Mac P2P Music Sharing with iTunes is Online

kraksmoka writes "Spymac.com has already found a way to take the new features of iTunes 4 to new heights. Today they opened up a new section on their site entitled Spymac Music, which is a database of shared iTunes libraries. Anyone who wants can submit their music library to be shared. Currently it sports a search engine capable of searching title, album and artist. " I wonder how long this will last.

they are asking for it

[Jrod5000 at RPI]

we all know about the lawsuits slapped on the college kids concerning LAN search engines. at first i figured the RIAA will surely sue Apple. Now i'm not so sure. Anyone familiar with the size of Apple's legal department?

It's streaming

[ericdano]

It's not sharing, it's streaming from what I understand. I'm wondering if people who have it active will have to pay royalities to artists since it might be considered "broadcasting".

Awesome!

[wazzzup]

Let's give record companies reason not to go with Apple-style DRM and come running into the arms of Microsoft-style DRM.

I hope Apple patches this hole quick before the kiddies ruin it for music-loving adults. You know, I kinda like being able to burn a protected song to a CD whenever and however many times I want as well as uploading it to my iPod.

How long?

[Quixote]

I wonder how long this will last

Oh, I'd hazard a guess and say not as long as this [napster.com] did?

I don't see how they can close it...

[Anonymous Coward]

...The server just says, "Hey, this guy posted his music library index online - take a look. By the way, his IP address is X.Y.Z", When I tried to test it out, his address was not responding. No different than Google if you ask me. But the users might start getting sued.

Re:READ!!! Read the site!

[gl4ss]

so if i made a internet radio and streamed stuff to my friends i wouldnt need to worry about anything, and i could play any song i wanted without retribution? hmm... i wonder what the buzz about internet radios having to pay royalties was last fall/winter... must have been a bad dream.

or if i made a p2p program that called downloading 'streaming'(that it just HAPPENS to write to disc 'cache')..

sure if they were broadcasting their own stuff(or somethinge 'free' like machinae supremacy, a great band btw) it wouldnt really matter.. but how does it differ from an internet on demand music service _really_, because that's what it would be?

it would be ok if the itunes price included royalty for providing such access to the tune, but i doubt it doesn't?

hmm

[tadheckaman]

"How long will it last"
you mean slashdotting, or RIAA?

Re:Propaganda

[pla]

Whether you think it's wrong or not, at least call it "music theft" which is what it is. If you're so convinced it's right then there's no need to sweep it under the rug as "sharing", "freedom", "fair use" or anything like that.

What word or words would you use to describe the act of obtaining a book from the library?

How about obtaining a CD or movie from the library (many libraries have extensive collections of CDs and movies, as well as books)? Does the fact that this revised situation involves music change your definition?

Now, how does leaving out the "library" part of the above picture, change the situation? Does sharing something become "theft" because individuals do it directly, rather than through a public-ish organization?

Although I partially agree with you, that people should call a spade a spade, not all music "sharing" counts as a euphemism for "stealing". As a better word, considering how most people I know use downloaded music, you might want to consider the phrase "free advertising".

And if "advertising" bothers you as yet another euphemism for "piracy", perhaps you can explain to me how Clearchannel differs from your typical pickpocket-on-the-street.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Love shared iTunes, but can't buy at the Store!

[Wanderer1]

This is great, I find an artist on a buddy's shared playlist, but I flip over to the iTunes Store, and that artist isn't in their selection. Foiled! Guess I'll have to fire up Kazaa.

I think this streaming thing is pretty good for music proliferation, but it would help if Herr Jobs would kick up the Store's encoding crew a notch or two. Many of the artists I'm interested in aren't there, but the feedback function gets used frequently.

Also note that it has been said the streaming feature has a maximum of 5 connections. I don't think this was an overlooked loophole in the DRM plan.

YOU *CAN* COPY THE FILES!

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone has developed a tool that allows you to download music using iTunes' sharing feature. (No, I'm not talking about iCommune, either.)

Out of respect for Apple, I'm not going to say how you can download a copy of this tool, but, trust me, it IS out there.

makes me think of Darwin Streaming Server

[stego]

Which is also a free download for Mac OS (but also for Linux AND Windows) and with which you can stream MP3s (or video). The new iTunes 4 isn't any different, in that it is up to the user to use the technology as they will. I mean if I buy a Real streaming server or set up whatever MS offers and then streamed a bunch of questionabale content it isn't either of those companies that would be targeted by the RIAA laywers. Apple has just made the entry barrier to streaming much lower, but the basic thing here isn't new. This will be neat to watch play out.

Like with that Canadian site that was streaming US television shows as a rebroadcast a while back -- nobody considered suing the people that they got their software from.

AAC Has Questionable quality?

[aliens]

I read this article
MacNet article [macnet2.com]
And they mention that AAC is crap quality compared to Mp3, and that others have said the same. Any slashdot comments on this? Certainly no point in paying $.99 for crap. The entire article is good.

Re:You can download from iTunes

[phillymjs]

Get the sharing url for a song using ctrl-click. Type "curl url > my_faviorite.mp3" at the command line. Voila, you have the file.

Great, except the "Get Sharing URL" feature is not available for remote music libraries your machine is connected to. And when a sharing URL looks like this:

daap://[computername]/resolve?database-spec='dmap. persistentid:0xd63645b768148d91'&playlist-spec='dm ap.persistentid:0xaa10915c0a85380b'&song-spec='dma p.persistentid:0x3e1050bf41fb7c8e'

I doubt you're gonna be doing any educated guessing as to what the exact URL is for the song you want.

~Philly

Re:they are asking for it

[blibbler]

It is unlikely that a court case against apple over this would be successful. One of the reasons why the case against Napster was successful was it was clear that Napster was designed, from the start, to encourage copyright enfringement. There are plenty of legitimate uses for iTune's streaming capability... Also it is an unintentional side effect thta people are able to stream/download from all over the internet.

Not to mention that if it became an issue, Apple could just disable the sharing feature in future versions and avoid a negative decision.

Blibbler

Overreacting.

[mikedaisey]

1) The files aren't copied, they are streamed.

2)It isn't covered under the internet broadcasting laws as each iTunes client can not send to more than 5 clients at a time.

Protocol?

[Phroggy]

Is the Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP) documented anywhere? It would be nice to see an RFC on this. The port number it uses is registered with the IANA and the protocol appears to be mostly identical to HTTP. I'd like to see 3rd-party clients and servers that are compatible with iTunes...

Simply Incorrect

[pneuma_66]

Where did you get this information from, I just tried it on my machine, and any url with the port 3689 just comes up blank. Files dont get downloaded, nothing happens. Maybe you should verify things before posting.