Wonderful free music from SXSW

February 24, 2008 By

Last night I fired up Bittorrent and downloaded 3.5 gigs of music from this year’s SXSW bands. Am listening now. It is totally wonderful music. A real gift. To download you need Bittorrent and a few hours (I just downloaded it overnight).

This is a major gift to all of us on the Internet from the bands and from SXSW. I appreciate it very much — this is NOT stolen music, it’s all on the up-and-up. Thank you to Bram Cohen, who brought us Bittorrent. It’s really great to have a way to distribute such large files to everyone in the world.

Filed Under: technology industry
  • http://oshaughnessy.typepad.com/ Bob O’Shaughnessy

    It should be noted that this year’s SxSW torrent is an unofficial, community-generated effort, as SxSW. SxSW published and seeded torrents in 2005-2007, but not this year.

    A guy named Steve Lacy was able to do some reverse-engineering of their site and generate a list of available MP3 files so enterprising people could download it. I can only presume that the torrent was generated that way. I’ve got some more details and links on my blog.

    For those downloading, the song count should be 739 MP3 files.

  • http://oshaughnessy.typepad.com Bob O’Shaughnessy

    It should be noted that this year’s SxSW torrent is an unofficial, community-generated effort, as SxSW. SxSW published and seeded torrents in 2005-2007, but not this year.

    A guy named Steve Lacy was able to do some reverse-engineering of their site and generate a list of available MP3 files so enterprising people could download it. I can only presume that the torrent was generated that way. I’ve got some more details and links on my blog.

    For those downloading, the song count should be 739 MP3 files.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Bob: yeah, but SXSW put up all the songs on their Web site, so this is just another way to get them.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Bob: yeah, but SXSW put up all the songs on their Web site, so this is just another way to get them.

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  • Jeff H

    Robert, was wondering which ISP you are on? Not sure if Comcast is still doing it but weren’t they being accused of throttling or ‘delaying’ bandwidth to Bittorrent clients?

  • Jeff H

    Robert, was wondering which ISP you are on? Not sure if Comcast is still doing it but weren’t they being accused of throttling or ‘delaying’ bandwidth to Bittorrent clients?

  • Jeff H

    For those not wising to use bittorrent to download the music, it is available for listening and download at the SxSW web site also. http://2008.sxsw.com/music/showcases/alpha/0.html

  • Jeff H

    For those not wising to use bittorrent to download the music, it is available for listening and download at the SxSW web site also. http://2008.sxsw.com/music/showcases/alpha/0.html

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    I’m on Comcast. I rarely use Bittorrent, and downloads seemed pretty slow last night, but who cares? I just let it run all night long and it was done in the morning.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    I’m on Comcast. I rarely use Bittorrent, and downloads seemed pretty slow last night, but who cares? I just let it run all night long and it was done in the morning.

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  • touchnova

    Thanks for the links, Robert, great resource for some new listening.

  • touchnova

    Thanks for the links, Robert, great resource for some new listening.

  • http://DontTrustThisGuy.com/ Jim Jeffers

    Scoble, seriously dude, you rock! Thanks for sharing this link! :-D

  • http://DontTrustThisGuy.com Jim Jeffers

    Scoble, seriously dude, you rock! Thanks for sharing this link! :-D

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  • http://www.freddiestevenson.com Freddie Stevenson

    What’s really interesting to me is the question of why would a band playing SXSW NOT make their tracks available for people to hear? I can not see a downside, other than the litigation lawyers at a major label saying ‘no no no, we can’t GIVE AWAY an unprotected MP3…’. I’m playing SXSW this year, and I’m proud to have my track up there and am happy in the knowledge that some people may discover my music who wouldn’t have otherwise.

  • http://www.freddiestevenson.com/ Freddie Stevenson

    What’s really interesting to me is the question of why would a band playing SXSW NOT make their tracks available for people to hear? I can not see a downside, other than the litigation lawyers at a major label saying ‘no no no, we can’t GIVE AWAY an unprotected MP3…’. I’m playing SXSW this year, and I’m proud to have my track up there and am happy in the knowledge that some people may discover my music who wouldn’t have otherwise.

  • http://hauntingthunder.wordpress.com/ Maurice

    oh check out Eli Paperboy Reed and the True Loves if you get a chance – Awesome deep soul

  • http://hauntingthunder.wordpress.com/ Maurice

    oh check out Eli Paperboy Reed and the True Loves if you get a chance – Awesome deep soul

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