slashdot Comment.