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Anyone else using iRATE? For some reason it isn't listed in the article, but I've been using it for years and it's the best way I've found to (legally) get free tracks from the web and get new ones you like based on how you've rated previous ones.

...to each of these, is iRATE radio which uses collaberative filtering and user ranking of tracks to give you freely available music that you (hopefully) like.

Maybe they are downloading free music legally?

http://www.magnatunes.com/

http://www.irateradio.com/

Maybe they are transferring their CDs onto their portable players so that they can listen to them more easily?

http://www.rateyourmusic.com/

may let you discover some stuff after you rate some albums

http://www.indy.tv/

http://www.irateradio.com/

will let you discover Indy music, and will send you some you will like after doing some rating, again

no sounds like type stuff on these, but still definitely worthwhile

Imagine listening to the radio and being able to influence what kind of stuff you hear. Imagine hearing all kinds of things that you've never heard of before. Imagine no "...buffering..."

iRate does this.

Oh, and:
Open source? Check!
Supports Creative Commons? Check!
Legal Downloads? Check!
Runs on Linux? Check!
Free as in Beer? Check!
Did I mention no streaming?

More detail:
Technical explanation with easy to understand diagram here:
http://irate.sourceforge.net/
Site you can send the non-technically inclined to here:
http://www.irateradio.com/

"Just click on the executable. No, really, it's safe this time."

Oh and the guy's name is "ajones". He's a kiwi. Mad props to kiwis.

I used irate radio a while back, and it worked pretty well, I burned a couple CD's of free, legal music. It gives you some songs, you rate them on a scale of 1 to 5, and it recommends some more based on those ratings.
See the link: http://www.irateradio.com/

Anyone that gives me back my legal rights, is someone who deserves encouraging.

iRATE Radio. It gives you bucket-loads of free music, legally. We want more users, and hopefully also more developers.

Obligatory free legal music link (though it's not ogg - it is music that artists provide for free)

iRATE radio

Many unsigned and independent artists provide free downloads of their music as a way to promote themselves. Of course the hard part for you is to find this music at all, let alone find the music that you're going to like without actually downloading and listening to it all.

iRATE Radio solves this problem for you. It is a collaborative filtering MP3 downloader and player. It is Free Software, licensed under the GNU GPL.

iRATE's central server has a database of about 50,000 MP3 tracks available from a number of music hosting services such as the Internet Underground Music Archives. The iRATE client fetches a few URLs from the server, downloads the tracks, and then plays them for you.

As you listen to each track, you rate it according to your preferences. The client then uploads your ratings to the server, which then correlates them with ratings submitted by other users. Future track recommendations will be based on these correllations. Basically what that means is that if you and I like the same music, then iRATE will download for you all the same music that I rated highly.

iRATE Radio is very close to its 0.4 release, which offers many improvements over the current 0.3 release. We can use your help in testing the upcoming release. If you want to help, please download one of the unstable builds. Subscribe to the mailing list and submit bug reports via the sourceforge bug report form.

There is a new distribution page at www.irateradio.com that is aimed at the non-technical user. Downloading from there gets you the 0.3 release right now, but soon the 0.4 release will be available there.

iRATE Radio is written in Java and welcomes contributions from new developers.

When you download a track, you rate it according to your tastes. iRATE's server then compares your ratings to those of other people, and sends you music you're likely to enjoy, while avoiding music you will dislike. This process is known as "collaborative filtering".

iRATE is nearing its 0.4 release, which will be much improved over its current 0.3 release. If you'd like to contribute to its development, visit iRATE's sourceforge page.