YouTube for Sound?
Sound Lantern is an interesting application of the user-generated content phenomenon. It takes the YouTube model, and applies it to the world of sound. Users are encouraged to upload sound effects, music, audiobooks, poetry… all things audio. It will be interesting to see how they deal with copyright challenges; what’s to stop people from turning the site into a hub for trading copyrighted works? Content creators already have venues like The FreeSound Project and Soundsnap, which appear to have stricter upload guidelines. YouTube is loaded with “found objects”… but then they’ve got staff and mechanisms in place to at least attempt to police material for infringement. I wonder how a new startup like Sound Lantern will handle that?
Apart from that, where a site like this might get really interesting is if it extends itself by way of RSS so someone can subscribe to Twitter-like podcasts of sound bytes. That would also enable someone to host their traditional podcasts there too. Right now, I’m not seeing any feeds there, but it’s something to watch for.
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Great site. I know what you mean about copyright. I don’t think they have much chance if RIAA comes a knockin. But hell, enjoy it while we can. Why don’t your write them and suggest the feed idea? Man, some wonderful spoken words stuff there.
Comment by Ricky Grove — April 11, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
Dear Overman and Ricky, thanks for your comments.
We take very seriously the issue of copyright and we are working to take down copyright material that may have been put up a bit too enthusiastically by early users. That said, some of the things you see up there may seem to be copyright bit actually are not (out of print, played or read by the person who wrote it, etc).
The aim is indeed to make Sound Lantern a hub, but of content actually owned by the producers - music, poetry, audiobooks etc.
There are some mind-blowing new features coming very soon,
meanwhile thank you for your kind words and please spread the word! We need great orginal content.
Jim
Sound Lantern Team
Comment by Jim - Sound Lantern — April 17, 2008 @ 1:39 am