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Michael Robertson, has accused the plaintiffs EMI, Capitol Records, and other EMI record labels of flooding the internet with free MP3s of their songs for promotional purposes, 'free to everyone (except, apparently, MP3tunes).'

It reads like a bandful of the world's smallest violins, all playing in orchestral majesty. In fact, I feel a song coming on!

Is he suggesting there's an unlimited supply?
That there's no reason why?
Or with the ad links in the frame
He's cashing in on Slashdot fame?
(Who?)
EMI! EMI! EMI!

Capitol's lawyers makin' fuss,
From edge-served networks, download us,
An unlimited amount,
They save on bandwidth, in and out.

When mp3.com was crucified,
For business models that had died,
It was a website that was rivaled by none,
(never ever never...)
And you thought that he was faking?
That it was all just money-making?
You don't think EMI will steal?
Even if they lose their last appeal?

Oh, don't judge a band by its cover,
Unless another you discover,
And blind acceptance is a sign,
of RIAA fools who stand in line
(like)
EMI! EMI! EMI!

Unlimited edition,
With an unlimited supply,
That was the only reason,
MP3.com said goodbye,

Unlimited supply (EMI!)
And there is no reason why! (EMI!)
But with the ad links in the frame, (EMI!)
He's cashing in on Slashdot fame!
Though Beam-it bent UMG's rules (EMI!)
R.I.A.A.'re still useless fools (EMI!)
Unlimited supply.

Hello, MP3Tunes. Goodbye, EMI.

- With apologies to the Sex Pistols, and you should all be grateful I can't sing, or I'd have dubbed it onto the original track and uploaded the result to MP3.com as a parody.

All I want to know is that if Robertson wins, will he carry out on Sigue Sigue Sputnik's 22-year-old threat to Buy EMI

.... also exitahead has a rss feed of music on ebay matching a lastfm profile so it has new music as well as older, hard to find, releases.

I think it is a healthy sign that lastfm have such a broad community of third party developers, but some of these add-ons really should be core features of their service by now. They seem to have been focused on trying to be social networking, neglecting their users that just want to find music.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

Then why the hell is it that when I run the "Recommendations" stream the algorithm occasionally freaks out and starts pushing one unlistenable noise attack after another at me with tags like brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind, etc. No matter how many times I click the "Do Not Want" button the stuff just keeps coming. It's like a neighbour from hell. And then there's the days when I get nothing but lesbian deathcore vegan grind.

The Last.FM brainfarts seem to persist no matter how many times yoy try to train the recommendation engine using the like/ban buttons and the only way to get them to "reset" to something vaguely approximating normality is to log out, log back in, and run the Library stream for a while.

Still, even with this weirdness it's still better than Pandora at finding new music I actually like.

It certainly is not like MySpace, only one block on the right is fully customizable by the user and the ads are smaller and not so intrusive. I think the layout is pretty clear: your music stats in the middle with a shoutbox at the bottom, radio and site stats on the right. Actually, I love last.fm as a website, it's easy to navigate and interact with, everything feels very intuitive, it's a really well-made site; I often wish they had made Facebook...

What I'm more critical about is the way they handle data. I fail to see the prowess. "Playing with that data is one of the most fun things about working at the company.", it says in the summary. Well, perhaps they should play less and work more with it. It's quite common to see different pages referring to the same track only because of slight alterations in the track's title when it was scrobbled. Last.fm is pretty much incapable of recognizing identical tracks if they don't have exactly the same name. Same goes with the artists, if the name is written a bit differently, say with the alphabet from the Japanese set of characters, it might create a different page (example: this = that).

You wind up seeing all sorts of oddities in the artists charts, check Beethoven's for instance: Fur Elise appears in a countless number of forms along work which is wrongly credited (Flight of the Bumble Bee). Discernment isn't last.fm's greatest strength. Yet, I still think it's one of the best sites out there, because of the wealth of existing data, because of the little-advertised group radios (which let you listen to pretty much any kind of full tracks if you search right), it is to music what imdb is to films, with their own flaws. Interestingly it's sometimes described as a social networking website, but the fun part is about the statistics and data archiving. While it may sound very nerdy, I think that is what primarily appeals to people.

