Well, I was quite surprised by the thread that followed my initial mail about the copy protected CD's. I have had a lot of thoughts about it, but especially this comment by Brian Redfern triggered my imagination: > product. I can find higher quality music being given away by the artist > for free than its possible to find in all the archives of major labels I'd like to agree, but personally, I have a hard time finding good music for free. There is also a lot of, how shall i put it, lesser quality music around, and I don't really know where to look. I find it already very difficult to find something that I really like among known music or publicly advertised/broadcasted music. How do you go to a record store and pick a CD of an artist you don't know yet? By the cover? When I listen to new music (new as in new to me, not in age) it's because friends whose musical taste i value tell me about it. Something else I do is consulting www.allmusic.com, and follow the related-artists/followers/influences links, and listen to the stuff with high ratings. In theory, this method is okay, but I have found myself more than once disagreeing with the ratings and sometimes even with the related-artist linking. Now, what I would really like, is a website dedicated to free music, that offers a search engine not unlike allmusic, but much more "intelligent": keeping user profiles, matching user profiles with tastes so it can make suggestions, an advanced rating system where users can rate not only the music itself but also similarity to other artists, etc. (RFC) Everybody has a different taste (well actually, a lot of people have the same taste: none ;-), but i am sure some people have a taste similar to mine. I'd like a computer system to find that out, and decide who my "virtual" friend are that "tell" me about new music. Of course, it should also include the obvious: Free mp3 downloads, links to the artists, a way to donate money to the artists, and maybe even a peer to peer network that only contains this free music. Where is this website ? :-) Maarten
