Roy van Rijn
royvanrijn.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2015
Roy van Rijn is a Java developer who writes about Java tooling, GraalVM, and side projects like a Shazam clone.
What HN saysHN commenters link his Shazam-in-Java post and his account of receiving a patent threat for a weekend project, with some critical of Shazam.
23HN people shared it
11linked it in comments
29stories submitted
1.1Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2015people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Creating Shazam in Java (2010)8 people · 214 points · first shared 2015 · 36 comments on HN
- 2I received a patent infringement email for my weekend project (2010)7 people · 128 points · first shared 2015 · 29 comments on HN
- 3Part 1: OpenJ9 versus HotSpot3 people · 7 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 4Paper sizes2 people · 322 points · first shared 2015 · 202 comments on HN
- 5Part 1: Java to native using GraalVM2 people · 4 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 6Patent infrigement part 22 people · first shared 2022
- 7I became the world's most prolific DJ, using code1 people · 376 points · first shared 2022 · 92 comments on HN
- 8Deprecating: java.util.Optional.get()?1 people · 53 points · first shared 2016 · 90 comments on HN
- 9Java and Docker, the limitations1 people · 4 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 10The collapse of Java EE?1 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 11Vikipedia: A YouTube bot (in Java)1 people · 3 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 12Introduction to Sat: Peaceable Queens1 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 13Excuse me, sorry to interrupt1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 14The World of Biased Algorithms1 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 15The Anatomy of an LLM1 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · 2 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
juriansluiman · 2022-04-26
Part 2: https://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/11/patent-infrigement-part-2/ TL;DR:
> I’m sorry, but I can’t comply.
> Good luck.
The follow up around 2016: https://twitter.com/royvanrijn/status/788436253532426241
> Nothing happened, never heard from them again...
I couldn't find the code anywhere on his Github profile, so not sure if he actually took the step to publish the code.
wyc · 2015-07-11
The detailed diagrams, code samples, and demos are greatly appreciated. I think it shows that you put a lot of work into this. Thanks!
However, Shazam corporate doesn't seem very nice:
http://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/07/patent-infringement/
With such a nice write-up, you probably already know this. :/
nojvek · 2018-09-26
I believe Shazam is very much an acquisition for its patent and algorithm sauce. The technology behind it is relatively simple based on audio fingerprinting
http://royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/06/creating-shazam-in-java/
It was either Google Music, Spotify or Apple Music that would have acquired it.
I’m a 100% sure this will end up as a deep integration with Siri and the existing Apple Music app.
Apple has always done well with its acquisitions. Buy small companies that do one small thing and do it extremely well, and fuse that with the Apple ecosystem, quality and rigor.
Congrats to the Shazam team for going with Apple. Google would have most definitely messed it up like they did with Songza. I will never forgive them for that.
saganus · 2018-09-25
And here's a Java project with similar functionality (although I'm not sure it will have near the same accuracy). [0]
He also got some legal threats just for publishing code he created himself.
[0] http://royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/06/creating-shazam-in-java/
kodablah · 2018-09-25
> still blows my mind in it's capabilities.
Just to jog people's memory, patent threats were sent to others doing similar things [0]. Not sure if that represents Shazam or not, but if so, they'll fit in perfectly with Apple.
0 - http://royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/07/patent-infringement/
bluedino · 2017-12-08
Check out this article that was on HN before:
http://royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/06/creating-shazam-in-java/
dawkins · 2017-12-08
I remember this patent threat http://royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/07/patent-infringement and lost any respect I had for them.
foobarrio · 2016-09-30
Yes. Shazam has a bunch of patents and has sued people before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_(service)#Patent_infringement_law…
The core algorithm is well known and fun to implement:
https://www.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/papers/Wang03-shazam.pdf
A blog had a simple implementation of it and were contacted by Shazam's lawyers:
http://royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/07/patent-infringement/
Eridrus · 2016-02-02
If you want to get tricky, you could build a mobile app that can tell what netflix show you're watching based on audio data ala Shazam.
Maybe you could talk to these guys who have done exactly that for figuring out viewership numbers (maybe they'll want to share the tech): http://www.wired.com/2016/01/meet-symphony-the-company-that-tracks-net…
Or maybe see if you can use http://echoprint.me/ or build your own http://royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/06/creating-shazam-in-java/
[EDIT]: Or maybe a wearable app, so that you don't have to have your phone out? It could potentially warn you about TV/movies too just by vibrating.
anonova · 2015-05-23
See "An Industrial-Strength Audio Search Algorithm"[1], a 2010 paper written by one of the Shazam developers. The analysis itself doesn't seem complicated[2] but having a large enough database to compare against is probably the hard part.
[1]: http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/papers/Wang03-shazam.pdf
[2]: http://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/06/creating-shazam-in-java/
elteto · 2022-08-24
A more interesting story is behind the blog post linked in the article to someone else's implementation (which I also think contains a bit more detail than this one):
[0] https://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/06/creating-shazam-in-java/
[1] https://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/06/music-matching-part-deux/
Turns out he was contacted and threatened by some patent lawyers from Shazam for writing the above blog posts:
[2] https://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/07/patent-infringement/
[3] https://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/07/patent-publicity/
[4] https://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/11/patent-infrigement-part-2/
And of course, the original HN post:
[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1496683
It seems he eventually just told them to go pound sound (!!). Good for him!