I Have A Proposition
 

I recentley had an idea that when people make a thread perhaps introducing and educating a lot of people on a particular artist they havent heard before,
that it would be really good if it would be possible to attach music files as well as pictures (even if it only lasted 30 secs or so or if only one song per post was allowed) I still think it would be a good idea & a great way of introducing people to the music as when they enter the post the music would start or be available to hear.
This is guessing this isnt possible at the moment?

So pretty much linking to an online stream?

Embedding youtube videos always helps, as well as directing people to myspace pages and last FM pages (With their radio things in the corner)

You can always make a compilation and upload it via mediafire, even if its just a song or two so when people ask for a sample its there to go...

As Zarko pointed out many of the regulars who post threads introducing us to bands usually upload an album or two by the artist for anyone who's interested, along with youtube links..ect. It's certainly not required but it really does make things easy.

If people could upload pirated music up to the musicbanter server, well .. that's obviously not a good idea ;)

'Mediafire' whats that? Also I saw on the attachment link music files are not eligible to be uploaded.
Yeah well as you can see Ive already uploaded album covers anyway, all I had in mind was perhaps having samples of my favourite tracks from the albums just to introduce people to it when they visit the post.
It would be a much more effective way of introducing people to music.
Well I did have the 'copyright' reason in the back of my mind.
As for it being a 'bad idea', yes by the law's standards but tell me who takes that seriously when it comes to music, a lot of youtube stuff is unliscensed and you see it getting removed because of copyright claims.
If you asked most of the people on this forum i think they would find it a great idea to be able to hear samples as soon as they click on the post.
Ah well, It was only a suggestion.....:(

I think an alternative to what OP might be getting at is having the ability to embed a streaming flash music player. You know, those kind where you upload songs to a public server and make a playlist, then embed the player.
(I guess playlist.com would even be an option, provided the music is already available there)

The benefit wouldn't be extreme, but I can see how it'd make things slightly easier than following links to other sites.
I don't see how that would be any different than embedding Youtube videos as far as legality is concerned.

Any thoughts?

Edit:
To add on to this, I wonder how feasible it'd be to have the ability to embed a small flash music player in your sig that holds a streaming playlist of your fave tunes that others can click and listen to at any point.

Yup, my point is that you can't upload pirated music to the musicbanter server. At least I wouldn't want that because it puts the site in danger. If you can stream it from other sites, that would solve that problem.

On last.fm, there is a [track artist=Yes]Close to the Edge[/track] function that would then make close to the edge a clickable link to it's stream. Maybe it's possible to add such last.fm function to the forum with a little php knowledge.

I could have a look into it. I think it's fun anyways.

Yeah I just thought it would be good to have some a couple of Robert Plant tracks available to stream on the post & I think it would be better than having links. Never mind anyway.
I understand the piracy issue, what I was saying is that you dismissed my idea as 'obviously' not a good idea whereas piracy issues aside, it would be beneficial to the users of this site. Just forget it anyway man.

If people can attach mp3s, they will attach pirated music. It's not a hard scenario to imagine. Of course mods could moderate all attachments, but that could be a lot of work and there are other ways (as I mentioned in my last post). Musicbanter is not responsible for the contents of other sites, so it's better to stream/link to such things off-site.

At least, that's my opinion but it should make sense to others as well.

Tore, any thoughts on my idea of being able to embed a streaming flash player in sigs?