It certainly is not like MySpace, only one block on the right is fully customizable by the user and the ads are smaller and not so intrusive. I think the layout is pretty clear: your music stats in the middle with a shoutbox at the bottom, radio and site stats on the right. Actually, I love last.fm as a website, it's easy to navigate and interact with, everything feels very intuitive, it's a really well-made site; I often wish they had made Facebook...

What I'm more critical about is the way they handle data. I fail to see the prowess. "Playing with that data is one of the most fun things about working at the company.", it says in the summary. Well, perhaps they should play less and work more with it. It's quite common to see different pages referring to the same track only because of slight alterations in the track's title when it was scrobbled. Last.fm is pretty much incapable of recognizing identical tracks if they don't have exactly the same name. Same goes with the artists, if the name is written a bit differently, say with the alphabet from the Japanese set of characters, it might create a different page (example: this = that).

You wind up seeing all sorts of oddities in the artists charts, check Beethoven's for instance: Fur Elise appears in a countless number of forms along work which is wrongly credited (Flight of the Bumble Bee). Discernment isn't last.fm's greatest strength. Yet, I still think it's one of the best sites out there, because of the wealth of existing data, because of the little-advertised group radios (which let you listen to pretty much any kind of full tracks if you search right), it is to music what imdb is to films, with their own flaws. Interestingly it's sometimes described as a social networking website, but the fun part is about the statistics and data archiving. While it may sound very nerdy, I think that is what primarily appeals to people.

It certainly is not like MySpace, only one block on the right is fully customizable by the user and the ads are smaller and not so intrusive. I think the layout is pretty clear: your music stats in the middle with a shoutbox at the bottom, radio and site stats on the right. Actually, I love last.fm as a website, it's easy to navigate and interact with, everything feels very intuitive, it's a really well-made site; I often wish they had made Facebook...

What I'm more critical about is the way they handle data. I fail to see the prowess. "Playing with that data is one of the most fun things about working at the company.", it says in the summary. Well, perhaps they should play less and work more with it. It's quite common to see different pages referring to the same track only because of slight alterations in the track's title when it was scrobbled. Last.fm is pretty much incapable of recognizing identical tracks if they don't have exactly the same name. Same goes with the artists, if the name is written a bit differently, say with the alphabet from the Japanese set of characters, it might create a different page (example: this = that).

You wind up seeing all sorts of oddities in the artists charts, check Beethoven's for instance: Fur Elise appears in a countless number of forms along work which is wrongly credited (Flight of the Bumble Bee). Discernment isn't last.fm's greatest strength. Yet, I still think it's one of the best sites out there, because of the wealth of existing data, because of the little-advertised group radios (which let you listen to pretty much any kind of full tracks if you search right), it is to music what imdb is to films, with their own flaws. Interestingly it's sometimes described as a social networking website, but the fun part is about the statistics and data archiving. While it may sound very nerdy, I think that is what primarily appeals to people.

My hobby is basically data spidering and harvesting from the internet. Just for that purpose I have several DB servers with terabytes of data.

I dont necessarely even use the data for anything, I just like how its there and I can play around with it and search thru it. I just go to a webservice, make a scripts to harvest the valuable data from it, save it to db and let scripts peridiocally check if theres new data, either thru my own scripts or RSS.

Back in the Audioscrobbler days Last.FM used to provide full database dumps aswell, but seems they're changed their approach now, saying it is considered too valuable..

Sorry, but there is no possible "business" that can be conducted along the lines of "give it to me for nothing or I'll take it." That is where music is today.

That's simply not true. I'm more than willing to pay for my music - I'm just not giving money to the RIAA.

I discovered Jonathan Coulton after someone posted a link to a video on YouTube of his Re:Your Brains song. I purchased all of his music legally on his website.

I also happily purchased a recent NIN album on-line.

It's all a matter of value. People need to feel that they're getting their money's worth.

I don't see a future where many bands put out music for everyone to download for free just for the exposure. What the heck do I care about a band in New Jersey if I am in LA? Sure, I might download their stuff but they aren't getting me to buy drinks in the bar they play at.

