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Austin Indie Bands
Shared via iTunes by
Glenn Fleishman
Two organizations in Austin, Texas, are bringing the
music of
local independent bands to users of free local wireless
networks -
legally, thanks to the music sharing features built into
iTunes.
Austin Wireless
and
Less Networks, which help businesses offer
free Wi-Fi hotspots by providing technical advice and
free hotspot
gateway software, have created a music library
containing 36 hours
of music available at any free location.
The groups worked with the legendary music and
technology festival
South by Southwest (SXSW),
which annually brings music industry
figures, performers, and creative technologists together
to
look at the state of and future of performance. Through
the
end of March, the music will be available at the 25
Austin-area
businesses that are participants in Austin Wireless's
network.
To use iTunes music sharing, you need to have at
least version 4.0
of iTunes installed on a Mac or Windows system, and make
sure that
your firewall is set to allow it. If you're using the
built-in
firewall feature of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar or Mac OS X
10.3 Panther,
open System Preferences, select the Internet preference
pane,
click the Firewall tab, and make sure iTunes Music
Sharing is
enabled. Or, if you're using another firewall, add a
rule that
allows traffic over port 3689. (This may not be
necessary to
mount a remotely shared iTunes music library, but only
to share
your own.)
The Less Networks software component of this system
allows
hotspots to register users who then have free access.
The software
acts as a gateway where users at a location confirm that
they
agree to a set of usage guidelines; the software also
tracks usage
in aggregate to better gauge whether Wi-Fi is driving
business
to the company at the hotspot location.
This music sharing is meant to tweak Starbucks, which
has offered
limited in-store exclusive music via the T-Mobile
HotSpot network
operated in nearly 3,000 coffee shops in the U.S. Where
the Austin
project offers free Internet access over Wi-Fi, T-Mobile
charges
$6 per hour (minimum one hour), $10 per day, or $20 to
$40 per
month for unlimited access with cancellation penalties.
(Here's a tip to Comcast subscribers: a T-Mobile
promotion
with Comcast allows any Comcast subscriber to purchase a
single
T-Mobile $10 day pass and then receive one day pass free
each
month through December.)
http://faq.comcast.net/faq/query.jsp?name=17811
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