Internet radio plus P2P does it create a free sharing system

November 9, 2004

GristyMcFisty used our news submit to tell us about an
interesting concept that is just beginning to emerge. This article over
at C|Net takes a closer look at boadcasting music from your hard drive to
the Internet. This concept pushes the envelope to the point where we can
expect resistance from the music industry. It will allow you to have a sort of
on demand radio source and it will be free. Right now, the only on demand
streaming going on is from Rhapsody or even Napster, but this is a subscription
model and is different in the eyes of the law. This new software allows anyone
to become a broadcaster!

Apple lets users of its iTunes music jukebox software share playlists
that are streamed them over a local area network. By contrast, Mercora
runs a Web-based network of roughly 8,000 broadcasters worldwide. Those
broadcasters devise their own playlists, which are served up to 175,000 to
200,000 listeners connected over the Internet.

Mercora's software also automatically streams music from an
individual's hard drive, making each member of the network a broadcaster.

"We're doing for music what Google did for the Web," Mercora CEO
Srivats Sampath said.

Head on over to C|Net and check out the whole story. They're calling this peer-to-peer
radio and it sounds like it has promise. Unfortunately, I think that
broadcasting music cannot be free and we will see some constraints come along
quickly.

Source: C|Net