Turn iTunes into a "by request" jukebox for the office?

[rob banzai]

Here at work there's a desire to have loud music constantly drowning out phone conversations and generally annoying the crap out of people like me.

As IT Manager I'm trying to find a clever way to make this miserable request a reality.

What I want is to set up a stand alone machine to be the iTunes jukebox and have it take requests from my coworkers. Just having it pound out music from one long playlist isn't interactive enough.

So... anyone familiar with a solution that can make this happen? I've only done Shoutcast type stuff before, never anything interactive.

Thanks

[graylocks]

Pandora?

http://www.pandora.com

[rob banzai]

That's a single user web based system. I'm looking for something that will take requests from multiple users over the network from an MP3 library. I am probably asking for something that does not exist.

[graylocks]

would it be possible to give out the user name and password so that everyone could use it?

[C(-)ris]

I am just going to point out the legal issue of having a bunch of MP3s on a company server...I personally don't care, but that is a HUGE liability for a corporation. We don't load iTunes on our Macs because people could bring in pirated music and put it on their desktops. If we were audited(pissed off employee reports you) it would be a huge fine if they found out you were encoraging the behavior and sanctioning the server.

[rob banzai]

I am in complete agreement with you.

Not only does pretty much every machine have music on it, but the boogers have been using software to pull music from each other's shared iTunes. I think this is not unusual but it should be unwelcome due to liability issues.

At my previous job they were serious about the problem and appreciated my attempts to manage rights compliance. This place... they just don't give a crap.

Eh. Even if I managed to make the request system work all it would mean is that I would be obliged to listen to even more Tupac. No loss.

[Monster]

As long as someone pays the ASCAP fees, or whatever they are, then it should be perfectly legal, right?

I've been bantering this same setup around with a local pub I frequent, they currently have one of those internet jukeboxes, but I just had to come up with the idea of having an interactive iTunes juke instead, one that would of course enable you to accept money for the tunes, and be able to download tunes from iTunes when the chosen music isn't in iTunes already.

Should be doable, shouldn't it?