W hat if you threw a music festival, and you had hundreds of songs you needed to make available to a music loving public; how would you get the music out there?
If youire the organizers of the South by Southwest Music Festival (SXSW) hosted in Austin Texas, the answer is easy; use iTunes.
Wired News reports that 600 songs from the more than 1,200 acts featured in the SXSW Music Festival will be available for free to anyone with the ability to connect to the Internet. Whatis more, the free music can be downloaded from one of several Wireless Internet access points, or Hotspots. From the Wired News report:
The cityis well-known independent music festival, also known as SXSW, is providing this yearis library of music for free through an iTunes shared music playlist. The music library will be available during the festival, and possibly after the festival ends. Music fans can access the collection at free wireless hotspots around the city, whether lunching at Guerois Taco Bar or sipping coffee at the Triumph Café.
More than 1,200 acts will play at this yearis festival, which runs from March 17 to 21. About 600 musicians provided a free MP3 of their work to run on the South by Southwest Web site. The festival then took the extra step of making the whole catalog available through a shared playlist over a Wi-Fi network.
"If someone launches iTunes, these 600 songs will pop up in their iTunes," said Scott Wilcox, chief technical adviser for SXSW. "Because we have their audio in-house, weire able to -- with the appropriate permission -- make these tracks available for free as part of the promotion for playing South by Southwest."
The annual music festival has made its library available for free on its Web site for the past several years. However, this is the first year that the music-sharing application is available for free to anyone taking advantage of Austinis wireless hotspots.
Thereis more information in the full article at Wired News.