Gnomoradio: Creative Commons Music Sharing

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?"

Comments

How long will this last?

[nizo]

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.

Re:How long will this last?

[gcaseye6677]

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.

Only time...

[StevenHenderson]

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).

Re:Asked and answered

[Ignignot]

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.

The real problem is splintering

[dpilot]

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.