To become the Switzerland of online music, Bop.fm (YC S13) adds Beats support (opens in new tab)

Not to be overly dismissive, but if I were to read the headline as they intend to be #1, it would probably be more impressive if they partnered up with a music-service anyone has actually heard of.

At first I thought "Beats" referred to Beats by Dre[1] and wondered how an online search could support a particular brand of headphones.

[1] http://www.beatsbydre.com/

The Switzerland of online music is literally in Switzerland, where downloading music is legal without being limited by ridiculous deals with music companies (https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-m...). The headline makes no sense, nor does the article clarify its point.

So...Where is the Pandora integration? Building playlists is fun when you're bored or want a new set of tracks to work-out/drive/[insert bland activity here] but I hate doing that.

Radio features are sweet and I may explore it more but... With the thousands of hours of listening pleasure I've gotten out of my years of Pandora subscription, why the hell would I want to switch? Building new stations is an investment of time and effort in teaching it what style of music I want, being able to import this would be sweet. I might even build playlists out of the songs I like.

To be frank without Pandora integration this just strikes me yet-another-playlist-streaming service, among the dozen others that I don't use.

Great news! It's unfortunate that record labels still pursue a Twentieth Century licensing-based business model. While I do believe that what's bad for major record labels isn't necessarily bad for artists, I do understand the point that record labels acted as quasi VCs for artists prior to the rise of the internet; prior to the introduction of platforms like Kickstarter, there must have been a fairly substantial void in funding, especially in the early to mid naughts. Hopefully sights like Bop.fm can help fill the funding void for emerging artists in combination with crowdfunding sites and streaming platforms.

What does online music have to do with hiding spoils of war?

It's ridiculous that this is even necessary. This just demonstrates how imperfect the legal music marketplace remains to be.

Great stuff guys, keep up the good work! Fetchnotes integration coming at some point :)

This is awesome. Gonna set up a playlist and try it out!

JFYI Bop means thief in Russian.

Love this service!!