A new twist on file sharing is holding out the promise of allowing millions of people to share their song collections online, at no cost–and without legal risk.
The trick involves marrying peer-to-peer technology with Internet radio. Using that combination, some companies are creating powerful tools that automatically broadcast people’s private playlists onto the Web. The output is then pulled together into a searchable database that lets listeners find the music they want, when they want it.
Safeguards are in place to prevent unauthorized downloads, ensuring copyrights are honored. But if the technology behind the networks keeps improving and the number of people using them keeps growing, the services could one day turn into something akin to free, on-demand request radio.
Few companies have staked out this territory yet. A handful of pioneers–including Apple Computer, Virgin Digital and upstarts Mercora and Live 365–are just beginning to see demand.
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.
