Swapping Clock Cycles for Free Music?

droopus writes "USA Today is reporting on an innovative business model for the music business. Free music for your spare CPU cycles. Honest Thief says the firm has developed software, to be available in the second quarter of this year, that will enable file-sharing providers to capitalize on the unused CPU cycles of their members. That in turn would allow them to raise money to compensate artists for the use of their material. Honest Thief said the software, known as ThankYou 2.0, enables a peer-to-peer file-sharing client to turn the computers of digital music fans into nodes in a distributed net. By leasing out the processor power on distributed nets to research facilities the firm could generate revenues that would be distributed back to the musicians. Some very smart people have suggested this before, but this seems like the first real implementation. "

Already done...?

[ddstreet]

I thought Kazaa already did this [slashdot.org]?

Although, Kazaa hid it from the users, and kept the profits for themselves...

but i need them

[metallikop]

I dont have spare cycles, i have mp3s to encode.

Have you ever seen Kazaa run on a win machine?

[reaper20]

People already donate CPU cycles, if you really want to donate, try clicking on things in Kazaa, you'll know your donating enough cycles when you get a nice gray window that repaints your desktop as you move it. Take that distributed.net.

At least now, I can have my PC slow to a crawl AND help artists.

Hmm, They could use that

[pardasaniman]

Looks like they can use all the CPU cycles they can get right now!!

Artist: Where's the Cash?

Honest Thief: All the cash we raised went into taking in that last slashdotting.

Sorry...

[TheVidiot]

My CPU is busy downloading MP3s...

Foiled again.

[Anand_S]

Aww, man. I only have a Celeron 500. Does that mean I'm going to get stuck with "The Best of Perry Como"?

Finally!

[deanj]

Just yesterday Eminem was wondering where he could get some spare CPU cycles to do his computations with. Good thing they thought of this!

Heinlein is dead. Free lunches abound.

[Anonymous Coward]

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Free lunches are common in just about every kind of situation.

To compound the irony, go ahead and download utterly royalty-free Heinlein novels off of an e-bookz site.

Re:Sorry...

[Unoriginal Nick]

Maybe the parent has a Winmodem, and his CPU really is busy when he downloads MP3s. :)

why not a distributed/p2p client that generates

[Freqdog]

how it would work exactly is another question.. but clients could generate beats/tones/tempos/vocals and the p2p system would be the means of bandwidth needs..

clients could vote if they like whats being generated and the music would shift accordingly..

just an idea

Re:Already done...?

[yoha]

kazaalite is great. I do find a certain irony though. There someone who creates a program that steals money from the people who create a program that steals money from musicians.

i've found the solution

[k3v0]

broadcast everything over radiofrequency waves for everyone to hear and then play ads during the broadcast.... oh wait. that wont work...

Re:eMule Project

[jkidd]

No you were suppose to keep it a secret, now the SPA, and RIAA will be after edonkey/emule next...

Re:plain and simple

[secolactico]

You mean they actually *found* aliens?

Distributed network

[Jace of Fuse!]

That's the network that RIAA/MPAA execs use to distribute revenues so that the artists see very little of it, right?

that's not the only reason

[Trepidity]

It might've made it easier, but SETI's been perennially due for funding cuts whenever money gets tight. When people think "which of the projects we're spending money on isn't really that essential," it's not surprising that "searching for aliens" comes up near the top of the list.

Re:Good Idea: This is how the RIAA Will See it:

[Will_TA]

Does this mean the hackers are communists?

Re:Maybe the "Killer App?"

[adolf]

Sure.

We've even got a distribution network in-place already for the prizes: The public school fund-raiser companies!

One ought to be able to get at least a 50-cent coloring book and a set of Hello Kitty stickers out of a couple of weeks worth of XP 2100. And of course, every kid who shows up to the meetings gets a free box of Cracker Jacks, even if they've only got a 386.

I can see this proven, time-tested business model working quite marvelously.