MIT News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
Phone: 617-253-2700
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www

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MIT students launch campus-wide electronic music library
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* Library provides free on-demand immediate access to thousands of
classical and contemporary CDs to students, faculty, staff

* MIT to publish open system software and design for
implementation at other universities

For Immediate Release
MONDAY, October 27, 2003
Contact: Kristen Collins, MIT News Office
Phone: 617-258-5403
E-mail: kristenc@mit.edu

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Two students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
today unveiled a campus-wide electronic music library that will provide
students, faculty and staff with on-demand access to thousands of classical
and contemporary recordings from many areas on MIT's campus, including
student dormitory rooms and faculty offices. They plan to make the software
that drives the library available to other universities as open-source
software.

The new campus-wide music library, known as the Library Access to Music
Project or LAMP (http://lamp.mit.edu), grew out of the students' two-year
research project to come up with a fully-licensed program for on-demand
listening.

LAMP provides access to 3,500 contemporary and classical CDs and was
created by Keith Winstein, 22, a graduate student in electrical engineering
and computer science, and Josh Mandel, 21, a junior in the same major. The
two students wanted to find a free, legal way for students to listen to
their favorite CD when and where they wanted, without requiring a trip to
the library.

"Traditional music libraries are great, but you have to be willing to go to
the campus library and check out a CD," said Winstein. "We wanted to be as
convenient as possible, and that means letting patrons listen to CDs easily
and immediately.

The challenge for the students was figuring out how to offer an
instantly-accessible, campus-wide, on-demand music library without breaking
the copyright law.

Instead of using the Internet or MIT's internal network to transmit music
to listeners, Winstein and Mandel turned to MIT's analog closed-circuit
cable television system. The LAMP system lets listeners hear the CD, but
not download or copy it. Because it is impossible to record exact copies of
CDs from a non-digital source, the licensing requirements are similar to
the requirements for radio stations.

MIT, like most universities and radio stations, pays for blanket licenses
from the three organizations -- ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC -- that have the
power to authorize analog public performances of virtually all songs. The
"analog" licenses are available at a reasonable cost to the university.
Estimated costs of licenses for unlimited digital transmissions would be
much higher.

MIT students, faculty and staff can choose music at LAMPs Web page by
selecting a CD or song. Songs play directly to listeners' stereos and
televisions through the LAMP system. A listener can pause, rewind and
fast-forward the song or CD using the Web-based control system. The sound
is better than broadcast FM radio, but not as high quality as a CD played
on a home stereo.

Winstein and Mandel set up a year-long online survey to collect a "wish
list" of CDs students wanted them to buy. By the time the survey closed,
700 students had submitted 3,500 CDs. "We ended up buying them all," said
Mandel. In the next year, Winstein and Mandel hope to expand the library's
collection to 7,000 CDs.

Winstein and Mandel will also publish the design and software driving LAMP
as "open-source," available to be freely implemented elsewhere, especially
at other universities. Winstein estimates the cost for another university
to replicate LAMP at about $10,000 in off-the-shelf equipment, plus $25,000
to buy the CD collection. The total recurring cost is about 60 cents per
student per year for licenses from ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.

The LAMP project was supervised by Professor of Computer Science and
Engineering Hal Abelson, and funded by the iCampus research alliance
between MIT and Microsoft Research, which endows faculty and student
projects to enhance university education through information technology.

About iCampus

iCampus, the MIT-Microsoft Alliance, is a 5-year, $25 million initiative to
improve the quality of higher education through a combination of
information technology tools and innovative teaching methods. MIT
researchers and Microsoft software engineers are working together to enable
a host of cutting edge technologies -- wireless, streaming video,
collaborative software, simulation, virtual reality, and more to facilitate
the delivery of engaging, interactive, team-based, project-oriented,
hands-on, and student-driven learning experiences. Learn more at
web.mit.edu/icampus.

Beautiful!

This Is Sexcellent!

¡¡Take that, RIAA!!

Oh I just looked, and this story was already posted this morning Oh well

The downside of this is that the major labels are getting $25,000 for the CDs purchased (as most of the CDs requested are likely from RIAA labels).

