The Library Access to Music Project, shut down last October for legal reasons, will likely return this October, but changed.

LAMP, an iCampus project, allows students to select music online from the LAMP database to be played over one of the MIT cable channels designated for the project. It was widely lauded as an innovative alternative to downloading music when it was first launched last fall.

Keith J. Winstein G and Joshua C. Mandel ’04, co-creators of LAMP, shut it down last October after learning that Loudeye Inc., the company from which they had pur-chased the music, did not have the proper licensing to distribute the music to MIT.

“Loudeye illegally copied those CDs,” Winstein said. He said they would not be using the music they got from Loudeye, and they were able to get their money back.

The new LAMP format, which will require students to select groups of songs to play rather than a single song, will be “50 percent as cool,” Winstein said.

LAMP creators find alternative music sources

Winstein is attempting to obtain licenses to play music directly from record labels. Of the five major record labels, he said he has talked to all of them and “some have been friendly, some not so friendly.” Winstein said that “for the labels we can’t get licensing, we’re going to buy physical CDs and broadcast them.” The CDs can be ripped legally for this purpose if they are temporary copies, according to copyright law. Radio stations, such as WMBR, typically do this with CDs “because it’s easier to broadcast them this way,” Winstein said.

“For the past year, we’ve been talking to MIT’s lawyers to make sure our temporary copies are absolutely legal,” Winstein said. He expects the new method of obtaining music will be “a little more costly,” but he added that “we do think we might take donations of people’s CDs in the future.”

As for the new music, Winstein does not know what CDs he will purchase yet.

“The goal of LAMP was to create a music library” that was available 24 hours a day and “accessible in student rooms,” Winstein said. “I’m disappointed it won’t be as cool as last October, but I still hope it will be worth it.”