[Web4lib] Streaming MP3s

[Hankinson, Andrew]

You might want to have a look at Icecast: http://www.icecast.org/ or
Shoutcast: http://www.shoutcast.com/.

Guaranteeing that the stream doesn't get pirated, however, is tenuous at
best.  Even a station identifier after every song won't deter the
determined "pirate" with audio editing software.

If the audio is in the public domain anyway, why not encourage
"grassroots redistribution"?  It will only serve to make your service
and your music more popular.

Andrew

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Will Owen
Sent: June 9, 2006 8:23 AM
To: Web4Lib
Subject: [Web4lib] Streaming MP3s

We're considering a project to put about 75 hours of music files up as a
kind of "internet radio station."  The music comes from a local
collection of public domain recordings.  The collection manager would
like to have a continuous stream playing in a loop--you click on a link
from our website and can listen as long as you like.  His preference
would be to have the music encoded as MP3.

I'd appreciate any recommendations/caveats for staging this
service--streaming audio servers, hardware and bandwidth requirements,
etc. 
This is a new area for us, and I'm pretty ignorant about best practices
and choices.  One concern is that the stream doesn't get pirated and
repackaged without some sort of identification, so the possibility of
inserting a periodic "station identification" is on the table as well.

Thanks,

Will Owen
Head, Library Systems
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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