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PC Mag Reviews Mercora P2P Radio
prostoalex writes "PC Magazine reviews Mercora peer-to-peer streaming radio. It's not a service which allows anyone to download songs, however you can listen to any of the top 20 million plus songs available on the network from more than 2000 private radiostations. Mercora supports keyword search by genre, song name or artist name, but does not allow to listen to more than four songs from the same artist to avoid copyright issues. Any Mercora user automatically becomes a broadcaster, when the app scans the drive for digital music and then suggests creating an ad-hoc Internet radiostation."
How does this get around ASCAP the royalty fees that are causing headaches for internet radio broadcast stations?
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
A random sample of music on my system would put Dead Kennedies next to Phillip Glass next to James Brown next to Keith Jarrett, etc.... Some songs just don't play well with others.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I just downloaded and installed Mercora and as soon as I did, my Microsoft Antispyware flagged Grokster as trying to install. Just a bit or warning.
Live365 has done this for years, plus Live365 uses standard technology so I can listen with Linux, PalmOS or even an internet-enabled stereo.
I used it in the past. It was fun for a while, but the problem of course is bandwidth. Most home connections don't really have the bandwidth to have more than a couple people really, and so I moved on to Peercast, although the legality of this is less clear (depends on where you're at and all that). Now, if they could actually make use of the Peercast technology within Mercora, and allowed Ogg streams, they might be able to get me back.
Allowing users to listen to music they haven't bought? Without commercials, even? Who is paying MPAA for this? NOBODY?!??
"Joe, is that lawyer who handled the Napster case still available? Give him a call, will ya?"
Just
Furthermore, over the course of an hour, the service won't let you stream any more than four songs from the same artist, or any more than three from the same album. Such are the vagaries of digital-rights laws. Again, this isn't a huge problem if you're in a radio frame of mind. When you tune into the radio, you don't expect to hear song after song from the same artist.
Clearly, this guy's never heard of ClearChannel.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
I don't see the difference between offering an MP3 or offering a stream to allow instant realtime listening.
Technically it is the same thing from the sender's point of view. It sends out bytes of copyrighted material. Just because the client software isn't saving those by default (think hacks, direct recording...) doesn't mean it isn't possible.
This software will probably result in new laws which will trouble normal webradios...
Let me be the first to say that I find this idea incredibly stupid. First of all, you are not very likely to find the song you want when you want it and there is a very slim chance that you will find a station that you would want to add to your favorites due to the random nature of the broadcasting selection process. In the end you just end up wasting a lot of your time listening to nothing and you begin to think that maybe you should just buy the CD. This smells like a RIAA sponsored project to me.
Good, I hope it's available for OSX so that I might use it to broadcast all the contents of the http://gnuart.net/data/musique/ directory :)
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Erm, ever heard of tools that allow dumping streams?
Or is the quality that bad? Then why would I listen to it?
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
...except it doesn't spread through e-mail.
I just took a look at your little collection there and listened to a couple samples.. No offense, but that stuff sounds like crap. That kind of music is something people wouldn't wanna listen to even if *you* paid them.
So basically we can now choose between 3000 random users random 10-song playlists streamed over inadequate bandwidth without the ability to find any songs beyond the typical top-40 songs, or to save them. Add to that weird claims of legality, and privacy concerns from the scanning of the harddrive, and it suddenly doesn't sound so nice anymore. Not that it did sound any nicer in the first place. Most p2p apps already suck, making it even more artificially restricted doesn't really help.
That depends on what you listened to : Doc Starrduck is indeed very immature in itself, but the interest of GNUArt is that anybody could change it the way they like... Better to improve than to slander, isn't it ? :)
On the other hand, Matthieu Metzger is a sax pro and I am not sure a decent fellow would even dare calling his virtuosity the way you did, especially when you take a look to his resume. Yes, he's played in many Top50 songs and most French pro refer to him the French Coltrane.
There are loads of professional hidden in these 421 songs, it's like a box of chocolate, you know ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
and then suggests creating an ad-hoc Internet radiostation.
Ok, but only if I get to make announcements: " aaaand nooooooooooow, a ssssspesjial request from Sophie in dorm three,...."
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
I just tried installing the client on my WinXP box, and the Microsoft Antispyware Beta running on it immediately detected an adware bundle (starts with a "G", I forgot the exact name) being installed. I'm not sure if it was a false alarm, but I sure wouldn't install it again! I'd rather go for Peercast, if I must.
There's just no way in hell they have 20 million different songs on there. We have all heard the numbers, and there are not 20 million different songs across 2000 radio stations. Even if each station had a playlist of 500 songs, which is very high, that would only be 1 million songs. I'm not even sure if there have been 20 million professionally recorded and available different songs in existence, can anyone else back me up on that?
stuff |
Why, oh why, don't newsites put actual links to the product's (or company's) website when writing an article or review. News.com is bad enough, but PC Mag also does it. When you click on one of the suggested story links at the bottom you get another review of the software. They actually have an url to the website, but it's not a link, one has to copy and paste to go to the website!!
