That Tune, NamedHow does the music-identifying app Shazam work its magic?
Posted Monday, Oct. 19, 2009, at 5:14 PM ET
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StumbleUponYou'd think that ignoring nearly all of the information in a song would lead to inaccurate matches, but Shazam's fingerprinting technique is remarkably immune to disturbances—it can match songs in noisy environments over bad cell connections. Fisher says that the company has also recently found a way to match music that has been imperceptibly sped up (as club DJs sometimes do to match a specific tempo or as radio DJs do to fit in a song before an ad break). And it can tell the difference between different versions of the same song. I just tried it on three different versions of "Landslide"—the original by Fleetwood Mac and covers by the Smashing Pumpkins and the Dixie Chicks—and it nailed each one.
Fisher declined to tell me Shazam's overall hit-and-miss rate. All he would say is that the service is good enough to keep people coming back for more—the average user looks for songs eight times a month. The most common reason Shazam fails to identify a song is that it doesn't have enough data. The system needs at least five seconds of music to make a match, and sometimes people turn it on just as the song is ending. There are also frequently errors when people look up live performances—if you hold up your phone to your TV during the musical segment on Saturday Night Live, Shazam will most probably fail to ID the song. (If you do get a match from SNL, you're probably watching that episode with Ashlee Simpson—Shazam is a great way to catch lip-syncers in the act.) Fisher says that Shazam is technically capable of working on live performances, but they've turned off that ability for what he terms "business reasons." "Right now people trust the brand—trying to match live songs wouldn't get very high accuracy," he says. (If you've got a tune stuck in your head, try using Midomi, a rival of Shazam's that can ID songs based on your humming or singing.)
Shazam's iPhone version has been a blockbuster, but it still represents just 20 percent of the service's customer base, which spans more than 150 countries and pretty much every mobile carrier in the world. The iPhone version also marked a departure for the company—it was the first version that Shazam offered for free. Fisher says this proved to be a good idea; it brought Shazam instant renown, and the company now has enough of a customer base that it can make decent money through in-app ads and by getting a cut of each song purchase people make through the app. But staying fully free forever isn't sustainable, Fisher says. The company recently unveiled a Windows Mobile version of its app that operates under a "freemium" pricing model—users who download the free version can search for five songs a month, while a premium version that goes for a one-time fee of $5 will allow unlimited song searches. Fisher says that the $5 version for the iPhone (and most other platforms) will launch by the end of the year.
The company is also planning to add a lot more services to its apps—a recommendations engine, a way to let you share your musical tastes with your friends, and charts that show the songs that people are searching for. Every Monday, Shazam sends out its charts to record labels, and execs have been known to sign artists based on the data. This has led to a new way for artists to break into the mainstream: getting featured in TV ads. In 2005, for instance, Volkswagen ran an ad in Europe for the Golf GTI that featured a remixed version of "Singin' in the Rain" by Mint Royale. The song inspired a lot of searching on Shazam—and prompted the band's label to release the track, which then shot to the top of the European charts. "We probably see that at least once a month around the world," Fisher says. In other words, Shazam doesn't only help an audience find music. Sometimes it helps music find an audience.
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Many businesses, restaurants, etc play illegal material to their customers... illegal, that is, in the eyes of the recording industry. 'For private use only' material is supposedly not for public performances, which is why Muzak has a stranglehold on big businesses that need to be by the books for their hundreds of locations. It is basically a licensing service.
Well, it used to be hard to know if the bar or whatever was playing a CD or the radio without a proper license... but now we could have millions of iPhone snoops. They could be sending information to the copyright enforcement people about the location and the song - with a bit of a recording - and those self-same could cooperate with the licensing companies like Muzak to know whether that song 'should' have been playing at that location. While this iPhone evidence may not be 'enough' in the first instance, a few people, or a tip for a more professional 'checkup' might serve well enough.
And then, the whole world will have yet another reason to want to burn record company execs in effigy, tar and feather them, rewrite copyright law, and give their big estates to unknown artists.
-- BenK
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I don't think you've got it right. My understanding is that it is unlawful to make money off recordings, but not to simply play them. If that were the case, every jukebox in every dive bar and diner going back 50 years would have been breaking the law.
The industry has gone after illegal downloading, but that's because there are copies being traded for ownership; it's not the same thing as listening to a song on a stereo in a coffee shop.
-- BritBailey
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ASCAP/RIAA takes the position that bar owners must pay license fees to play music in their establishment to attract the public. Whether or not they enforce it is a different matter - a lot of places play the radio or CDs without paying a dime, but the OP is right. Bar owners who "do it right" pay license fees for the music played on the jukebox.
-- Naptowner
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