Slashdot Mirror


The Music Man

HellSpam writes "MacNETv2 interviewed a man who is claiming the title of "King of the Pirates". The man has over 900,000 songs, a collection that rivals even the iTunes music store(!). From the article:"I spent the day with a guy who spends every free moment collecting music. So far his music collection rivals Apple's iTunes Music Store, and his goal is to own a copy of every song ever recorded. Can he do it? Maybe, but you know what they say; it's the journey not the destination.""

18 of 555 comments (clear)

  1. Journey? by dr_dank · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can he do it? Maybe, but you know what they say; it's the journey not the destination.

    Don't worry, I'm sure he's got Journey in there too.

    --
    Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
    1. Re:Journey? by Prince+Vegeta+SSJ4 · · Score: 5, Funny
      Somewhere on a p2p network.

      Typing beside you, here in the dark Feeling your mouse click with mine Softly you IM, you're so sincere How could our love be so blind We sailed on together We drifted apart And here you are on my screen.

      So now I come to you, with open ports Nothing to hide, believe what I say So here I am with open ports Hoping you'll see what your share means to me Open ports

  2. And the irony is by debian4life · · Score: 5, Funny

    He will probably never have to deal with the RIAA ever.

  3. The hard part... by Capt'n+Hector · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The hard part isn't collecting the music. It's giving meaningful meta-data to it. iTMS doesn't just have ~900,000 songs, it has metadata for each one, including album covers.

    --
    Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
    Africus aut Europaeus?
    1. Re:The hard part... by Soporific · · Score: 5, Informative

      Musicbrainz is a great way to fill in all the missing mp3 information and there is even an Amazon cover art grabber available if you search. I renamed about 4000 mp3's in the space of about two days doing this. ~S

  4. Re:Disconnect and motivation by OverlordQ · · Score: 5, Funny

    "...a man who is claiming the title of 'King of the Pirates'...and his goal is to own a copy of every song ever recorded..."

    He can't have his cake and eat it too. He'll have to settle for "King of the Brainwashed Consumer Zombies" or "King of RIAA Lawsuits"

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  5. Article Text by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    From Google Cache ( http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3 A%2F%2Fwww.macnet2.com%2Fmore.php%3Fid%3D536_0_10_ 0&btnG=Google+Search&meta= ):

    The Music Man - King Of The Pirates Has A Goal - Own It All!

    "I spent the day with a guy who spends every free moment collecting music. So far his music collection rivals Apple's iTunes Music Store, and his goal is to own a copy of every song ever recorded. Can he do it? Maybe, but you know what they say; it's the journey not the destination."

    What do you say to someone who has a digital music collection that exceeds 900,000 songs? This was the question I was pondering during my long drive to interview the man who claims he is on a quest to own a copy of ever song ever recorded. What do you say? I think the only way to begin such an interview would be to ask "why?"...

    When I pulled into the driveway of the King of the Pirates, an upper middle class neighborhood of stylish homes and SUV's, Infiniti's, and more Mini-Coopers than necessary, I was surprised by the normalcy of it all. His home was nothing short of spectacular, his wife a mid-30's ex-underwear model (honest!), and his two kids well groomed, apparently intelligent, and very wired. (As in technology-wise, not ADD) This is not the home I would have thought would be the enclave of someone out to pirate the hell out of the music industry. This was going to be very interesting...

    Our man, let's call him Doug, greeted me with a huge hug, a broad smile on his face, drink in hand (Grand Mariner of all things), and invited me in to his den. He was absolutely thrilled to finally be able to talk to someone who was actually interested in what he was doing. Seems that 'the wife' as he calls her, was bored to tears hearing about his latest collections, or the latest Bit Torrent site he found; a treasure trove of hard to find music all ripped at 256-bits. The wife wants to know why he doesn't play more golf, like his friends. "Golf is the most boring game in the world, what I am doing is much more fun."

    His Pirate Room - A MacGeek's Heaven on Earth

    Doug has devoted one of the extra bedrooms (he has 7 of them) into what could only be described as The War Room. He owns three Power Mac G5's, and just added two iMac G5's. Several external 250GB firewire drives are attached to the iMacs, and sitting in the corner are a stack of at least 6 other external drives, all 300GB, brand new, boxed, and just waiting to go online.

    He has two cable modems and one DSL. One cable modem is "for the family", the other dedicated to his quest. The DSL line is a backup and is sometimes used when he had discovered a new site that offers a slew of new torrents he wants to mine. The wife, and the kids are all connected to the Internet through an Airport network, with multiple Airport Express base stations scattered among the house.

    All the Macs in his command and control room have JBL Creature speaker systems, some white, some blue, and a burgundy one that I have never seen before. The entire room is lit with indirect 'rope' lights, giving the room a feel of living in the Star Trek universe. There are a couple of rich soft brown leather chairs and one long, very plush, baby-butt soft leather sofa that just screams comfort. I took a seat on the sofa and never felt more pampered or more comfortable. I made a mental note that once our pets' pass on this was going to be the sofa in MY house. For all I cared this interview could go for days, once ensconced in this incredible piece of furniture I didn't want to leave...ever.