Do these news sites want the companies to actually pay for a direct link? What is the motivation? I've had several articles on news.com in which I'd like to visit the company's website, for which a url is nowhere to be found and I have to resort to Google to find it. ARGH!
What, me worry?
If I have a live or unreleased track on my computer, will their software still broadcast it to others?
Anyone know?
Message from the install :
Some microsoft updates that mercora needs [...] are not installed [...]. Mercora is dowloading and installing the necessary updates [...].
And then "setup_wm.exe" (windows media player) is trying to access the internet.
What is it ? DRM ?
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
There seems to be a fair bit of negative feeling about this app, but I'd reccomend giving it a go.
;)
I started using Meroca about a week ago, and while it's not perfect it's not bad.
I never listen to whole albums anyway, so I prefer the randomness of the music I get. I have my whole mp3 collection in Winamp set on shuffe - it's refreshing to just get hit with something I've not heard before. And I've run across a couple of fantastic bands that I'd never of otherwise heard of (ie Death Cab for Cutie, terrible name, great music)
The quality is really pretty good, you have a choice of OGG (yay) or WMA (boo) streams at decent bitrates. Theres a little crispiness on heavy cymbal work, but it's way better than my favourite 'regular' station Xfm
The client's a bit clunky tho - seems to eat a lot of resource trying to manage 15000+ mp3s, but maybe I've just got too many
Reading through the website addresses a lot of the RIAA worries - they say they've got $5m in venture capital behind them, and they're looking to move to a subscription model, which makes sense as there is no way this could be supported by GoogleAds and Amazon referrals.
Theres some brains there too - the guy behind the gnutella2 protocol, Michael Stokes, is on their tech staff, so I reckon that can't be bad.
I think they may have stumbled across a workable compromise between the p2p freeloading and the RIAA's draconian methods - as long as they choose a nice low price point for the subscriptions.
Seems like more than one /.er has reported spyware being bundled (specifically Grokster), contrary to the PC Mag reports. Whether or not the spyware was intentionally bundled, this type of technology creates many security issues.
Desktop search apps have recently been under much scrutiny for privacy issues, such that the content read by the apps could be revealed to outside sources. However, desktop searches could theoretically operate without a connection to the internet, which means that a simple block of the program's access to external IPs should be able to prevent this from happening.
The whole basis of Mercora, on the other hand, is that it automatically searches the hard drive and streams the content to a public network. First off, I don't understand the business model of distributing free software to the public and then offering to pay royalties on every song broadcasted. No revenues & high costs = doom. Therefore, it appears likely that the company is operating on the premises of bundled spyware, as reported by some users. Needless to say, spyware itself creates enough privacy and security issues, but that is not even the worst of it.
Say some kiddie hacker reverse-engineers the technology and uses it to create a worm that searches computers for sensitive document formats (e.g. *.doc, *.xls, *.pdf come to mind) and broadcasts them to the public domain? Will Mercora's parent company pay for the damages done with this kind of scenario?
I am deeply disappointed that a reputable source like PC Mag gave this a 4/5 rating without alerting the public of the possible security issues with this technology.
h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slash-dot-dot-org
Have you tried it ?
:
I am now and I like it
1. (near) Instant music. You don't need to wait for a download.
2. Excellent audio quality : no "buffering" wait, until now.
3. You can't find any song, but you can find a lot of artists.
4. You can browse other users music like in good old napster days. Yipee. BUT each user only broadcast one song at a time so you can't listen to them. Unyipee.
We'll see if I still like mercora in a few days.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
I thought about installing it and my spyware prg picked up a lot of baddies.
I thought about installing it but my spyware prg picked up a lot of baddies.
"over the course of an hour, the service won't let you stream any more than four songs from the same artist" ...I won't become "Radio Corrs" if I use this...:-)
Maybe I'll become "Radio Tori Amos and the Corrs"...
I know - I'll become "Radio Transhuman"...:-)
What do Clannad, Enya, the Corrs, Tori Amos, Enigma, Loreena McKennit, Peter Gabriel - and the Sisters of Mercy have in common?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
They say they comply with the DMCA, yet you can search for a song, find a user who has it and stream it right then, on demand. This goes beyond what is allowed via webcasting which stipulates at least 60 minutes between a user "request" and a broadcast of that request.
They say you can only broadcast music that you "own" yet many of the files on their network are clearly gotten off of P2P (you can tell when the ID3 tag data is for a different song than you hear playing - generally that doesn't happen when someone rips an original CD).