The upside is this is that now that the CDs have been purchased, they can be enjoyed by thousands of students for years to come without paying the labels another cent.

Short term = bad, but long term = good

Used cd's!!!

And the fact that MIT is sharing the knowledge for this software will give schools an alternative to the new fee scheme the RIAA is pushing on colleges (I believe Penn State is helping to develop it). nya nya, phooey on you-ey!

"Because it is impossible to record exact copies of
CDs from a non-digital source,"
Impossible? Really??

I wonder if any indie artists will send thier cds for free to the lamp projects

Very very nice, why to go guys and congrats.

There's only one thing that bothers me about this story.

Along with 80 percent of the major labels' "legitimate" sources for pay-per-songs, Kazaa/Altnet's "legitimate" plan and now this, Microsoft's name is attached to it.

As the earlier article noted, there are only 16 channels now, although they can add more cheaply. So right now, you are pretty much going to be listening to someone elses programming.

This paragraph is key:

"MIT, like most universities and radio stations, pays for blanket licenses from the three organizations -- ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC -- that have the power to authorize analog public performances of virtually all songs. The
"analog" licenses are available at a reasonable cost to the university. Estimated costs of licenses for unlimited digital transmissions would be much higher."

First, analog lines are being replaced by digital lines in this country. Second, if this practice becomes widespread, the costs of the licenses will be jacked up by ASCAP, BMI & SESAC.

What if they could add one channel for everyone in the university in a cost effective manner? I would imagine something like this would be technologically feasible in the future. Then the listener would have their own personal radio station with performance royalties being paid by the entity transmitting the signal. Very interesting and not a scenario forseen by our current laws.

"Because it is impossible to record exact copies of CDs from a non-digital source,"

lol @ "impossible". I gather the impossibility arguement stems from the "exactness" of the copy. Guess you can't copy the exact bytes from the CD.. so make your own bytes .

LAMP -> sample @ 44.1khz -> quantize @ 2bytes/sample -> LAME CODEC -> mp3

So since this mp3 comes from LAMP, who purchased the CD, RIAA's not going to be sniffing my nuts trying to sue me will they?

Way to go LAMP. Now only if they could somehow leverage what they developed against the RIAA, and charge the RIAA to have their music heard on their network, that would be great.

As far as Penn State is cerned, Spanier can kiss my A$$ for trying to sell out students yet again.

*cerned -> concerned

carla please dont bring that up about my school it makes me want to cry anytime i hear it.

death to Spanier!

Ha! Way to go MIT!

we all have free file sharing system that provides you with album art CD quality(wav files) and no risk of being sued. The public library! you can burn, rip transfer, copy, share whatever you want. all for free. you could pick up a couple of Cd's, DVDs a week from now till the day the riaa burns down the building or your house! ha, ha riaa i want to see you sue the library's. you wont cause you would really have to go to court and show your true colors. and best of all you would loose!

Yahoo! Our future brain trust deals a swift blow for
freedom against the evil empire...
Ya just gotta love it!!!!!! LOL

"First, analog lines are being replaced by digital lines in this country."

opens a can of worms...

[[[[[_ .·´¯`·.¸ .·´¯`·.¸

pssst, don't tell the cable companies.

Here is my question. Are the cd's that are available for listening screened through the Riaa label's limited roster? Or is there room for out-of-prints and indie artists as well? And what is this obsession with getting to Riaa products?? I don't worry about it because I am still boycotting. I can enjoy music I have already purchased for quite a while, while listing to new indy artists? And if they feature any indie artists, are they attempting to send royalties to them as well? A lot of artists out there are not in ASCAP, etc.

.. well, a few questions.. :grin:

I don't know if anyone caught this but the cds were transferred to mp3s then placed on a single hard drive. Since the company that did this is affiliated with the evil empire I'm sure they used only 128 bitrates. No sense letting people have access to anything but radio quality music.

So here is an approximation of mp3 vs wav file space required to handle a library of this capacity.

