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Indy: Auto-Discover Free Music to Download 184

Posted by timothy from the no-pirates-here dept.
Luyi Chen writes "Indy is a free p2p music download system, which is a new way for independent musicians to find their listerners. From Buzzsonic News, "Indy uses collaborative filtering, a system similar to that used by Amazon to recommend books, etc, to prospective buyers, to learn about your musical preferences in relation to other Indy users." The author of Indy is also the creator of the Open Source P2P platforms Freenet." (That would be Ian Clarke.)
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Indy: Auto-Discover Free Music to Download More

Indy: Auto-Discover Free Music to Download

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  • RIAA (Score:1, Insightful)

    by wlan0 ( 871397 )
    How long until people start using this as a way to transfer non-independent songs?
    That, and after that, how long would it take the RIAA shuts it down?

    • Re:RIAA (Score:2, Funny)

      by Flamora ( 877499 )
      One would assume (a dangerous pastime, I know) that they have measures in place already to regulate this... Community moderators? Checksum analyzers? Who knows? I think there'd be a way to stop it...
    • RIAA Shutdown will take much longer than the /. slam-dunk. One comment, and the site is down.

    • Re:RIAA (Score:4, Insightful)

      by PDXNerd ( 654900 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:36PM (#12294617)
      Does it matter? You could come out with a new-fangled widget and say "How long until the stoners figure out a way to smoke pot out of this?"

      Who cares??? It's primary use is, and probably will be for the forseeable future, sharing of indy music. Besides, since when has the RIAA shut down anything? Their M.O. is lawsuits, and you can't sue if there is no traffic going.

      • Re:RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) *
        Besides, since when has the RIAA shut down anything? Their M.O. is lawsuits, and you can't sue if there is no traffic going.

        Increasingly, the RIAA's M.O. is to get their bought-and-paid-for congresscritters to pass laws imposing criminal penalties for stepping on their business model. (See the next story.) If you're complacent about this, you're not paying attention.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I think the important part here is the filtering technoligy. One of the key points in the napster case if i remeber corec tly was that napster had the ability to stop ilegal downlads but never did.

        I imagine that if they made an attempt to stop ilegal sharing, it would be enough to satisfy the "party police" and courts. I'm not sure how much of an attempt to stop it would be worht it but i assuem most lawsuites could be dismissed because of those efforts. On the other hand, RIAA and the likes could just rep

    • Re:RIAA (Score:2, Funny)

      by Reignking ( 832642 )
      MPAA will shut it down first, for using the name "Indy", which is a clear rip-off of Indiana Jones...
      • Not if the IRL gets to them first.

        That it, if they're still around. Haven't followed racing in quite some time.
        • Not if the IRL gets to them first.

          That it, if they're still around. Haven't followed racing in quite some time.

          Uggg. Still around.
          Tony, the flaming butthead who was going to "make a series for American drivers to drive on ovals" now has a spec series full of foriegn drivers, driving on road courses and ovals. They have plans for races overseas in the next year or so.

          He (with CART's lack of action) has killed open wheel racing in the US.

    • Re:RIAA (Score:5, Funny)

      by Humorously_Inept ( 777630 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:44PM (#12294671) Homepage
      Maybe they should just shut it down right now. Clearly, "Indy" "artists" are cutting into their members' sales by producing music that is luring away members of the teenage demographic target market and does not generate profit for... Anyone? This erosion of the teenage demographic's core values of purchasing and consuming represents a serious threat to member record labels, enterprise at large, America and the entire world! Nefarious uses of a so-called P2P "sharing" scheme are of secondary concern.

      SAVE THE MUSIC! Share your favorite music by buying it for a friend!

    • Re:RIAA (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jim_v2000 ( 818799 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:51PM (#12294735)
      I think they should do something like having the artists register which songs they are distributing. There then could be a master list of all available songs that the user side would look to to see if the song they are downloading is supposed to be on the network. It would also be a good idea to make it so that users cannot add files to the network. Probably there's a much better way of doing this that might already be imped, but that's just the concept that I was thinking about.
    • How long until people start using this as a way to transfer non-independent songs?

      Well, not at least until the Slashdotting is over...

    • Re:RIAA (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @06:03PM (#12296985) Journal
      How long until people start using this as a way to transfer non-independent songs?
      That, and after that, how long would it take the RIAA shuts it down?

      Furthurnet.net has been supplying free artist authorized live recordings through p2p quite successfully for several years. They use a band whitelist, but with a supportive community it's kept pretty clean. And why wouldn't it be? We know we've got a good thing going, why would the majority risk losing it?

