Free Software and the Music Commons

I was chatting to thomasvs and jono at GUADEC (about BULIDING FREEDOM, of course); Thomas suggested that we should have something like iTunes Music Store (iTMS), but for free music. What's cool about iTMS is how it integrates with the iTunes software; wouldn't it be cool to integrate Free Software music players, like Rhythmbox, with the growing commons of Free Music, like Internet Archive's Open Source Audio collection, or the Linux Audio music produced by the linux-audio-user community?

I discussed these ideas with Colin Walters on the last evening of GUADEC. Having Rhythmbox browse the RSS feeds of hot new free music would be cool. Getting podcasts of linux-music on your desktop would be cool. Some of the more artsy CreativeCommons Music sites are difficult to navigate, full of DHTML and light-grey-on-white text. We should make Free Software that navigates what's freely out there and encourages users to listen to it.

We're not building media applications in a vacuum -- Free Software wants to be the best way to find, play and remix Free Media.