Spotify patents available to the world!

It is a common misconception that patenting has something to do with keeping secrets, while it is actually just the opposite - it is a way of gaining protection for your innovation, on the condition that you publicly disclose it for the world to see.

Even if you don't get the patent, your information will remain publicly available (as far as I know), and if you get the patent, you're still gonna have to pay the yearly fees to maintain the protection. In this sense, patent databases are hardly just lists of licensing obstacles to avoid or purchase, but vast repositories of knowledge on methods and solutions. Repositories which are largely ignored.

My friend Martin who this weekend visited Tallinn notified me that there would be a Spotify patent out there in the names of the people we know there, Ehn, Strigeus et al. Said and done, break out ep.espacenet.com and go search, and anyone can find the either 11-page US or 14-page European patent applications for Spotify. Go to the "Original document" tab, ignore the one page preview and instead choose the "Save Full Document" link, fill in the CAPTCHA and you can download the full PDF.

Other organisations which may have exciting patents to read:

• Skype (JoltId hold their patents)
• OnLive (a cool streaming gaming solution)

(PS. Look at that, IDG.se Computer Sweden picked up this blog post, so I will take the opportunity to suggest my other posts on Spotify, my candid pictures from the Spotify office or other stuff I find cool. I'm @unclecj on twitter)

(PPS. Browsing around for how the Computer Sweden guy picked up on this blog post, he thinks it may have been through @jocke, I find that my other friend @erikstarck had RT'd the patent before me and a fine article about the costs for running Spotify. My insider info - the licensing costs are very relevant, someone has spent a lot of work to be able to keep a music service which is both free and legal alive. And they are doing their best to manage the network costs, while paying attention to that as you grow, your role in the network affects how much you have to pay someone for what)

Spotify - Love is in the air ...

 


Music is great for reaching the hearts of people, and Spotify is great for music, so let's connect the two in a very simple way - I want your all-time favourite love songs, and you will get the the love songs everyone else are crazy about.

If you have Spotify, simply open and add your best songs to this playlist: spotify:user:unclecj:playlist:5q9rhxy667Tu1qIbhPmpRr . If you don't, just leave your suggestion as a comment here. I have added my coziest songs already, so hope you enjoy them.

I have no idea why I haven't seen anyone do this before. Hope this may contribute to many romantic moments. And please be good too, I am sure Spotify deals harshly with vandalism.

(Update: It's curious, but kind of nice, how adding to the playlist is at least superficially anonymous. Like who added Pontiak Johanzon...)

(Update 2: The playlist is slowly growing, and I think it's pretty nice. The girlfriend just objected "Hold on, is this like your friends having a say in our love-life?", to which I answered "No, it's more like the world having a say in our love-life")

Sleepless with Spotify

Tonight I can't sleep, nose being stuffed and running at the same time, the cough has started, you sneeze and muscles you didn't know you had cramps and you lay asleep breathing slower and slower through one nostril until realizing you're not falling asleep, you're suffocating. So I got up and make myself some tea and share some creativity. Do you have any other good suggestions, what do you do when you have a cold? Don't tell me about the garlic or the vodka socks, I have realized that what I hate besides having a cold is having a cold with the aftertaste of garlic, and I know other uses of vodka which are much less superstitious.

Anyway, through friends of friends, I have just received an invitation to beta-test the much haussed music service Spotify (and this time I won't let it go to waste! :-P ). All friends who have tried it have gone Spotify-crazy, and maybe, just maybe I can understand why. Essentially it can rightfully be summarized as a crossbreed of Skype, last.fm, iTunes Store and Bittorrent (indeed they have hired the original creator of μTorrent who happens to be my old school-mate who surely won't remember me). And it's legal!

The cool features I notice right away are dual - first, you have access to a ton of music legally, for free in a light client, and you can play any of it with the ease of a few clicks. I've seen several of those things done before, but not all at once, for obvious reasons :-). Secondly, you can share and attach music with friends and and on the web without transmitting any files, just make a link like such: "Right now I am listening to Johnny Cash - American V". The social internet will have to give way to the musical internet! More updates as soon as I discover anything cool.


(Update: Another very pleasant thing about Spotify is the very clean interface. No fuss, just a very simple and good interface, except it is unfashionably black, but what the heck. One thing I'm curious about is whether they expect to actually catch the long tail of music and not just the hits? They seem to have somewhat of such an ambition, but I notice they have only one of the three Kjell Höglund albums I have, that's weak!

Oh and that's so cool, since noticing this blog post my university mate mentioned above got in touch over Skype. An extremely cool dude and great fun to get in touch with! I also noticed in the invitation letter from Spotify that I was requested to not post screenshots, but since they're already here and there over Google, I'll just hope they don't complain at me if I keep my head down. Sorry, it was a mistake, honestly)

(Update 2: Don't miss my candid pictures from the Spotify office, or my other posts about Spotify)



(Update 3: it24 has a particularly interesting article (translated here) though they're claiming "Spotify is [primarily?] living off the hype")

(Update 4: It's quite funny how Buzz Out Loud (CNET article here) labels Spotify as "a service available to everyone else [than the USA]" now they finally notice it. Also, thanks go to Judith and Martin for linking to this post)