  • Amazing! (Score:5, Funny)

    by SleezyG ( 466461 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:34PM (#12294600)
    The results show that the two most recommended "indy" artists are Green Day and 50 Cent! Never saw that one coming.

  • Wrong... (Score:3, Funny)

    by mekkab ( 133181 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:34PM (#12294601) Homepage Journal
    listerners.

    I believe the correct spelling is list-turners. When with the editors learn? SIGH.

  • Finally.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by blake213 ( 575924 ) * <blake DOT reary AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:35PM (#12294603) Homepage
    I've been predicting the rise of indy music for quite some time now, and I believe this is a great tool that will further the movement. The state of the music industry and its bastardization of the art of music is in dire straits, and I believe it is only a matter of time before listeners will no longer be able to be "brainwashed" into listening to cookie cutter music.

    Hooray!

    • Re:Finally.. - Like indy music, try Weed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by EtherAlchemist ( 789180 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @03:02PM (#12294845)

      WeedShare [weedshare.com] is my current favorite way to find new music.

      I think it's actually a brilliant way to distribute and promote music. You get three free plays of each track you download. If you decide to purchase it, you can put it on three PCs, burn it, put it on a portable device and even share it with someone else as long as it remains in the original file format.

      I just looked at their site [weedshare.com] and now it looks like they will give you $5 to buy music with for creating a free account. As far as I know, they've never had a sub fee. You just buy the tracks.

      Pricing is totally up to the artist. I've seen tracks as low as a qaurter, but most are right around a buck.

      Now for the "different" part. The artist always gets 50% of the track price. 15% goes to Weed and the balance is split up among the people who distributed the file. This is fucking brilliant, you can actually make some money by sharing someone else's music.

      Check it out here [weedshare.com].

      BTW- if you're an artist, they tell you how to get your music in their system. Sweet.
      • This is a terrific balance of benefits to the consumer, the artist and the distributor. Good pricing, just enough DRM to make it workable -- I look forward to trying it out!

        Of course, you know that Jon Johansen is going to be breaking their minimal DRM, Slashdot will advertise the hack and the mob will be yapping about how "DVD Jon" has once again heroically saved them from a fate worse than slavery. Good luck, Weed.


        • Well, I guess it could always be hoped that if the music can move from one place to the next and you only have to pay for it once (and at a reasonable price), that maybe a hack wouldn't be needed.
        • Will it play in WinAmp with the rest of my music? Will it play on whatever MP3 player I pick up? I'm a programmer, will it play when I write my own player to implement some cool ideas I've been working on? Or on any player from anyone else?

          If not, why the hell would I want to buy a deliberately crippled product?

          I'd be better off buying noncrippled music from Magnatune or AllOfMP3.com or getting free music dmusic.com and iRate and Indy.TV, or just grabbing MP3s from any of the major P2P services.

          DRM is j
      • My current favorite place to find good music is DMusic [dmusic.com]. I don't think it even qualifies as Indy because all the music is released for free, for everyone. There are a few amazing artists on that site.

        Although, I'll take a look at weedshare. Looks interesting.
      • Some weeks ago I read about magnatune.com [magnatune.com] in another slashdot comment. They offer all their music for free download in pure mp3, no DRM. And if you buy the music you also get to download in ogg or the lossless flac format. Oh and yes, 50% of all sales goes directly to the artist.

        I just love the entire concept, I get the feeling that they just have it all right. They seem like a true 21th century music label, and I hope and believe that they will find this buissness model successful. Infact since I started

    • The state of the music industry and its bastardization of the art of music is in dire straits

      Didn't you hear "Money For Nothing"? I think it's pretty obvious that the bastardization of the art of music has nothing to do with the Dire Straights.

    • Rise of the indy music .mmm .. i just recently read article about how Vivendi effectively shut down mp3.com. Read the article and start building your tinfoil hats! The article below could provide some historical background of the online artist community. It is originally posted on http://www.dubroom.org/articles/0009.htm

      ------

      MP3.com, the biggest collection of music from independent online artists. Not anymore, though. In what seems to be a final and perhaps lethal strike against the online artist com

    • Holla to a fellow fruitylooper!

    • Re:Finally.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LesPaul75 ( 571752 )
      But the "bastardization of the art of music" doesn't matter to the average consumer. This is what the indy music crowd doesn't seem to get. It's not about who has the best music (RIAA or independents). It's about who gets their product out there (everywhere) and brainwashes everyone 24 hours a day. The RIAA does this very successfully, and independents don't. I hate the RIAA, but continue to listen to their music. Why? Look at the choice that I, the average consumer, have:

      1) Sit on my lazy ass and l
    • I've been predicting the rise of indy music for quite some time now, and I believe this is a great tool that will further the movement.

