FOFC Music Club?

[thesloppy]

The Premise:

Inspired by cthomer's excellent movie club idea, and something similar I've been trying to set-up with friends, I think it would be a blast for FOFC members to be able to share and discuss their music. Music threads here always generate a good amount of passionate posts, we obviously house a bunch of divergent tastes, and I can only assume that there'd be some interest in such a thing.

In practice, I imagine it would work much just like a book, or movie club, one member picks some music, we all listen to it within a certain timeframe, discuss. funz. Since listening to music is so much more convenient than reading a book or watching a movie, I would think we could easily manage switching the hot seat every week.

The Question:

I'm sure the mere mention of the words 'share' and 'music' so close together has already set off alarm bells in your head, and regardless of interest or procedure, the bigger question is if such a thing is even feasible within the confines of copyright law? Obviously, if there is even the smallest question as to the legality of the process, then we shouldn't be doing it on FOFC.

I'm hoping that if we put our noggins together we can come up with something simple enough, yet legal. Goddamn RIAA, should it really be such a hassle for friends to share music that they may only listen to once or twice? *sigh* Anyhow the specifics copyright law is a byzantine riddle to me, so this where I'm hoping y'all can offer me some help.

Possible Solutions?

Got any? Someone has to be doing something similar to this on the internet, right?

I'll toss out some general ideas, and maybe we can whittle one of them down into a workable solution.

BUY THE MUSIC - The most obvious, fully legal solution is to choose a favorite album (or mix of songs) and everybody purchases it in whichever manner they choose. Clearly this would also be the most expensive solution, and might deter a significant amount of interest, especially if you were talking about a new album every week. Conceivably if we stuck to albums rather than mixes, you could buy a CD, leave it untouched, download the mp3s, and return it for a refund after a week, if you thought it sucked, right? Of course you'd also have to delete the mp3s, but if you're returning the CD that probably wouldn't be a large concern. This option just seems so inconvenient and expensive that it would kill any interest, but maybe not.

STREAMING RADIO - Do people still do that shoutcast stuff, or something similar? I was always intrigued by that stuff...but not enough to learn a damn single thing about it. Would it be possible to set up some central file repository and a streaming radio station that just loops the files that are stored therein? Then each week someone new could load up the webspace with a new playlist. That's completely legal, right, since no files would be trading hands? Anybody have any streaming audio experience?

MAILING MIX CDS -With the proliferation of CD burners and the realtively low price of media, this might not be as inconvenient ore expensive as it sounds at first bluch.....but that doesn't mean it's NOT inconvenient or expensive. Plus, I think this is a relatively grey area in copyright law, so this is probably the worst idea of the lot.

TEMPORARY FILE SWAPPING - I swear that when MP3s first started gaining popularity it was legal for you to download, use and store MP3s for some small amount of time (like 3 days) before you were legally expected to delete them from your machine. Was that my imagination, or did they alter the law long ago? I always thought that seemed fair, but maybe it was because it was a complete fabrication of my imagination.

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL - Maybe it's as simple as putting one of those big ol' disclaimers in the thread stating that by posting in the thread you agree to follow the letter of the copyright law, and so on and so forth.

That's all my pea-sized brain can come up with, but I'd love to hear any other ideas, or if you think any of the above would or wouldn't work.

[thesloppy]

So...no interest and/or ideas?

I'll give it a single bump and let it die a slow painful death.

[oliegirl]

I'm interested, but a 2 person club probably isnt' much fun I never saw this before - maybe the bump will get more people reading it.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by oliegirl

I'm interested, but a 2 person club probably isnt' much fun

I only wish I could convince more women of that fact.

[oliegirl]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I only wish I could convince more women of that fact.

SO completely NOT what I meant!!!!

But, pics pls, thx