GNUMP3d is magic, or at least it felt that way after I installed it. From the site: GNUMP3d is a streaming server for MP3s, OGG vorbis files, movies and other media formats.

I’m going to take the liberty of walking you through the set up:

Step 1 - open up a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install gnump3d

it will install in /var/music, so navigate there from the terminal with this:

cd /var/music

GNUMP3d uses this folder to share content, so you’ll want to link your music libraries and movie libraries to this folder. To do that, use this command while still in the /var/music directory:

sudo ln -s path/to/my/music/folder/music music

obviously, replace “path/to/my/music/folder/music” with your own path. Mine would be /home/glenn/MyFiles/music, and the reason you type music on the end is to make a folder within /var/music that will ‘contain’ all your music. Do the same for your movies or whatever else you want to stream:

sudo ln -s path/to/my/movies/folder/movies movies

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Free software doesn’t necessarily mean that it costs 0 money to get.  That’s not what “free software” means. What it does mean is that once you own the piece of software, you are allowed to do anything you want to it, without legal repercussions.  You can install it on any computer you want, as many times as you want, you can look at the coding behind it, and modify it to your hearts content, then release your customized version, so that others can use it or modify it.  You can make your own plugins for the program, or download other peoples plugins.

Now, today in class, my instructor showed us a piece of software called Pro Scores:

http://www.videocopilot.net/products/proscores/

Pretty awesome software it seems.

Now, if this were free software, it would be cheaper.   From the product description:

“For those who have purchased production music, you know that a SINGLE track can cost anywhere from $25-$100 with premium stuff well into the hundreds of dollars and they don’t include layered versions. “

The software comes with 50 full-length, layered orchestral scores, so yes, you are still getting a lot, for a little.

Ways to make this product better:

1. If the music used in the software were licensed under creative commons, the cost of the product would go way down.
2. If the software were free and open-source, people could take advantage of the very rich plugin selection that would inevitably take root. (think Songbird, Wordpress, Pidgin, Firefox; all free software)
3. If the software were free, more people would buy it, because the community surrounding it would add an extra layer of support (on top of the company support), via plugins, forums, and extra music.

In fact, that’s a popular way to earn money from free software.  Sell it with the promise of top-notch technical support.  That’s a good way to attract business customers because business customers generally don’t have time to surf forums for answers.

They could charge 30 dollars for Pro Score, and get a ton more money.  I’d buy it.  But alas, I am forced to torrent it, because I know I’ll have more control over the product if I do.

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Microsoft has revealed it’s new MSN Mobile Music Service, designed specifically for users who listen to music primarily on their mobile device.  The weird thing about this is that the music you buy from the MSN store is locked to the phone you purchase it for.  A return to Digital Rights Managment.

This comes as a surprise considering the MSN Music Store debacle in April 2008, in which Microsoft announced that the service would be shut down, without giving users a way to keep their purchases music outside of burning it to a cd.

The interview linked above is downright embarrasing.

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Thanks to the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, illegitimate patents are being busted in rapid succession.  The most recent reexamination is that of a Seer Systems patent “for a system and method for joining different musical data types together in a file, distributing them over the Internet, and then playing that file.”