Couple this with the totally random nature of what you hear (I searched for and listened to a Bob Marley song and then got streamed some random classical tune) and it is a recipe for disaster - the industry will strip them of the on-demand first song capability and users will try and quit when the "stations" they find suck.
Why would I install spyware to scan my hard drive with the claim that it will play some stupid random selection of what it finds, with limits on content, annoying DRM, and an unclear business model that you know is more sinister than it's letting on? Services like Shoutcast (http://www.shoutcast.com/) have been around for years, work very well, and have no spyware or content issues that I know of. This is why I never waste my time with P2P apps.
3. AUDIO PLAYING AND STREAMING
You agree to use the Service to only play and stream audio content for which you have acquired the legitimate legal rights for use. You agree that when using the Service for audio streaming, you will not:
Stream sound recordings that are inappropriate, profane, defamatory, obscene, indecent or unlawful
Interfere with the Services audio selection for streaming mechanism which adheres to the public performance of sound recording guidelines of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
Publish advance program guides or use other means to pre-announce when particular sound recordings will be streamed or the order in which they will be streamed
Stream specific sound recordings within one hour of the request by a listener or at a time designated by the listener
Disable any identification or technological protection information included in the sound recording (if any)
Violate any applicable local, state, national, or international law (including without limitation the DMCA)
I guess that takes care of that...
If you stream your illegal MP3's - and what else do most people have (leaving out legally ripped MP3's), you're in violation of the law - and if you breathe on their software, you're in violation of the DMCA...
Doesn't look like such fun now, does it?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
13. ELECTRONIC NOTICES
You consent to Mercora providing you any information regarding the Service in electronic form. Mercora may provide such information to you via e-mail at the e-mail address you specified when you registered for the Service, by instant message to your account, or by access to a Mercora web site. As long as you access and use the Service, you will have the necessary software and hardware to receive such notices. If you do not consent to receive any notices electronically, you must discontinue your use of the Service.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
The radio station used to archive all its programming for people who wanted to do time shifting. This was put to an end by the RIAA and the record industry. We came to a settlement with the RIAA and agreed not to their terms in order to provide any streaming at all.
There are a lot of great radio stations streaming programming now but the RIAA put 90% of them off the air with the threat of litigation. There used to be thousands of home/hobby stations broadcasting from homes and dorms. The RIAA theatened them with litigation regarding royalties and poof they were gone. This included a lot of great college radio stations unfortunately.
For anyone who wants to record streaming audio I highly recommend the Windows shareware program TotalRecorder. Don't know if a Linux version is in the works or not.
- AndrewZ
What systems do you support?
We currently support PCs that are running Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Some might even work on some Windows 98 and ME machines but are still working through issues on these platforms.
What, no Linux?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
You're talking about the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) not the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). The MPAA doesn't give a flying fuck what you do with MP3's.
Stupid assholes you and the fuckwad who modded you up. How the fuck do either of you manage to operate a keyboard and mouse?
I mean really. I'm a poor dumb fuck that doesn't
even have the money for an in-dash
CD player in my car but even _I_ went out
and bought a fucking cd conversion kit
so I can play my burned cd's in my car through the tape player.
Guess what I listened to before I had that?
SILENCE... better than that fucking drivel they
pump out over the FM waves these days.
If it makes any difference... I haven't watched TV in over 5 years either. Waste of fuckin time people.
Where I work, shoutcast is blocked, so I use this instead. I don't know about spyware, that is certainly an issue I will keep an eye on.
I feel bad for whoever tunes into my broadcasts though. Must be strange going from Tribe Called Quest to Cannibal Corpse.
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
Here's the concept as I imagine it from the article. In practice, they probably screwed up the implementation.
The random 10 song deal is sorta lame, although you do end up with some interesting mixes.
In theory, if playlists are supported (as the article briefly passes over) you would end up with small communities of uber-music geeks/ DJs who make great mixes. Some would have underground hip hop, some classic rock, punk rock, eclectic, some 70's, etc.
These core guys make up playlists. You have a much larger community of silent types who listen to what the core guys do. My 10 song set rotates through and they switch to the next guy in their favorites, etc. I may listen to my own mix a couple of times, but I will be listening to what the others are doing.
As the small communities gradually form, word of mouth between friends (real life) or bloggers and people get added to each other's favorites. You gradually add to your collection of frequently streamed people.
If those who aren't really into music can't see the concept, just realize that there are communities built around icon designers and desktop shells.
Sounds just like me, but i haven't bought the converter yet.
Radio is worthless for anything but traffic reports.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
No it won't. You have the option of selecting which songs that are on your hard disk you want to be broadcasted. So you have full control of when you are broadcasting and what you are offering in your Mercora P2P radio stream.