No... But maybe you're getting them some ad revenue from their website. Or maybe their music is good enough that you decide to buy a t-shirt or hat or something. Or maybe they've got an album with some nice box art and extras that you decide to buy. Or, if they get enough exposure, maybe you'll buy a ticket to go see them live.

By the way, the other thing that dies is FM radio. When there is no music promotion, there is no FM radio as we know it today.

I doubt it. There's still plenty of people watching broadcast TV despite the availability of cable TV and the ability to download shows on-line. Local FM radio offers local flavor and personality that you aren't likely to get from a pile of MP3s. And it can be a great way to showcase local talent.

And even if FM radio fades there's always IP radio...unless the RIAA manages to silence it. All my local radio stations are available on-line... And then they're not only getting revenue from the ads they sell on the air, but the ads on their website as well. And I've been a happy user of last.fm for a while now.

Many games just wouldn't be the same without their soundtracks; the works of Hideki Naganuma and Frank Klepacki would be excellent examples.

Many games just wouldn't be the same without their soundtracks; the works of Hideki Naganuma and Frank Klepacki would be excellent examples.

Here's a famous case.

There are multiple alternatives here are some suggestions (and there are lots more than this out there).

If you just want to listen try http://last.fm/ for streaming music of artists that you like (if you scrobble it's easier to find artists that sound like artists you like as last.fm will make recommendations - you can also subscribe to a postcast and get free songs). For some free songs try the shop at http://www.sellaband.com/ (the non free songs are 50 cents each - there's usually 3 free songs per artist). Amie street can also be a cheap place to find indie or older mainstream music http://www.amiestreet.com/ (the more popular songs are more expensive but the less popular songs are cheap). I didn't like it so much but there's always we7 http://www.we7.com/ - it used to be ad supported (not sure about now) but after some amount of time you can download a set number of ad free songs per month.

As with all things YMMV compared to what I've liked and found useful. As with all of these sorts of sites registration is required. None have been particularly onerous with excessive emails and they usually have ways of opting out of getting email from them.

Nothing lasts... but nothing is lost.

The "artist" never saw a dime.
The "artist" only created something vaguely similar.
A pack of lazy useless family members and lawyers have been living off the income for the last hundred years contributing nothing to society while doing so and being nothing but a pain.>

So what's the problem? Just sing this instead, and rest easy knowing that the performance fees will support the widow of the original artist.

I LIKE JUNO REACTOR AND SEX

Actually, KlaymenDK, the hardcore privacy nut that posted this Your Rights Online submission, prefers 80s music, as you can see by browsing thousands of songs he has listened to recently.

While amusing, all this actually emphasizes the point: these details are readily available despite his efforts.

All of the "stop being paranoid / a drama queen" and "I have nothing to hide" arguments sound a lot like arguments opposing free speech. Privacy isn't just about hiding the embarrassing, much as free speech isn't just about having the right to deny the Holocaust (to cite an appropriate example).

I LIKE JUNO REACTOR AND SEX

Actually, KlaymenDK, the hardcore privacy nut that posted this Your Rights Online submission, prefers 80s music, as you can see by browsing thousands of songs he has listened to recently.

You won't give close friends the ability to post on your wall, yet you have no problem letting the whole world know that you were listening to elvis 2 hours ago?

foobar2000 has had this feature since somewhere in the 0.8.x series. It was one of the first accessible audio players in existence. I'm glad to see that iTunes is copying more features from it, such as accessibility, SoundCheck (from ReplayGain), gapless mp3 playback, an so on.

By the way, join http://www.last.fm/group/Friends+of+foobar2000!

Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin fit into the category, but some less well-known examples are:

• Dream Theater
• Porcupine Tree
• Pain of Salvation
• King Crimson
• Rush

That should be enough to get you started :)

Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin fit into the category, but some less well-known examples are:

• Dream Theater
• Porcupine Tree
• Pain of Salvation
• King Crimson
• Rush

That should be enough to get you started :)

Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin fit into the category, but some less well-known examples are:

• Dream Theater
• Porcupine Tree
• Pain of Salvation
• King Crimson
• Rush

That should be enough to get you started :)

Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin fit into the category, but some less well-known examples are:

• Dream Theater
• Porcupine Tree
• Pain of Salvation
• King Crimson
• Rush

That should be enough to get you started :)

Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin fit into the category, but some less well-known examples are:

• Dream Theater
• Porcupine Tree
• Pain of Salvation
• King Crimson
• Rush

That should be enough to get you started :)

Last.fm is very good.

