Nearly three years ago, with the release of iTunes 4, Apple accidentally made piracy easy for users. With a few clicks, anyone could start streaming their iTunes library over the internet. People immediately started trading links and even developing applications to suck those downloads down. Today, this feature remains in iTunes, though it was quickly neutered into a "stream your library within your local area network without downloads allowed" form; a natural reaction when remembering Apple's new relationship with several major music companies, thanks to the just-opened iTunes Music Store.

Developers Andrew Kazmierski and Mark Davis began showing me builds of a new app nearly a year ago that would remove these restrictions and allow easy internet music library sharing once again. I think my response to the idea went something like this: "Musicast sounds pretty cool, but wouldn't it be RIAA bait? Sure, there are some legitimate uses for it, but it seems like an app that mainly promotes using iTunes for piracy."

Nevertheless, here it is. Musicast 1.0: released a couple of days ago and now already with hundreds of customers and users. Musicast is small, slick, and focuses on doing its job well with the minimum amount of options. I'd love to see an option to throttle my upload speed to keep internet speeds decent while serving music, but other than that, I have no complaints with how Musicast works. (For the record, the developers note that upload throttling is coming soon.) Some users without access to their router's settings may have issues, but the app's worth checking out, as a lot of more modern routers will automatically work with Musicast.

With Musicast, you're basically hosting your non-DRM'd iTunes music files as a website from your Mac, and as a webpage, you can access it from nearly anything, whether it's a work computer or even a phone with web access.

Although the app officially caters to a relatively niche audience (the non-pirating, Mac shareware-using demographic that needs music on the go but doesn't own an iPod) I'm guessing this one's going to do pretty well given its potential for more unscrupulous uses. The concern that pirates will hesitate to pay for shareware is certainly a valid one, but I'm not sure how much I personally buy into that school of thought. I mean, the last project Andrew was involved in was creating the base for Delicious Monster's Delicious Library; a monster shareware success with more customers than anyone could have possibly anticipated. So there's a good chance for some healthy sales here.

However successful Musicast turns out to be, Andrew and Mark figure it'll still be too small for the RIAA to care about. After all, the music companies are only really going after the big, central piracy hubs serving millions of users a day. Sometimes they might even make an example out of some random first-time soccer mom pirates. But not two, small-time Macintosh shareware programmers, right? That's what these two guys are banking on, and I'm hoping they're right.

I'll admit that, in the end, I won't be using Musicast too much. Maybe occasionally to access my library from other computers, or to quickly share a track with a friend, but definitely not much more than that. Then why am I sending in my check for $20? Because these guys are hoping that the RIAA doesn't notice this app, and I'm hoping they have something a bit more solid to rely on if they ever get in trouble. I'm happy to contribute to the war chest. Let's just hope Andrew and Mark won't ever have to dip into it.

PS, the developers have been kind enough to offer a $3 discount coupon for you guys, so if you're interested in purchasing Musicast, make sure to enter coupon code "kangaroo" before purchasing. And if you liked the article, Digg it!