Mercora P2P Radio review by PC Magazine
Mercora P2P Radio review by PC Magazine
"Mercora P2P Radio"
Looking for a way to share digital music without risking a lawsuit? Look at Mercora, a new music-sharing service that adheres to the letter of federal law. Billed as "P2P Radio," Mercora lets you broadcast your music collection across the Net and listen to broadcasts from thousands of other music lovers. But you needn't worry about broadcasting copyrighted material and running afoul of the major recording labels. Mercora's parent company pays the labels a rights fee for each song the service streams.
Mercora doesn't work like Kazaa, eDonkey, or any other peer-to-peer file-sharing service. You can't download songs from other machines. You can only stream them. And you can't always just log on to the service and find a particular song or artist. It really does work like a radio. You search for a broadcaster you like—a station, so to speak—and listen to whatever songs it plays. It may sound a bit odd, but once you stumble onto a station that suits your tastes, it's a quite enjoyable way of listening to music.
When you install the application, available for free from the company's Web site, it immediately scans your hard drive for digital songs and collects them into a single library. Then, the first time you launch the app, it randomly chooses ten of these songs and notifies the Mercora network that they're available for broadcast. Other users can then stream any one of those ten songs to their desktops.
"Mercora P2P Radio"
Looking for a way to share digital music without risking a lawsuit? Look at Mercora, a new music-sharing service that adheres to the letter of federal law. Billed as "P2P Radio," Mercora lets you broadcast your music collection across the Net and listen to broadcasts from thousands of other music lovers. But you needn't worry about broadcasting copyrighted material and running afoul of the major recording labels. Mercora's parent company pays the labels a rights fee for each song the service streams.
Mercora doesn't work like Kazaa, eDonkey, or any other peer-to-peer file-sharing service. You can't download songs from other machines. You can only stream them. And you can't always just log on to the service and find a particular song or artist. It really does work like a radio. You search for a broadcaster you like—a station, so to speak—and listen to whatever songs it plays. It may sound a bit odd, but once you stumble onto a station that suits your tastes, it's a quite enjoyable way of listening to music.
When you install the application, available for free from the company's Web site, it immediately scans your hard drive for digital songs and collects them into a single library. Then, the first time you launch the app, it randomly chooses ten of these songs and notifies the Mercora network that they're available for broadcast. Other users can then stream any one of those ten songs to their desktops.
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