Author Topic: Adding an MP3 Section to the Club? (Read 146 times)

lbpesq · « **on:** January 10, 2006, 07:33:53 AM »

Hey everyone. I've been away from the computer for a few days as my wife was in the hospital. It was a little scary for a bit but she woke up yesterday morning vastly improved and they let her come home. YEAH!!!! She's fine now.

Anyway, while I was living at the hospital I had a lot of time to think and came up with this idea which probably should be directed to Moder Dave and/or Mica, but I'd also be interested in everyone's $0.02:

How about adding a section to the club where members could post MP3s of their music? Is there interest for this? (I suspect there is). Is it practical? When it comes to a lot of this internet stuff, I'm somewhat of a Luddite. So I'm throwing the idea out there. Comments?

Bill, tgo

David Houck · « **Reply #1 on:** January 10, 2006, 07:52:44 AM »

Bill; I can't speak for Mica, but my initial thought is that MP3's would start to take up a lot of server space and slow the board down considerably.

bracheen · « **Reply #2 on:** January 10, 2006, 08:23:14 AM »

Bill, I'm happy to hear your wife is vastly improved and at home.

Sam

mikedm · « **Reply #3 on:** January 10, 2006, 10:39:08 AM »

Bill,

Glad to hear your wife is feeling better.

Regarding the MP3 question (and other media files as well). Now, I'm not a server nor web weenie, I produce content and generally irritate the IT department. I'm sure there are other members that can provide better insight to network and hardware requirements.
Dave is correct, yes it would increase the demand for server space. There are some network varialbes that would need to be looked at. Still, there is a way to eleviate some congestion: a media server.
Its not unusual for companies to provide text-rich and media-rich content with two server types. Static and dynamic html is hosted on a standard web server while streaming or downloadable media (video and audio) is hosted on media server. Media files are accessed via links on the web server and display/play transparently for the viewer. After all, how many of us really pay attention to URLs when moving around a web-site?
I like the idea of members sharing recordings. Didn't this subject pop up sometime in 2004?

in way over my head,
Mike

lbpesq · « **Reply #4 on:** January 11, 2006, 07:29:10 AM »

Thanks for the info. I just thought it would be cool. Also thanks for the good wishes. Tina has been home since Monday and got her first full night of sleep last night (in fact she's still sleeping as I write this). Sleep is excellent medicine.

It is true that every cloud has a silver lining. My wife has been telling me over and over how wonderful, supportive and loving I was throughout the crisis. This upcoming weekend happens to be the Guitar Show in San Rafael - many vendors, 1000s of guitars and my wife feeling VERY magnanimous. Timing is everything!

Bill, tgo

rklisme · « **Reply #5 on:** January 11, 2006, 08:46:33 AM »

Bill

So glad to hear your wife is doing well! I may try to make it on Sunday to the show. Feel free to contact me if you decide to go on Sunday. Again glad to hear your wife is well.

Rory

Bradley Young · « **Reply #6 on:** January 11, 2006, 04:18:48 PM »

If this became a reality, then bittorrent might be a great option. That way, everyone in the alembic club could contribute bandwidth to the cause.

Brad

David Houck · « **Reply #7 on:** January 11, 2006, 04:55:24 PM »

Brad, would we even need to go through the board?

flaxattack · « **Reply #8 on:** January 11, 2006, 06:47:18 PM »

bill
am sad to hear and glad to hear,.
give t my regards and tell phil to read my email- lol

bassfingers · « **Reply #9 on:** January 11, 2006, 06:48:30 PM »

Bill,
I'm glad to hear your wife is well,and wish her a continuing speedy recovery and good health.

In many areas of web technology,I feel I'm firmly in the 'Sub-Luddite' category,although 'Luddite' suggests opposition.While that,for me,is far from true,I know what I know and it ain't much.However,Dave has really summed it up with his two posts.Given that it could noticeably slow things down,could a separate board be established for MP3's that could be accessed by link from here without any causing any adverse effects?.I feel as if I'm asking the mother of all dumb-ass questions here,sorry.

