An Alternative And Anonymous Source of Legally Available Mus

[Nick]

Streaming radio is one established way of enjoying music of your chosen genre, as are the variety of streamed juke box services now becoming available. As the responsibility for copyright and paying performance fees rests with the broadcaster, and as filesharing isn’t involved, such activities don’t currently attract the unwholesome attention of the RIAA.

The popular Winamp Pro offers excellent streaming radio capabilities especially using the well established <a href=http://www.shoutcast.com/ target=_blank>Shoutcast</a> network, and there are many alternatives including MusicMatch and of course the controversially bundled Windows Media Player. Recording these services is a perfectly viable and (at present) legal alternative to P2P. It's also an excellent means of discovering new music and broadening your taste.

Software for recording is still a little hard to come by, although there is a do it yourself solution in the form of <a <a href=http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ target=_blank>Audacity</a> – a neat free program that allows recording of all audio streams in MP3 and other formats. Alternatively <a href=http://www.applian.com/ target=_blank>Applian Technologies’</a> Replay Radio offers an integrated solution with a simple “tuner” interface and the ability to rip recordings into MP3 files automatically or even using it’s unique built in scheduler. Another product, <a href=http://www.3alab.com/ target=_blank>3alab’s iRadio</a> not only acts as a “tuner” but also automatically rips streamed music and stores it in individual files for you. Such sophistication comes at a very small price, considering the risk of otherwise being faced with hefty demands from the likes of the RIAA.

The problem of course is that you do not get to choose the individual track that you want to hear next, although you can at least choose the genre. Streaming juke boxes offer far greater flexibility, allowing the user to choose genre, artist and often, individual albums or preselected playlists. Is this such a disadvantage? Not according to Apple, who market their iPod Shuffle product on the proud basis that such a limitation is actually an advantage, offering users “240 songs in a million ways”.

It must be stressed that recording of digital juke box services such as Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo’s Launchcast and the dedicated MusicMatch services probably amounts to an infringement of copyright in some countries, and uploading or sharing certainly does constitute an infringement just about everywhere. It is therefore essential that prospective users check out their local laws for themselves before using such software.

Having said this, Audacity can be used to record all such audio streams in real time and is completely undetectable in use. A useful resource if you merely want to time shift radio recording. Alternatively, the top of the range Replay Music also from Applian Technologies allows your pc to automatically rip all streamed output into different MP3 files – whatever their source – and also to store them, neatly labelled, on your hard drive with little or no user interaction.

Listening to all these files has been greatly simplified by the introduction of Windows Media Adapters (WMAs) that integrate with household wireless LANs and allow users to play their music catalogue through their own hi-fi. Many with modded Xboxes have been doing this for some time, but there are issues of legality in modding. The Philips <a href=http://www.streamium.com/ target=_blank>Streamium</a> range for example offers a comprehensive wi-fi solution to suit all, including the ability to listen to streamed radio anywhere in the house.

Digital radio in one form or another is here to stay, whether it is streamed through the internet or piped through the airwaves using digital technology. The UK has DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) and is participating in the pan European/American and rather curiously named DRM <a href=http://www.drm.org/ target=_blank>(Digital Radio Mondiale)</a> which proposes reutilizing existing AM frequencies to provide “CD Quality” sound. The <a href=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4237010.stm target=_blank>latest</a> devices even feature their own built in recording facilities

It’s no surprise that the music industries are panicking over their failure to introduce the other and far less welcome form of <a href=http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=909 target=_blank>DRM</a> – digital flagging – in a bid to try to prevent copying of material broadcast over such media in the USA. Few will doubt the certainty of their being successful in their endeavors, yet fewer still can doubt that such measures will be quickly and easily circumvented by those wishing to do so.

[Anonymous]

That's a _really_ good article. Original, well written and interesting. Thanks.

[Nick]

Thanks very much. I'm sorry if some of the links have gone wrong, but we're trying to get that sorted out at the moment. Never was much good at html raw code

Edited: I learned the hard way and with a little help

[Freebird Mike]

Great article RM5! There is a comparison chart of the various audio stream recorders/rippers (shareware and freeware) here for anyones reference.

[Nick]

Fantastic link, thanks.

[Venator]

I've just downloaded and had a quick look at BoomBox (from Freebird Mike's link)

Seems to have everything I want from a streamripper, I've been trying to find something like this for weeks now (didn't know what I exactly I WAS looking for admittingly). Thank's to both Mike and Rocketman.



P.S., It even records the file smoothly no matter how much bandwidth my Bittorent swarms are soaking!

Fantastic!, I hated listening to jerky streams!!!

P.P.S. O.K....Breath.. right I'm going to sign off and go to bed before I turn into a fanboy :>

[obiwan]

Very good article ! TNX !

[irish]

You're wasted as a lawyer rk05
Excellent article and keep up the great work. How do you find time to fit it in?

[Nick]

Thanks for the compliments.

Not sure how I do fit it in, to be honest. A fair amount of "working from home" at the moment

[kkimes]

While I do have a registered version of Radio Replay, I rarely use it. I find it too tedius to constantly be playing around with files and deleting the ones I don't want.

My main alternate source of music files is the binary groups on netnews. Pretty easy to find songs & albums I want and fast to download with a broadband connection. I'm sure the RIAA will catch up with this source sooner or later, but it is a nice source for now.

[FelixTheCatt]

I've been using Audacity for awhile now and for such a small proggie it works amazingly well. Not always the best quality rips can be gotten from streams but overall I'd say these look to be a decent alternative. Great post Rocketman thank you.

[Anonymous]

Personally, I find DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale?) to be the most interesting development in AM Radio. I've been studying the possibilities and even had some RTTY experiences (see RTTY.com) so this is really great news to me.

[Nick]

Have to say, Audacity is one of my favourite items too.

This who DRM (Mondiale) thing is intriguing. Can't quite see how the heck it will work, though. So called CD quality means a 44KHz bandwidth, and there's not a huge amount of available space that low in the rf spectrum. I know they will be digital, but Nyquist, Shannon and Quantisation theories still apply

Oh, well, we shall soon find out.

[mrudas]

Streaming radio is one established way of enjoying music of your chosen genre...

I'll say it is--and have, many times. Note my mention of (and links to) StationRipper and StreamRipper, Windows and Linux versions of basically the same stream-recording app, which has the advantage of directly recording the MP3 stream to HD, whereas Audacity (an excellent app) records as WAVs. The Linux version (StreamRipper) has the advantage of being able to easily record multiple streams simultaneously (I sometimes record as many as three with no problems). I also mention--and link to--the related tool MP3Splt. I have not tried these rippers with AAC, but MP3 and OGG record fine.

The Linux version of StreamRipper can also be found on the Kanotix Linux bootable CD--handy when I'm away from home and still want to record multiple shows on a friend's computer (if he'll let me!). My PC's Linux installation is from Kanotix; it works well for that.

I also mention this issue, with more links, on my Audio Tech's Page web site, under the heading Rippers for the software and Streaming audio directories for the source lists (I'll add anchors SOMEday!).