A great website surfaced not too long ago, and it has been a a gold mine for music lovers everywhere : a torrent site fully dedicated to music, with an UI to make Amazon envious. In this article we’ll discuss the past and future with its creator and administrator, a mysterious web developer from Europe, who wishes to remain anonymous due to threats from the RIAA and IFPI. We’ll also take a look at Coda.fm and analyze how it has changed the way you will download music.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for a music album torrents site?

A: I’m a music lover, and I always use BitTorrent to get my fix. I was disappointed with all the public indexers and the private trackers. I found the experience of searching for music in the first ones very tiresome, always having to navigate through a lot of irrelevant search results and dead torrents.

I grew tired too of the strict rules of most of the private trackers, and the elitism of some of their communities.

Those reasons motivated me to create a new kind of music torrents site, open for everyone and that offered a user experience comparable to the best e-commerce websites.

We all who constantly seek new music deserve something better, so I tried to build a website I would enjoy using, a website where:

The main content is always the music, sorted accordingly by albums, artist, and genres. The torrent files is the way to get what you want, and not an end in itself. Search and download for music was a pleasant visual experience, and not a burden. You always have a lot of information about what you are about to download, to make sure that is what you are actually looking for.

It’s not only about the search, it should help you to discover new music, always offering recommendations of albums and artists similar to the ones you like.

And above all things, that is fun to navigate freely, exploring music by genre, artist, year, similarity, etc., and always one click away to download whatever you like.

I thought that many people would share my point of view, and appreciate this new approach for a music torrents site. Being an experienced web developer, I decided to make it real.

Q: Has the RIAA/IFPI threatened to sue?

A: Yes, they already threatened us many times citing the DMCA, a law that doesn’t apply in my country, and where no other legislation is applicable to what we do. [I won't disclose my location or name because]

Sooner or later, the RIAA, IFPI or a similar organization will try to shut us down, so, the less they know about us, the better.

Q: What would you like to see from artists and labels regarding piracy?

A: They need to realize that their old business models won’t work anymore in the digital age, ["¦] we are living a revolution in the way the music is being consumed and distributed. They will all need to think outside the box and be willing to take risks if they want to survive, trying new ideas in order to adapt to a scenario dominated by the P2P technologies, [which are] unstoppable ["¦].

Trent Reznor is a fine example of how the embrace the internet and thrive as a musician without a label, a middleman that should be gone soon.

Q: How do you feel about the ongoing lawsuit against ThePirateBay?

A: The final verdict will be very important and representative, to be taken in consideration by all the admins of torrents sites ["¦], and specially those who are based in the European Union.

And I’m afraid that’s the real goal of this trial, a political trial that has nothing to do with justice as trying to serve as dissuasive propaganda.

Personally, I think that any law that see as criminals nearly all the youths of today and those who give them what they want [..] is clearly wrong. ["¦] Of course, we’re in the same side,I could find myself in the same place, eventually. I wish we where bigger and able to do something to help them.

Q: How hard was it to develop the backend code and how long did it take?

A: The coding wasn’t as hard as defining the UI design, layout and navigation, that took me many iterations to get it right. It took me a few months to get a working prototype, that showed that the project could be viable, useful, and worth to be finished. In total, the development of the platform took me one year, working the first seven or eight months part time besides my day job.

Q: Why not let users report bad albums rather than hand picking by administrators?

A: I believe it’s safer this way, stopping torrents with spam and viruses before they are available for download. Besides, although the process that gets the metadata for the albums is automated, it requires supervision and manual approval, and that could be tiresome and boring for the users, leading them to upload less torrents.

Q: How do you plan on monetizing the site?

A:  For now, we’re focusing on building a community, drive more traffic and add even more features that could put us ahead other competing websites.

I guess that the obvious choice would be putting ads, but I’m reluctant to do that. In the meantime I will try to find another way to monetize the website.

Q: Would you like to tell us about your favorite 3 albums of all time?

A: Wow, this is by far the most difficult question. So hard that I’m going to cheat, and list a few of my favorite artists instead:

• Johann Sebastian Bach, by far my most listened, since I was a kid.
• Other classical composers: Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Paganini, Vivaldi, Handel and a few others. Astor Piazzolla, Björk, Portishead, Nine Inch Nails, The Mars, Volta Morphine, Sonic Youth, Massive Attack, Thievery Corporation, Tricky, Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists, Mogwai, Tool.

Q: What can you tell us about your audio gear and listening patterns?

A: My gear is nothing too fancy, a moderately good sound system with the aux[iliary] input connected to my iMac, from which I play all the music with iTunes (I don’t use or buy CDs anymore, and I don’t listen to the radio either). I worry more about convenience and compatibility, than absolute sound quality, for example I don’t use lossless audio formats, and neither do I want the ultimate audio gear.

I listen to music every day, all day long, at home or on the road with my iPod: it’s the cornerstone of my life.

I hope I asked all the questions you wanted ““ but if not ““ leave a comment and I’ll pass along the questions. Visit Coda.fm music album torrents site and experience a new kind of music downloading ““ then come back and tell us what you think about it. We thank the Coda.fm Admin for this great interview.