egeste/ttTools — Issue #23: features that could be harmful to TT
Author: dandelany
Created: 2011-12-07 20:53:06+00:00
State: open

First of all, I just want to thank you for the time and attention you've put into this project... You clearly care about Turntable and we really appreciate all the support we get from developers.

However, that said, there are some parts of this project that have the potential to be harmful to Turntable. Most importantly, the song downloading feature and the feature which disables muting if you are the only DJ both allow users to violate the DMCA law. Since we are working with labels to pay streaming loyalties and running the site entirely above-the-board, users which use tools like this cause valuable developer time to be spent patching these holes to ensure our site is still being run legally. A broad solution involving a better server-side streaming protocol is in the works and should be deployed soon, but until then, we are forced to patch these holes manually whenever tools like yours become available.

In addition to the legal problems mentioned above, I am also of the opinion that auto-DJ features like the one included in ttTools can be very harmful to the Turntable community by destroying the "anyone can DJ" mindset that most rooms like to cultivate. As we've discussed, auto-DJ scripts can quickly turn into an arms race where the next DJ is chosen by who has the fastest script, rather than who is present in the room and wants to DJ. Overall we at TT feel this is detrimental to room quality, and people caught using auto-DJ scripts may be subject to being booted from rooms or any other punishment we decide is suitable if we decide to pursue them.

Anyway, I can't and won't try to force you to remove any of these features, but we would really appreciate it if you did. I understand that some of the motivation for including them in the first place was to put pressure on TT to address these issues, so let me assure you that the message is received and that these are issues we're definitely working on. Thanks again for caring enough about TT to work on this project, and feel free to email me at dan (at) turntable (dot) fm if you've got any questions for me. Thanks,

Dan Delany
Turntable Developer