Wow, kat, we had that conversation here in the office Thursday morning. We have the technology to encode the entire Folk Legacy Collection and have it play randomly 24/7. Also, we can make is like the green clicky things and have your real audio player let you click when you hear something you like and go to the album page, which in turn will lead you to the ordering page.

However: Some theories say that if you get to hear all the stuff all the time on the cat, you won't bother buying it.

The legalities of it are two-fold. For one, we do have a BMI license, and can get an ASCAP license for, I think, $250 per year. These are like what radio stations have to play their music. Since we are non-profit we can apparently get around reoccuring "mechanical" fees.

The deal with the first fold, which is copyrighted material and people with real record deals, is gonna take some thought and probably professional legal advice.

The second fold is mudcatters playing their own tunes, or folks that do their own tunes with folks like Sandy that will cooperate with us, or at least independent musicians or small labels that benefit from the exposure that we offer. The second is certainly the easiest to contemplate.

So this is what I am thinking about. What I have already finished pondering, though, is that I am committed to making the addition and exploitation of MULTIMEDIA on the Mudcat in the year and years to come. Technology and bandwidth (and Mudcatters) are finally catching up to the things that we Web Publishers have been wanting to do all along. Hang on to your hats, and call your ISP and local phone company and start asking about DSL (digital subscriber lines)...