Gnomoradio: Creative Commons Music Sharing 147
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?"
How long will this last? (Score:5, Insightful)
Only time... (Score:5, Insightful)
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:How long will this last? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even for
The name (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Asked and answered (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How long will this last? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Classics (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How long will this last? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless their primary goal is to protect their obsolete business model, but they wouldn't do that....
Re:The name (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Asked and answered (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Classics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Centralized is good if content is legal (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how now we now assume something is illegal unless proven otherwise, instead of the opposite.
Re:How long will this last? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Asked and answered (Score:3, Insightful)
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).
Re:How long will this last? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Asked and answered (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do music companies market inane girl and boy bands instead of good indy music? Because their business model is based on the idea of high marginal costs for distribution. If there are 10,000 people in the world who will like a song enough to pay $1 for it, and it takes me two days in the studio and other two on my Mac to make the song, at a total cost of say $2,000, then it's a profitable enterprise and I should do it (ignoring opportunity costs but you get the point). The hitch is the cost of actually distributing the music. I can't really send 10 copies to 100,000 different stores in the hope that a few stores will sell a copy.
Therefore it's more profitable for big music to concentrate on megabands that will justify the expense of creating a CD in X copies, shipping it to a bunch of stores and having to deal with unsold merchandise and returns. This is all changing now with the iTunes Store and the rest. Two things are still missing IMO:
- A really good recommendation system that helps me find music that isn't backed by an enormous marketing budget.
- A micropayment system.
(Notice that I didn't mention DRM.)Personally I think the web, P2P technologies and micropayments are going to result in a renaissance of indy music.
The real problem is splintering (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Future of Music Discovery (Score:2, Insightful)
And it might not be iRate or Gnomeradio in particular, but the idea behind them.
Even when just applied to indie artists, I've found dozens of bands who are fantastic using iRate. In the process I've thrown out even more music that I didn't find enjoyable at all, but in a reasonably short time I was discovering music that would have taken me ages to find in any other way.
Could this be applied to mainstream music? I don't see why not. How far away is the technology that allows me to have a custom radio station in my car and at home. I streams music, I rate it and a profile is built for me that is compared against other listeners from around the world. Seems better to me than listening to the various radio stations play the same songs every day, occasionaly adding something new . . . maybe even something I enjoy listening to.
Chris. (And I do help with iRate development, so I'm somewhat biased.)