Soulseek
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Soulseek is a file-sharing application used mainly to exchange music files. It was created by Nir Arbel, a former Napster programmer. Like Napster did, it relies on a central server, which makes it vulnerable to being shut down by legal action.
Originally, the Soulseek userbase was composed mostly of members of the IDM Mailing List. Therefore, the vast majority of music found on Soulseek was underground electronic music or music produced by the users themselves. However, after Audiogalaxy was shut down, a deluge of former Audiogalaxy faithfuls invaded Soulseek and brought with them corporate music owned by record labels belonging to the RIAA (though Soulseek is still a good place to find underground and independent music, as well as knowledgeable music lovers from anywhere). Since that time, the userbase has grown rapidly, and there are some ~120,000 users on at any given time. This may seem relatively small compared to such file sharing programs as Kazaa and Napster, but Soulseek is more of an underground project and is a smaller server-based p2p program. SoulSeek's server used to have a problem with crashing due to the CPU overload, but this problem has since been rectified. It is rare to see the server be down for extended periods of time.
There are chat rooms set up by users to discuss the various types of files shared over the network. Most rooms are dedicated to musical styles or various world regions. For example, there are several Japanese music rooms, which have spawned a BitTorrent sharing group and an underground music room that tends to have the most users and focuses on less-popular music. Some unique features (starting as of Version 154 beta build 3j) include searching for files within a room (which is much more effective than a network search) and setting a ticker. Longtime features include a friends list and sharing privileges for said friends.
Many of the original Soulseek users are also music producers. Due to this fact, it was only natural for them to take their community spirit one step further and form a record label. Soulseek Records was formed in 2002.
See also
- PySoulSeek - A WxPython Soulseek client for Linux
- Nicotine - A PyGTK2 Soulseek client for Linux and Mac OS X based on PySoulSeek
- Museek - A C++/QT Soulseek client for Linux
- SolarSeek (http://www.fejta.com/solarseek/) - Soulseek client for Mac OS X
- soulseeX (http://chris.schleifer.net/ssX/) - Soulseek client for Mac OS X
- Soulfind - Soulseek server
External links
- Soulseek Review (http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/soulseek.html) - Review from MP3 Newswire
- Soulseek Homepage (http://www.slsknet.org)
- Soulseek creator blog (http://www.slsknet.org/news/)
- Official Soulseek Discussion Board (http://www.slsknet.org/forums/)
- Soulseek Records (http://www.soulseekrecords.com)
- Server Status Test Page (http://www.remmelt.com/slskboard/status.php)de:Soulseek