KnifeMissile

I love writing software but, unfortunately, I have a bad habit of re-inventing the wheel. So, this time, I thought I'd double check to make sure this application doesn't already exist...

I got the idea from iTunes' network share. iTunes allows clients of a LAN to share their music library with each other. However, because of certain implementation details, this is as far as the sharing goes. So, I was wondering if I could write a program to forward iTunes' network protocol across different networks so that arbitrary people can share their music across the internet using iTunes.

At first, this was going to be my project but then something occured to me. iTunes actually tries, somewhat, to protect arbitrary music copying. You can see a bit of this when you try to extract music off an iPod. When you play a song from someone else's library, across the network, the music is streamed and there's no local copy to keep and use. You couldn't load the song on your iPod, say. What can we do about this?

So, I'm thinking I might want to implement my own music player. One with a music library that can be shared across the internet. One that caches songs as they're streamed across the network so that, if you listen to the song again, it won't be sent across the network again. This will also allow you to use the song locally, like loading it into your iPod.

It sounds like a decent project and an internet search hasn't revealed anything similar but, then again, I got a lot of false positives so I'm not confident that this application doesn't already exist.

So, does this application already exist, in some form, even partially? What do people think of this idea? Comments, questions and criticisms are welcome.
Thank you...

CSflim

I'm not familiar with this iTunes feature that you mentioned, but how is what you described different from eMule, Kazaa and other P2P file sharing apps? Is it the addition of streaming the music, so that you don't have to wait until the file downloads fully before you start playing it?
Or is it the idea of browsing an individual user's library? Because that is possible on some P2P file sharing apps.
Or am I missing something?

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kofspades

Napster 1.0?

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KnifeMissile

The main difference (that you'd likely care about) is the workflow.

On generic file sharing networks, like eMule and KaZaA, you look for a specific file to download. Once you've downloaded it, you're free to do whatever you like with it, including playing it in an audio player if it is an audio file.

What I'm proposing is that people share their library of music. So, you can browse what people have without knowing, before hand, what you want to download. If you find something you think you might like, then you can play that music file. It will be streamed in so you can listen to it before it is fully downloaded. If you have a broadband connection, this should be immediately. If you decide you like it, it will already be on your hard drive. The workflow should be seamless compared to generic file trading networks. You can also do things that take advantage of the fact that we're dealing strictly with music, like listen to entire albums or works of a particular artist.

Finally, this will be a private network so only people who have been invited to the network are part of the network. In this regard, it will be unlike Napster and immune from legal prosecution...

Does this suffiently explain the difference?

Etarip

So you want the sharing in iTunes only with the additional capability to download the music. You want it to be limited by invitations rather than the local subnet.

The closest thing that comes to mind is using ourTunes to grab files from iTunes shares. I'm not sure but I think outTunes may also be able to jump subnets. You could also hook up an invite only system by having a password known by the entire group that everyone uses to password protect their shares.

Please note that invite only systems are not immune to prosecution, DC++ uses a system like this but nodes still get sued.

KnifeMissile

How can a private network not be immune to prosecution? If no one knows you're sharing files, you can't be prosecuted, right?

OurTunes looks like what I'm looking for except that it won't work outside a LAN. Luckily, it's open source so I just need to build off of it. Unfortunately, it's Java based, so I don't know what to do about that...

MikeSty

It sounds similar to DC++ except more focused on just streaming music instead of sharing pr0n and war3z.

Question: Does iTunes network share work over VPN (e.g. Hamachi) ?

Etarip

If the transport protocol in unencrypted then they can just listen in on whatever you're sending out. The only solution I've seen around this is Nullsoft's WASTE.

KnifeMissile

To whom are you referring when you say "they?" Only the routers in between you and the peers of your private network can listen in on the IP packets...

Besides, it's hardly an effort to encrypt the stream. I've been using (and recommending) WASTE for years now. By the way, Nullsoft hasn't had anything to do with WASTE for quite some time now...