Paul's Blog

OK, so I got bored of writing my stuff about VSLive! It was an intriguing conference, just a little tough to write when you're dead busy with paying attention to all of that cool development software.

Now, onto the article at hand!...

A while ago, I think I was reading about (and may have even blogged; it's been that long) the Griffin iFill software. I remember reading an article about how this thing would download music streams from Shoutcast servers and the like. I wondered, at the time, what is the possible benefit to this and what does this actually have to do with my iPod? In all honesty, I have a 32 track digital recording studio; recording streams from the web isn't an issue for me. But then I looked into it. Meaning: I purchased a copy of the software (at an awesome discount - again, at Target!), and installed it. What I found was this: It's much more intelligent than I'd given it credit.

iFill lets you select a music stream from, say, a Shoutcast server (a list that can be updated), and record it. Now, here's the neat thing, it actually uses the information from the stream to separate each of the tracks and adds those tracks to your iTunes library while creating an iFill playlist, so you know which songs got downloaded from the stream. It maintains the artist and song name, but looses the album name because of the station ID information. It's pretty cool, really. You can listen to the stream while it's recording (or "filling up") your iPod, OR you can just let it run silently and just watch the names of the tracks roll by as it records. It starts and stops recording when you click the start and stop buttons. So, the one down-side is that you CAN manage to get "half a song" recorded. But that's OK, 'cause it's intention is to let you listen to new music on your iPod and decide what you're going to buy later... or so it's advertised. Now, here's the thing...

Why would this be OK? Wouldn't the RIAA get all bent out of shape that I am recording this audio stream and using it (listening to it), repeatedly, without having to buy it? Granted, this is no different than the old days where I could record junk from the radio to a cassette tape and then make a mix tape. Sure, I lost fidelity, but the same thing happens here, too. These streams aren't full 24 bit audio, either. So I wonder what makes this work out OK?

The RIAA should understand me, as well: I don't share. That's right, I'm a meany. I don't share my stuff. All the leechers out there can forget it. I don't give and I don't receive. Call me old fashioned, call me a jerk, call me the RIAA, but I don't steal music. Why? 'cause I'm a musician. I don't want my stuff stolen, so I don't do it either. But, the iFill sure does make it easier, doesn't it? Now we can steal by genre!

Regardless of the legal implications here, the iFill software HAS actually introduced me to some new and interesting stuff... which I, of course, promptly purchased on iTunes. ;) ...now, if I could just grab my stream from Pandora....