I love the suggestion,I'm still listening to Keavin's piece from early December.(http://club.alembic.com/Images/396/23229.html?1134335627).It's a great way to hear where people are at musically and if anyone asks me to recommend great audio examples of the Alembic sound,I'd be just as likely to suggest Keavin's tune as anything of Mr.Clarke's.And please don't mis-interpret that.I LOVE Stanley Clarke.

Sorry I can't offer anything more helpful than Great idea,I just don't have the knowledge to take it forward.

Simon.

Bradley Young · « **Reply #10 on:** January 13, 2006, 11:36:16 PM »

Dave,

The seeds for the files could be here (which should have a low impact), and then everybody on the board that downloads files would also be sharing them.

Peer-to-Peer filesharing is a super technology for things like this, and bittorrent is specifically targeted for stuff like this.

Brad

serialnumber12 · « **Reply #11 on:** January 14, 2006, 03:49:57 AM »

you know the band mix.com web site is a totally free page and a person or group can load up to a few songs & photos. i use it for sending links to other musicians and or group members,so they can listen or audition me On-line VIA long distance.its a great tool and its free http://bandmix.com/signup-1.php

David Houck · « **Reply #12 on:** January 14, 2006, 04:39:20 AM »

Brad, I went to the bittorrent site and read all the documentation. It is still not clear to me how this would work without Mica having to do some work each time someone wants to share a file; i.e. creating the .torrent file. It is also unclear to me how firewalls affect file sharing among peers. And it sounds like the host has to do a good bit of work setting the system up; but then I don't know anything about servers, so maybe Mica already knows trackers and seeding and all that other stuff the bittorrent site said the host had to do.

Is this something that enough members here are going to use that it will work. For instance, in the past, members have posted links to mp3s of demos they've created and uploaded to a server. And maybe a few people posted responses. Is this peer to peer thing going to work if only a few people are actually interested in downloading a file? According to the faq at the bittorrent site, the only thing your client is uploading is the same file you are downloading. Maybe it's too early in the morning for me to understand how this works. Maybe just one cup of coffee isn't enough to get around this concept. And finally, if my demo is me playing a Grateful Dead tune, does Alembic incur any legal liability for seeding the file and making it possible for me to distribute it. Or what if the tune is written by someone who expressly told me not to distribute it; does Alembic incur any liability then?

Bradley Young · « **Reply #13 on:** January 14, 2006, 01:10:51 PM »

Dave,

I really don't want to go into legalities, but Alembic already distributes media. These media are called photographs, and I know two wrongs don't make a right, but nobody bats an eye at this. It basically boils down to a question of fair use. I suspect that myspace wasn't really worth $528 million, but I doubt it would have fetched that if they were participating in criminal activity.

With regards to the number of people participating, I suspect that the number would be greater than you think. Remember that more people will choose to remain silent than to voice an opinion.

The latest versions of bit torrent will allow you to remain uploading when you're done downloading.

There are better tools for bit torrent creation than the stuff that the creators put out (there's a whole commentary here about hardcore programmers making great things that are impossibly hard to use). For instance:

http://www.blogtorrent.com/

Will allow an upload much like the current photo uploads, but will create a torrent, put it in the tracker, and make the torrent available for download. It is basically unattended from the administrative standpoint.

With regards to firewalls, bit torrent works through firewalls, but apparently has better performance if there is a hole in the firewall.

Were this to be implemented, I think that agreeing to a license for all uploaded files would be great. It would help to prevent future misunderstandings.

I'd like to suggest using one of the Creative Commons licenses:

http://creativecommons.org/
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses

I think that the Attribution license would fit nicely.

Brad

David Houck · « **Reply #14 on:** January 15, 2006, 12:32:59 PM »

Brad; thanks for the additional information. I now know a lot more than I did before. In fact, I'm stilling reading the information at the Creative Commons site, which I find to be quite interesting.