      We already went through that. It was called "grunge." At the end of the day, the good indy bands were still laboring in obscurity while cheap immitators sold millions of albums, and the term "alternative" went from signifying something to being just another word for "rock".

  • meh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:36PM (#12294612)
    "Clarke is also the designer of Dijjer, a distributed P2P web cache, meant to reduce the bandwidth load on slashdotted websites." - From wikipedia

    http://www.indy.tv/ [www.indy.tv] is already not responding :\

  • Since we all know... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Valiss ( 463641 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:37PM (#12294622) Homepage
    ...that this will eventually house RIAA music, why doesn't this, or any new p2p, encrypt the data?

    • Re:Since we all know... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jarich ( 733129 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:42PM (#12294656) Homepage Journal
      why doesn't this, or any new p2p, encrypt the data?

      That might slow them down a bit by preventing network sniffing, but the Powers That Be would just dummy out clients to act like client software and get the same information. Unless you went private, they'd still be able to see what you were sharing.

      Heck, that might be what they are doing now. It'd be faster than grep-ing through network logs...

      • Yeah unfortunately there's no untraceable way on the current internet to transfer a file without a central content aggregator. And even then only if you can guarantee that this central aggregator is untouchable legally and physically and has very good data "retention" policies. Retention, of course, being a euphemism for "deletion".

        Just wait for Internet2... I'd love to see a multicast P2P software. Just multicast the packets for a particular file on occasion. The scheduling algorithm would be tough to

      • Re:Since we all know... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by pavon ( 30274 )
        Exactly. The idea of keeping P2P private by encrypting the files is as silly as the idea of enforcing DRM by encrypting the files. Encryption is usefull for communication between trusted parties, while blocking third parties. But if you don't trust the recipient then encryption can't really do much for you.
        • Actually, using encryption between two nodes as well as encryption of all containers on every node goes a long way to reducing the physical evidence they need to prove their case in court.

          The next stage is to fragment the files, make parity files, replicate them a number of times to various nodes based on usage and traffic and demand statistics such that NO ONE MACHINE EVER held an entire whole assembled plaintext file within the file share system.

          You want to sharea file? It gets sliced and diced, par
    • Maybe, just maybe, because they don't want this to turn into a target? Maybe because they don't want it to be used for theft/copyright infringement/whatever the 'pc' name for stealing other people's creation is. Its just like Bittorrent. Bittorrent was never made to be used for this purpose, making it an 'easy' target for the RIAA (the torrent trackers) while still having legitimate uses (linux distribution).
    • The point of this system is NOT to distribute RIAA copyrighted works. That is a huge different between this and say, KaZaa or Limewire.

      When the supreme court was hearing the case of MGM vs Grokster, one of the main issues was that the Beta Max decision "(a.k.a. the "Sony Betamax ruling") held that a distributor cannot be held liable for users' infringement so long as the tool is capable of substantial noninfringing uses." One of the main issues in the MGM V Grok case is that the majority of its use is us
  • At leat this software is being created with good intentions. I'll be sad to see the RIAA take it out. :/

  • Is it honest? (Score:5, Funny)

    by dfn5 ( 524972 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:38PM (#12294627) Journal
    What I mean is if no one wants to listen to an artist's music, will it tell that artist, "I'm sorry but you suck, have a nice day". Or will it instead find pity listeners.

    • Like doubleclick hiring clickers, "artists" might hire downloaders to boost their ratings. Apart from ego-inflation it also helps up the celeb status and eventually money.

  • iRate (Score:4, Informative)

    by athakur999 ( 44340 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:40PM (#12294642) Journal
    This sounds pretty similar to iRate [sourceforge.net] which is a front end for downloading freely available songs from artist web pages and letting you rate them which in turns find more songs to download.

    It seemed like a good idea but the interface was annoying enough that I gave up using it when I tried it out several months ago. Hopefully this project can take the idea and run with it and couple it with an interface that's more flexible.

    • Indy is based on Irate.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by acomj ( 20611 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:52PM (#12294741) Homepage
      Indy is based on Irate.. see Ian Clarks page [locut.us]

    • Re:iRate (Score:2)

      by Eil ( 82413 )

      iRate has always sounded like one of those highly innovative pieces of software that the open source community is known for.

      The Java Web Start crud that it depends on, however, is not. And it's prevented me from checking out iRate every single time I've had the urge based on both technical and philosophical reasons.
      • It doesn't require Java web start. You can also download builds, however JWS is the easiest way of having it work for people, and having it autoupdate. If you don't like using the java interface, there is also kirate, which is a plugin for KDE's noatun.

