Listen to your iTunes library over the web

New application accessTunes by Bains Software lets you stream music from your Mac’s iTunes library over the web.

Listen to music on your home Mac from the office PC or at a friend’s house. AccessTunes lets you share specific playlists or your whole library, passwords access to your music and reports what songs it’s streaming.

I’m in the midst of coercing friends to try out accessTunes with me, Update: holy crap, it does work! but trusty weblogger Jason Kottke says, “I was just listening to songs from someone’s library over the web and it worked great.” AccessTunes is shareware which will expire after streaming 50 songs; license costs 15 bucks.

Update: so this little sucker - while super freakin’ cool - runs a server on your Mac, and requires you open ports in OS X’s built-in firewall as a well as on your router’s firewall. Which is not something the security-minded should ever do lightly, of course.

Update update: AccessTunes allows streaming, not downloading, of music over the web. However, if Apple decides to block accessTunes (not an unlikely possibility) you might just lose your $15, or some of accessTunes’ functionality. Consider yourself warned.

accessTunes [Bains Software via kottke.org]

Die Dulci Fruere