Altrok Radio - Blog: SXSW BitTorrent Now Up...

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

SXSW BitTorrent Now Up...

For the uninitiated, BitTorrent is a file sharing service that, unlike the Web, actually makes it so that the more popular a download is, the faster it is. If there's someone out on the net that wants you to have something of theirs, it's the fastest way to get it to you - assuming enough people want it. All ya gotta do is:

- Get the BitTorrent software
- Find a torrent you'd like to grab
- Possibly fiddle with your firewall if things are going slowly.

One interesting thing is that it's not very good for downloading pirated stuff - everyone who's sharing can see the Internet address of everyone who's downloading, so if one of those is a lawyer who wants to bust people for copyright infringement, congratulations...you're busted. That's why it's becoming so popular for legal downloads.

And for the third year in a row, the South-By-Southwest Festival has put up a legal torrent of its featured bands. (Look under the headline "Torrent - 2007 Showcasing Artists MP3s".) 739 bands in the first pass, 3.1 gigabytes of new music.

Got a spare bit of hard disc space? Go for it.

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Welcome to Altrok.com, also available at AltrokRadio.com and AltrockRadio.com. Here's where the remaining listeners of several fine radio stations have retreated, regrouped, and built a replacement strong enough to stand on its own. It builds on the independent legacy of New Jersey's FM106.3, New York's WPIX and WLIR, Oklahoma's 105.3 The Spy, the pre-buyout mindset of KROQ, WBCN and WHFS and of every other alternative station that was destroyed at a moment's notice - not because they weren't making money, but because there was bigger money to be found elsewhere.

We've stood by as truly independent alternative rock radio died. Sure, something called "alternative" took its place, but we know for sure that anything that "tests well" with soccer moms just ain't alternative. (Even if some of us happen to be soccer moms.) So we've taken matters into our own hands.

This really is independent alternative rock radio, visible here at Altrok.com and audible at our web radio station. It has the classic music that fired our passions back in the day - or that we maybe only heard about from our elders - but it's mostly made of the new music that does precisely the same for us now. We're paying attention to scenes all over the world, watching the energy build, and waiting to see what it creates. Wherever it happens, we'll make sure you can hear about it here. We've been slowly building all this since 2001, and now that you've noticed us, we're glad you're here.

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