Musicast: iTunes Becomes YourTunes

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." Continue reading...