  • System similar to that used by Amazon (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:41PM (#12294645)
    People who didn't buy Death Cab for Cutie also recommended anything by Elliot Smith.

  • Sounds interesting (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dragoon412 ( 648209 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:41PM (#12294650)
    Apparently, the article is already slashdotted, so you'll have to forgive me for following tradition and not R(ing)TFA, but I have to say, I'd love to get my hands on this.

    I use iTunes quite a bit (yes, in conjunction with Jhymn so I can listen to the music I buy on the CDMP3 player in my car), and while I appreciate iTMS' decent selection of indie and less-known bands, I have to say that their suggestion system sucks.

    I find most iMixes to be abhorrently bad, and iTMS' recommendations as to what other users bought are, quite frankly, nuts. I'll be looking at an indie rock/screamo band (like Sparta), and I'm getting recommendations to buy, and I'm not kidding, opera, elevator muzak, and some christian metal. What the hell?

    Hopefully, Indie will work a bit better than that. Can't wait to try it out - I'm running out of suggestions on Gnoosic and Music Plasma. ;)

  • Encrypted? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Please tell me it is an encrypted P2P network. A legal application of P2P technology concealing the participants is sorely needed to finally stop the bullshit arguments that a) only criminals encrypt and b) P2P is only used for illegal purposes.
    • Please tell me it is an encrypted P2P network. A legal application of P2P technology concealing the participants is sorely needed to finally stop the bullshit arguments that a) only criminals encrypt and b) P2P is only used for illegal purposes.

      The fact is, this is more likely to bolster their arguments.

      They have all the money in the entire world to throw at legal arguments, whereas the people they'd be attacking have little to no money at all to defend themselves with. At this point, they're the 50
  • it's at NW Source [nwsource.com].

    Haven't used it much, as too many of my friends are musicians, so I mostly buy the CDs direct from them at shows or at the local Sonic Boom that gives local indie musicians a higher cut on CD sales.

  • There are already too many sites with free music by bands that suck. [soundclick.com] Endless archives of bad techno. "Collaborative filtering" won't help if the content isn't there.

    And why not just use a web site? What does "peer to peer" add, except inefficiency?

  • And its slashdoted, when will the madness stop.
  • Can an Indy contributor or user compare it to Gnomoradio [gnomoradio.org] or other prior work in this area?

  • Audioscrobbler (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dan Farina ( 711066 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:58PM (#12294808)
    I have found the implementation at http://www.audioscrobbler.com great for finding new music, no P2P attached.
    • it's great for finding what the new music would be named.. not actually for finding great and free music in audio.
      • it's great for finding what the new music would be named.. not actually for finding great and free music in audio.

        Ah, this is true, but Audioscrobbler's sister site, Last.FM [www.last.fm] features streaming radio that features tracks culled from your "neighbors [www.last.fm]" library (profile radio [www.last.fm]) and YOUR library (personal radio). The latter requires a donation [www.last.fm] after the 30 day trial, but the former is always free, and is a great way to hear new music based on your "musical neighbors".

  • looks like an ipod/ buggy/ submit your music (Score:4, Informative)

    by acomj ( 20611 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @02:59PM (#12294820) Homepage
    I submitted this monday, so was surprised to see it today. That aside.

    This article [weblogsinc.com] has a review of the player. Not ready from prime time software buat a great idea though. As another poster pointed it its based on the open source Irate software [locut.us].
    It also looks like an ipod shuffle sideways with a screen.

    When the page is done with its slashdotting, you can submit your music [indy.tv] to the indy page

  • This is the reason that the RIAA... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Yaa 101 ( 664725 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @03:05PM (#12294882) Journal
    Wants away with P2P, not the "pirating" as pirating is a part of marketing to your stuff well known...
    They can't stand other distributors because that would really mean the end.
    Even the richest companies can go down, mainly because lack of daily revenue can cost millions a day.

    I hope the indies out there in the world will be in high numbers and pluriform to keep off the RIAA.
    I for one wish them all success in the world.

  • I think I remember the Indy site suggesting that perhaps it's a bad idea to post to /. because server-side Indy shuts up shop and goes home if the traffic gets too heavy.

    So what's the first thing that someone does?

    I suggest: if this interests you, imagine you are Ethernet. You've just had a collision. Put a todo item in your list, with a random-ish number of days until you do it, then try again. That should spread the load.

  • Sounds like iRate (Score:2, Informative)

    by Agent_9191 ( 812909 )
    Check out iRate.sourceforge.net. Sounds like a vaguely similiar idea....

