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Gnomoradio: Creative Commons Music Sharing

Posted by michael on from the share-the-love dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I just stumbled upon Gnomoradio, a file sharing jukebox based on Creative Commons licenses. This program looks like a garage band's dream come true! It recommends songs based on each user's ratings, and has the capability to share them. Announced less than a year ago, the program has already made a great deal of progress, as can be seen from these screenshots. I downloaded the Debian package, and aside from a few interface quirks, the program works flawlessly. Is this the future of digital music, or should we be looking for something less centralized?"

14 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. How long will this last? by nizo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This looks awesome, but how long before the RIAA starts feeding copyrighted music into the system and then gets it shut down? Things like this have to be their worst nightmare.

    --
    I Am My Own Worst Enemy
    1. Re:How long will this last? by bizpile · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This looks awesome, but how long before the RIAA starts feeding copyrighted music into the system and then gets it shut down? Things like this have to be their worst nightmare.

      Even for /. that statement seems a bit paranoid. I doubt that the RIAA would try to entrap people that are legally trading music the RIAA doesn't own when they have plenty of people actually illegally trading music they can go after.

    2. Re:How long will this last? by tolan-b · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It threatens their ditribution monopo^H model.

    3. Re:How long will this last? by tsg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even for /. that statement seems a bit paranoid. I doubt that the RIAA would try to entrap people that are legally trading music the RIAA doesn't own when they have plenty of people actually illegally trading music they can go after.

      Unless their primary goal is to protect their obsolete business model, but they wouldn't do that....

      --
      People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
    4. Re:How long will this last? by gcaseye6677 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The RIAA has a history of trying their hardest to stop ALL online music distribution. Remember the early suits against the makers of Diamond RIO MP3 player? The thing couldn't even copy music, but they sued simply because they wanted to stall digital music. Then there were all of the lawsuits against MP3.com which didn't even carry RIAA music, but it was theoretically possible that it could be used for copyright infringement, so their lawsuit said. Like I've said all along, the record labels aren't so much bothered by kids downloading Britney Spears songs; what scares them is a digital distribution model so efficient that a band decides to use it rather than sign over their souls to a record company.

    5. Re:How long will this last? by Chaotic+Evil+Cleric · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I would think this is worse for the RIAA, if it catches on. Like Microsoft, who turns a blind eye to widespread piracy but has secret Hallowe'eny-type meetings on how to covertly kill One-Percent-Of-The-Market Linux (through SCO, etc.), the RIAA knows that piracy of their music is not as bad as people ditching them completely to pirate OTHER people's music. Irrelevancy is their greatest worry right now, not piracy. And rightly so; they're easily replaced. At least piracy means they're still relevant.

  2. Only time... by StevenHenderson · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Sure this is fine for the garage bands, but it will never catch on with the "mainstream" bands. This is for one reason. No money.

    Just as mp3.com used to be a great resource for me to find bands, the bigger artists tried to get in on it, but would never allow songs for download. Especially with the widespread adoption of "legit" music stores, I doubt this will catch on outside of indie groups (which is where I will continue to get my music).

  3. The name by MikeMacK · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to wide-spread adoption - the name, "Gnomoradio". Come on guys, we can be a little more creative than that - not everything that is created for Gnome needs to use "Gnome" or a derivative there of in it's title.

    1. Re:The name by MaestroSartori · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I quite like the name - "No More Radio"...

      --
      Game dev and music blog
  4. Re:Asked and answered by Thunderstruck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    History is nothing if not cyclical. I've often lamented that local music is so hard to find now-a-days, and I honestly can't believe I'm the only one. For all but the last 200 years of human history, music was played live by local talent. Now, we have better technology and more people... there should be more local music rather than 10,000 radio staions all owned by clear channel with the same 35 song playlist. I for one welcome our new music source.

    --
    Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
  5. Re:Asked and answered by Ignignot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think a better way to look at this is to say "is this the future of radio." Instead of the broad sweeping "...future of digital music." Ultimately the RIAA doesn't like things like this, but clearchannel must be sweating hard. They can see the chopping block, and maybe someday their head will go on it. Same thing goes for virgin records stores, sam goody, etc. The whole distribution network is getting beat up.

    --
    I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
  6. Re:The Classics by Bill_Mische · · Score: 4, Insightful

    er...only if the orchestra were also long dead. Otherwise they would hold the copyright to their performance. Nice try though.

    --
    Boring Old Fart (40, married, 3 kids...er no...make that 49, married, 3 grown up kids...it's been a long time)
  7. Re:Asked and answered by stratjakt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I should say it's not just Americans, it's everyone.

    People want to listen to the same songs and music because it helps them identify with each other. If you're the only fan of unknown band X, then you can't use that to link yourself to a particular crowd or lifestyle.

    Which is what the RIAA really sells, prepackaged "lifestyles".

    Want to be a non-conformist? Buy these CDs, and wear these cloths, pierce this, so you fit in just like every other non-conformist. (Yeah, the ass-backwardsness of that remark is on purpose).

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  8. The real problem is splintering by dpilot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now we have gnomoradio, irate, and somewhere else they mention magnatune.

    Forget the programs, we need the standards. Isn't that what we've been saying about the Web and file exchange.

    These buggers all need to interoperate. I haven't looked in detail at all of them, but let's say that gnomoradio has hit the key points:
    1: publish the music
    2: publish the license - keep it legal
    3: ratings feedback
    I'd say we also need
    4: option to send money/payment/exchange to the artist

    We need standards, and let gnomoradio, irate, and magnatune all run on those standards. Then pick the one you like, that runs on your platform.

    3 disparate systems splits the catalog, and it's going to be tough enough to reach critical mass, as it is.

    Some sort of license check is necessary as a fundamental part of the infrastructure, to keep the ??AA of their backs.

    Provisions to pay the artist are a good idea. I wonder if percentage-wise voluntary payment works better or worse than spam.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.