Audiogalaxy
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| URL | http://www.audiogalaxy.com/ |
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| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Music |
Audiogalaxy is an audio placeshifting service which enables an individual's smartphone or other device to search & play MP3 and AAC files stored on that person's separate, Internet-connected computer, with the help of special software installed on both devices. From mid-2002 to mid-2010, Audiogalaxy was a promotional website for the Rhapsody music subscription service, and from 1998 to 2002, Audiogalaxy was a file sharing system that indexed MP3 files.
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[edit] History
The original Audiogalaxy system was created in 1998 by Michael Merhej as an FTP site index called The Borg Search. It quickly evolved into a robust peer-to-peer system with client software (the Audiogalaxy "Satellite"), a web-based search engine, always-on searching for requested files, auto-resume and low system impact. It quickly gained ground among file sharers abandoning Napster in 2001. Some observing the previous downfall of Napster via lawsuit were shocked at the design of Audiogalaxy, which was in some ways more centralized than Napster.
Audiogalaxy's stated mission was to facilitate sharing of music, though it was also notable for its strong community due to such features as chat-enabled groups and per-artist internet forums. This strong community also facilitated a very broad reach of content across many genres, particular those that tend to remain under-developed in more modern systems.
In June 2008, CNET hailed this incarnation of Audiogalaxy as one of the greatest defunct websites in history.[1]
[edit] Conflict with RIAA over sharing of copyrighted material
In May 2001, Audiogalaxy implemented "groups" which allowed group members to send songs to everyone in the group. Hackers used this backdoor to circumvent the "blocked songs" restriction, where Audiogalaxy could deny transfer of specific copyrighted songs.[citation needed] In addition, even when a specific file was blocked, it would often be replaced by an identical file with the group or song incorrectly spelled. For example, if "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd were blocked, another track entitled "Wish You Were Here" by "Pink Lloyd" would suddenly appear. The latter file would be completely identical to the former; however, since Audiogalaxy would never have received any notification for "Pink Lloyd," the downloading of that track would not be affected.
On May 9, 2002, Audiogalaxy required songs to be in the sender's shared folder to be sent. Previously, one could send any song to anyone by editing the CGI parameters. This protection was quickly defeated by creating a "dummy" file in one's shared folder, and sending a song with the same name. This was due to Audiogalaxy's checksum hashing, the correct file was always sent despite the dummy. Some of the users could bypass this setting too, but instead of CGI editing there was a less sophisticated solution. A simple .bat file in sharing folder (with a line "move *.mp3 x:\something\" for example) was scheduled at desired time moving all of the MP3 files into desired folder.[citation needed]
Even though Audiogalaxy claimed that they were trying to cooperate with the music industry and block copyrighted songs from their network, many of the network's users continued to share unauthorized copyrighted music files, causing Audiogalaxy to face a lawsuit by the RIAA on May 24, 2002. On this day, Audiogalaxy blocked sending of all blocked songs.[citation needed] A month later on June 17, 2002, Audiogalaxy reached an out-of-court settlement with the RIAA. The settlement reached would allow Audiogalaxy to operate a "filter-in" system, which required that for any music available, the songwriter, music publisher, and/or recording company must first consent to the use and sharing of the work.[2]
[edit] Rhapsody partnership and end of P2P operations
On September 8, 2002, Audiogalaxy licensed and re-branded a for-pay streaming service called Rhapsody from Listen.com.[3] Audiogalaxy then[when?] ended its peer-to-peer operations.
For the next eight years, some of the message boards remained active, but the Audiogalaxy website only promoted the Rhapsody subscription service and its featured artists.[4] It also briefly promoted the original incarnation of Merhej's FolderShare project,[5] before that service was acquired by Microsoft.
[edit] Relaunch
In mid-2010, Audiogalaxy was quietly relaunched as a placeshifting service.
[edit] References
- ^ "The greatest defunct Web sites and dotcom disasters". CNET. 2008-06-05. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/the-greatest-defunct-web-sites-and-dotcom-disasters-49296926/. Retrieved 2008-06-05.
- ^ Mariano, Gwendolyn (18-06-2002). "Audiogalaxy to ask first, trade later" (in en). cnet. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-936932.html. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
- ^ Marlowe, Chris (2002-09-10). "Audiogalaxy links to Rhapsody". The Hollywood Reporter. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1674398. Retrieved 2008-10-31.[dead link]
- ^ "Audiogalaxy website home page". Archived from the original on 2002-11-05. http://web.archive.org/web/20021105010935/http://www.audiogalaxy.com/.
- ^ "Audiogalaxy website home page". Archived from the original on 2004-09-24. http://web.archive.org/web/20040924083857/http://www.audiogalaxy.com/.
[edit] External links
- Audiogalaxy website
- R.I.P Audiogalaxy - Kennon Ballou's story of Audiogalaxy (an Audiogalaxy programmer)
- Tom Kleinpeter's History Of Audiogalaxy
- Austin's onetime file-sharing supernova
- OpenAG - an open-source, Audiogalaxy-compatible satellite/server system
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