  • Site text (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) * on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @03:13PM (#12294952) Homepage Journal
    Indy is a music discovery program that learns what you like, and plays more of it. And it's free.

    Indy makes it easy for you to find great new independent music. Just download Indy and double-click: as it plays songs, you rate what you hear. Indy quickly learns what you like and gets really smart about sending you more music you'll like. Let Indy help you find your place in the collective conciousness as you help other people find theirs.

    DOWNLOAD NOW - Windows 98/2000/XP

    Latest News
    19th April, 2005, Build 3 Released - Read more...

    Why Indy Rocks
    You aren't just a target market - Indy can help you find your own path to the music you like. There are tons of great bands out there that don't have big labels promoting them; Indy helps you find them. And once Indy downloads a track, you can add it to your music collection, listen to it whenever and wherever you want. For musicians, Indy gives you a chance to reach a whole new audience that's excited about what you're playing. Best of all, it's free for everyone!

    How Indy Works
    Indy uses an advanced collaborative filtering system to predict what kind of music you'll enjoy hearing. As you rate songs, Indy finds out what you do and don't like. It compares your preferences with the ratings of all the other Indy users. For example, if you rate a song highly, and another user also likes the same song, Indy guesses that you'd probably like other music that they enjoyed. As you rate more songs, Indy will gets better and better at picking songs that you'll really enjoy.

    Indy contains no adware or spyware.

  • Back in The Day (Score:3, Informative)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @03:24PM (#12295066) Homepage Journal
    MP3.com had a similar setup and there was a lot of stuff on there that completely sucked, but there were some good bands too. If you were willing to poke around in the categories a bit you could find some real gems (I personally was a big fan of Gossamer.) All in all it was about the same level of crapshoot as going to a music store that lets you listen to CDs before buying and much less of one than going to a music store that doesn't. And of course a CD from mp3.com was usually about half the price of one from the music store. I thought that was a great business plan but I haven't been back to them since their legal troubles. Lately I just listen to the old CD collection and maybe add a new CD about once every two or three years. I guess the Industry's shannagans(sp?) has just burned me out on music in general...
  • We were concerned that even with all of the advancements with online media in the past few years, it was still pretty difficult just to find new independent music that you liked.
    It sounds like all the elements have finally come together for this kind of program. This kind of software could be used one day to share other independantly produced media - ie books, movies, and really fancy flash stuff :). Basically whatever we can produce for the medium can be shared and evaluated by others, ideally with cre

  • first rule of indy, don't tell slashdot. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Suppafly ( 179830 ) <slashdot@sup p a f l y .net> on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @03:29PM (#12295155)
    From Ian Clarke's blog [locut.us]


    Check it out here, let me know what you think (PS. the website will shut down automatically if it starts getting too many hits, so tell your friends, but don't tell /. ;-).
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Plugins? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by edmicman ( 830206 )
    Instead of a separate program/interface, why can't we have a plugin for winamp or wmp or something? I'd love for a way to find new music, but browsing shoutcast and its billion and a half techno stations that don't interest me is a pain in the butt. Plus I don't necessarily want to be limited to just indy rock music...I'd like to be exposed to new or underground rap/hiphop, rock, maybe even country, who knows? But I'd also like to not have to download a new media player for all of these.
  • But all of the links, including the "how to submit your music" link, return 404 errors. Sounds like they really got it together over there.
  • IMO the best way to discover new music is with AudioScrobbler [audioscrobbler.com]. You install a plugin in your favorite audio player and it records your musical habits. Beyond WinAmp, iTunes, and Windows Media Player, here are open source plugins for xmms, amarok and other linux players.

    The pro of this system is that their recomendations are based in what you really hear. It won't count that bad albums you have in your hd but just heard once.

    The problem is that it looks like they don't have a very smart algorithm for disc

  • On Ian's last blog entry he wrote:

    Check it out here, let me know what you think (PS. the website will shut down automatically if it starts getting too many hits, so tell your friends, but don't tell /. ;-).

  • It only really works for people attached to a single genre. I'm in the minority of people because I listen to just about anything but rap - and there are exceptions there as well. So if I click on Portishead, I'll get a bunch of acid jazz lookalikes, but when I click on Raymond James it'll probably get confused and kick me over to bluegrass, which would be swell...but Wind River is not folk.
    • Depends on the algorithm, a good one should cross-select and surprise. You're actually describing the problem with genre/category/buckets in general.... if written well, a good CF can transcend the insanely predictable, ever-so-broken catalog approach.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I downloaded it, and AVG detected it's got the trojan called downloader.lstbar, or something like that??

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