Apple's applications that come with the iPhone can run in the background and access the contents of the user's iPod

How about we focus more on functional software that helps us do useful things, rather than software that fucks around with our systems for the sake of it? (...) That's the only thing I really care about any platform, what are it's capabilities, what can it do, what DOES it do for me?

But the GP's two restrictions restrict the iPhone's capabilities.

Here's a few things useful the iPhone can't do for you, but could if it allowed background processes and access to the iTunes library:

1. A last.fm client which can scrobble (the official client is actually worse than the jailbroken client, thanks to Apple's restrictions)
2. A chat client which doesn't require you to give your name and password to a third party if you want to remain logged in
3. A LoJack for the iPhone (also useful if you tend to forget stuff at friends' places)
4. A social network-type application which automatically alerts you when you're near a friend
5. A music player which keeps playing your music even when you go use Safari or some other application

And a ton more. These are a few of the things the iPhone doesn't do for you as a result of Apple's restrictions. And none of them are "software that fucks around with our systems for the sake of it."

For the record, I own an iPhone.

Same goes with last.fm. It would become every cracker's favorite website, you can see the most played songs of every user.

http://www.last.fm/music/Tight+Fit/_/The+Lion+Sleeps+Tonight

Streaming radio? Legislated into oblivion last year or the year before.

I listen to more and more streaming radio every day, thanks to http://pandora.com/ and http://last.fm/ . Sure there are limitations to what these services can provide, but it's far from oblivion. I hear new music every day, in the genre's that I like--- with far more diversity then anything I've heard on commercial radio.

Hey, aren't y'all a bunch of hired killers? Of course they're evil manipulative bastards, that's their job. You didn't really think they were there to spread democracy and peace did you?

I've found last.fm to be a suitable replacement at least for finding interesting new music. That's where I've got tons of my own music: http://www.last.fm/music/Children+of+the+Monkey+Machine

http://www.last.fm/ is completely free and legal and wonderful!

Sometimes I get a song stuck in my head and I only want to hear it once or twice, then forget about it for another few years.

What you want is last.fm -- you can listen to any song up to 3 times a day for free. Any more than that and you have to subscribe. Not great for heavy listening, but perfect for when you get a sudden jones.

(Note: not all songs are available for free listening on last.fm yet. They're in the process of moving their whole library to the free-play model, but it'll take some time to get everything moved over. In my experience about 70% of the tracks I search for are good to go.)

Hardly a Last.fm ripoff. Imeem has quite a bit MORE music, as well as a much more intuitive interface.

btw this is my last.fm page: Blhack
and this is my imeem.com page: Blhack

Point being that I've been around last for quite some time....its not just a pointless slashvertisement for imeem.

So why make music at all - there's always someone better than you, so invest your money to listen to them

For some strange reason the general discussion makes me want to point out two pieces which prove that rather limited electronic devices can be used to produce something interesting: iBand(2 iPhones and a Wii) and Escapehawaii(Gameboy samples). I wouldn't say that they are good in any regards, but they are making music we wouldn't have without technology and they have a bigger audience than the classic guitar "god" everyone knows from their neighborhood. It's not like I don't like good old hand made music (look here), but it's constantly getting harder to make something new and I can totally understand older friends who stopped buying/taping music around '78 (at least those listening to rock - no substantial progress in this field since then).

imeem.com

last.fm

spiralfrog.com

deezer.com

qtrax.com

And that's even before we get to the ones of questionable legality like muxtape and projectplaylist Yet p2p sharing of music is still huge, youtube and its clones seems to have made a big difference in the amount of movie sharing via p2p, why haven't the music sites done the same?

There's a thread for this at http://www.last.fm/group/MusicBrainz.org/forum/1785/_/346334/1#f6270321 although they're talking about tricking the Winamp CD plug-in to use the MusicBrainz FreeDB gateway instead of FreeDB.