MIT's New Music Sharing Network

tessaiga writes "The New York Times has an article about a new project at MIT to replace music file sharing over P2P with sharing over cable TV (reg free link). The Library Access To Music Project relies on the more relaxed copyright restrictions on analog transmission formats like cable. From the article: "M.I.T. students, faculty and staff can choose from 16 channels of music and can schedule 80-minute blocks of time to control a channel. The high-tech D.J. can select, rewind or fast-forward the songs via an Internet-based control panel. Mr. Winstein and Mr. Mandel created the collection of CD's after polling students." The article goes on to point out that this is (hopefully) legal under current laws because MIT already has a blanket license to broadcast music over analog media, and recording songs played over this system "would be no different from recording songs from conventional FM broadcasts"."

God help them!

[jkrise]

If MIT students can't find methods to get MP3 off the 'net, nimbly sidestepping the R*AA and other assorted vultures... well; do they really deserve to be at MIT?

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Scratch ?

[mirko]

The high-tech D.J. can select, rewind or fast-forward the songs via an Internet-based control panel.

Can he do it fast enough to reproduce the vinyl scratch effect ?

and you rip off the mask...

[the_pooh_experience]

of the evil-doer, and it is the RIAA [riaa.org], who shakes his bony fist and exclaims, "darn you meddling computer scientists!"

MIT likes Britney

[kyoko21]

Nice to see that the boys and girls at MIT likes Britney since "Baby One More Time" was number 4 most request song last week. Just can't get enough of Britney on the LAMP!

Re:That's all nice and well

[in7ane]

If anything it will be good for RIAA - just watch Kazaa fill up with poor quality recordings that people make form this.

Oh, wait, that's already the case...

This Time Next Week...

[turgid]

...there will be new laws in place outlawing this.

*sigh*

Re:That's all nice and well

[jandrese]

Don't radio stations have all sorts of restrictions on how much control the users have over the playlists? IIRC, the restrictions range from: the radio station being strictly prohibited from publishing its playlist, request shows requiring at least an hour between when someone calls in a song to when they actually play it, DJs being required to talk over the beginning and end of the songs, and requring the DJ to not tell you the name of the song until after it has played.

This MIT system seems to put a lot of power in the hands of the students, which is just the sort of thing the RIAA hates.

TiVo to the iPod

[ebusta]

Awesome! Now all I need is that ellusive TiVo -> iPod software and cable bundle.

Hell's frozen over, folks.

[gertsenl]

From the article, for those who read all the way: "Mr. Winstein said he once received an e-mail message from a fellow student complimenting him on his choice of music (Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 8) and telling him "I'd like to get to know you better." She signed the note, "Sex depraved freshman."" This is a freshman girl at MIT... who is looking for loving... wants to get to know a gangly CS grad student... I AM STUPIFIED. Know what this means? This clinches it. The only reason we nerds are not getting any is because we're not looking for it. We're looking up net porn and wondering why we don't have girlfriends, while this girl's crying in her room about why we're not asking her out. Get out of your rooms and face the sun, gentlemen! Take a stand! Make this the day that college dorks around the world get girlfriends! WHO'S WITH ME?!

Other side of Cambridge, MA

[Animaniac]

It would be nice if we could get this at the other end of Cambridge... Wait, Harvard doesn't even have the dorms wired for Cable TV yet! Damn you MIT, one day we'll show you! *shakes fist*

Re:Hell's frozen over, folks.

[illumin8]

She signed the note, "Sex depraved freshman."" This is a freshman girl at MIT... who is looking for loving... wants to get to know a gangly CS grad student...

I listened to this story on NPR this morning, and when they asked the guy what type of music he liked, he said... (drumroll please) he was a big fan of show tunes. I think I can safely say that he probably isn't interested in some sexually deprived (or depraved for that matter) freshman girl. He's probably more interested in her brother.

Obligatory link

[shrikel]

Here's the registration-required link [nytimes.com], shamefully omitted from the original post. (For all you anti-privacy zealots)