    The Wife bought us a pot of coffee (Jamaican Blue Mountain), two cups, and cream and a small bowl of 'equal'. With the coffee was a plate of fresh (fresh!) Dunkin Donuts Cinnamon Sticks. The interaction between The Wife and Doug showed that these two were a happy couple. The seemed to really like each other, and that, my friends, is more rare than you might think.

    Once I got through ogling the various M

  6. That has to be... by modifried · · Score: 5, Funny

    .. the most confusing slashdotted page I've seen. The article page says, in it's entirety:
    "Problem!?"

    With both the question mark and exclamation mark, I get to wondering. Is it asking me if there is a problem? Is it telling me there's a problem? Or is this some sort of statement based on quantum theory, and is both asking and telling me there is a problem at the same time?

  7. Re:I wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    About 4.4 Terrabytes

    Average MP3 is about 5MB

    900,000 songs * 5MB = 4,500,000 MB

    4,500,000 MB / 1024 MB in a gigabyte = 4394.53125 GB

  8. The RIAA could make a lot of money here.... by charlieb0y · · Score: 5, Funny

    At $250,000 penalty (I THINK that's the max) per song, the RIAA could make 225 BILLION off this guy alone! I bet they lose that much per year because of him...........

  9. Smells like bullshit by Pope · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I read this a few days ago. Quite frankly, not only is his reasoning completely ridiculous, but his methods are also totally suspect. I'm sure his ISPs haven't noticed anything peculiar about 100% downloading, all the time?

    Pending a secondary source, I call BS on this one.

    --
    It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
  10. Sure... by gillbates · · Score: 5, Funny
    it's the journey not the destination...

    Because the prison bus ride is definitely more scenic than the prison yard, right?

    • New computer: $799
    • Broadband connection: $59
    • Lawyer for the RIAA lawsuit: $5,000
    • Fines and prison term: 5 years, plus 130 million dollars.
    • Getting mentioned on Slashdot as King of the Pirates: Priceless.

    Some things, money can't buy. But if you want to get busted for copyright infringement on a shoestring budget, only Slashdot will do.

    --
    The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
  11. Math doesn't add up by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    900,000(songs) / 1000(songs/day) = 900 days > 10 months

    note that he "started slowly", which i assume means less than 1000 songs / day

    the math does not add up for me. anyone can fix the anomaly?

  12. The world's worst leech0r by Aim+Here · · Score: 5, Funny

    What's this guy's soulseek/emule IDs? He's going straight to the top of my ban-list for not sharing!

    Non-sharers are killing piracy! Help stamp it out!

  13. Re:Disconnect and motivation by sulli · · Score: 5, Funny
    It's a simple typgraphical error.

    Indeed.

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  14. he is obviously sharing with others by etaluclac · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since he claims to get a lot of music off of Bittorrent, this guy is definitely giving it to others to get a decent download speed--and at 900000 songs, plenty of others have acquired other music thanks to his "hobby."

    That's the nature of the protocol--you can't take without giving back. Even if somehow downloading but not sharing the music were legal, he'd still be breaking the law.

  15. Re:He's a what? He's a what? by djdavetrouble · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What he is trying to do is literally impossible. Furthermore he already has more music in his collection than he could ever listen to in his lifetime. I have been collecting vinyl for some 25 years, and come across his species before. They collect and collect and bag the records up in protective sleeves and lord over their super rare *SEALED* original pressing of "The Skullsnaps", or "24 Karat Black", which has never had a chip of diamond touch it to release the magic contained within. Compare this to the mindset of a deejay, who buys record upon record, and can't wait to play it in public so anyone within earshot can enjoy (or hate, some dj's have a cruel streak).... Just because you are an obsessive collector doesn't mean you can actually enjoy what you collect. Its like the plot from Toy Story 2, where they are collecting rare toys, when they really should be in the loving hands of a child.

    I have several chicago blues indie records from the 1940's and 1950's that are one of a kinds
    I am not too familiar with copyright law, but my father told me that when you become the owner of a recording that noone else has, you gain the rights to reproduce and sell said recording. There have been several precedents of this. Maybe you should copy your one of a kinds and get it out to some other collectors before something happens and they are lost to the world altogether.

    --
    music lover since 1969
  16. Re:Disconnect and motivation by SnapShot · · Score: 5, Funny
    It isn't an impossible task, he's just going about it the wrong way. Most MP3's are 3MB or so, right? Why not write a program that randomly generates files in the 2 to 5MB range, throws out the ones that aren't valid MP3, and puts the rest in his library. Not only would you get every song ever recorded but you would get every variation of every song ever recorded (at least in that range). Even better, he would own the copyright on every new song that will ever be generated from this point forward.

    It's really pretty simple; here's a code fragment:

    for(int i = 0; i < Math.pow(2, 5242880), ++i) {
    File f = generateRandomFile(i);
    if(isValidMP3(f)) {
    saveToLibrary(f))
    }
    }
    No need to thank me, I'm just trying to do a service for the future generations and save this guy the headache of all those lawsuits...
    --
    Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.