5m per song avg @ 128 bit mp3
15 songs per cd
3500 cds

262.5 gigs of music as mp3s

or 1 300g drive

vs

50m per song avg @ wav
15 songs per cd
3500 cds

2625 gigs of music as wavs

or 9 300g drives

Shame they didn't opt for quality and buy the 8 more drives...

Its a compramise and not a good one at that. Maybe they will get one channel per student. That a whole hell of a lot of channels but probably not imposible. Then they can start charging for it. Then the RIAA will complain that people are recording and burning cds with the system, even though its not a perfect copy its "close enough". The same thing they said about MP3 files. Those are not an exact copy either. So the recurring costs will raise and the costs to the users will rise and v'ualla. You've got yourself a pay-per-listen music distributing cash mechine for the RIAA and it was built, distributed, and implemented by other at the expense of other. It's a perfect business scheme. No investment. If it gets popular of course.

If they start charging for it then they are selling music without a license and that is clearly illegal.

Has anyone noticed that the user gets to program an 80 minute block. And how much recording time is on a cdr?

These guys are going to get busted. They are trying to characterize this as a radio station, but what radio station allows the listener to program 80 minute blocks? Watch for the hammer to fall.

There's been a lot of changes in the music industry in the last few years, and there are now legal alternatives where there once weren't any at all... Now's the time to EMBRACE the new legal technologies that allow us our fair use rights... I'm a big believer in fair use, and LAMP seems to use all the rights without breaking the law - something all too rare today... I wish they would bring this service to my college...

I want to know what happens when a user rewinds, skips to different tracks or pauses a selection to get the door for the pizza guy while everyone else is recording their selection?

Since everyone knows who the program director of the moment is, I imagine their phone will ring off the wall and their mailbox will become instantly full.

I thought internet radio was not covered by BMI/ASCAP. Which means the RIAA picks up a royalty every time a song is played, according to the DMCA. Nice try but when CNN is all over it you know the RIAA is behind it.

Tell that to all the internet radio stations that are still getting off the ground.

I have to agree with chrisbacke. This is a legal alternative, and yes, it's a compromise, but compromise leads to change too! I wonder how they are handling upgrades ie new artists, indie stuff, out of print/rare. I bet they are going to be kept real busy once it gets out and people wanna put their OWN music in the system.
I know the RIAA is a stoopid company, I know the RIAA needs to come down, but come one people! This is the way it should be done. Find ALTERNATIVES to what's going on.
Remember, it's about the music. It's about getting what you want, how you want, when you want, for a price you want. Free is good! This has (for me anyhow) never been about getting music for free. It's been about the above reasons. I'll stand by that.
ttmmm

Let me put it this way. It is currently a legal alternative.

Emphasis on currently, of course

Who said they only purchased RIAA CDs? The article said "Winstein and Mandel set up a year-long online survey to collect a "wish
list" of CDs students wanted them to buy. By the time the survey closed,
700 students had submitted 3,500 CDs. "

While I'm sure there are SOME RIAA CD's selected by the students, aren't college students notorious for being on the edge in terms of music selection? I mean, without a doubt, some of the CD's selected by the students HAD to be from independent labels. It would be interesting to see what CD's were included, wouldn't it?

Just don't get in the system. DO NOT REGISTER YOUR MUSIC, EVER.
FUCK COPYRIGHTS... ONLY RECORD LABELS WIN MONEY FOR RIGHTS, NOT MUSICIANS!!! INDEPENDENT MUSIC IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE.

I know Britany (YUUCK) was one of their top choices from the http://lamp.mit.edu webpage.

Others Tops in most played:
Chili Peppers
Coldplay
R. Kelly
Nelly

All are from the evil empire...

mroop - no matter what the length of time, 80 minute, 72, whatever, if they are able to record the media pursuant to the Home Audio Recording Act of 1992...what law is being broken?

Not arguing, just asking.

Hey, they can send it, you can hear it, you can copy and rip it, duh!

I think I may have figured out why we don't have it, but China an Zimbabwa have. If we had it, we would all have access to perfect digital originals, hence perfect digital copies. The recording industry is having enough trouble with that already. I'm sure it's their big bankrolled congressional lobbyists that are preventing the FCC from approving a format