Undersound, a way to trade music on the London Underground

Just in case waiting for a train in the London Underground while listening to your iPod has already become passé, a group of techie art types are putting together a new musical installation in the Tube network based on Bluetooth, which they call "Undersound." From the group's site: "In the same way that Londoners leave and retrieve newspapers as a kind of common good, so too will they with music. Unlike newspapers though, which are of unknown origin, each track in Undersound will have a birth-place, giving added meaning." The idea for Undersound is that people can transfer songs via Bluetooth (using public domain, non-copyrighted, royalty-free or creative commons-friendly music, of course) to a "transfer point" at a particular station. Then others can come along with their own mobile phones and pick up some new tunes as well, leaving a trail of metadata behind them, begging to be analyzed -- in a good way. We hope. We're not sure if there's going to be a huge difference from the tracks dropped off at Waterloo Station versus the ones at King's Cross, but we'll find out once the researchers get their gear up and running.

[Via BoingBoing]

Update (Oct. 24): We just got an email from Peter MacLennan, a spokesperson for the Transport for London office saying: "We have no plans to introduce this service on the Tube and have not received any approach from the organisation who are indicating that this will be reality."

[jpxdude @ Oct 20th 2006 6:26AM]

I like that idea, the amount of times I've bluejacked people underground...great fun! But transferring music, thats pretty cool...

[Alex Wilks @ Oct 20th 2006 7:08AM]

Just scatter some WAPs over the place and couple them with Zune posters ;)

[Scott @ Oct 20th 2006 7:49AM]

Right.......Creative Commons Music...of Course..Just like all those....Linux ISOs....I downloaded from Usenet...

[Michael @ Oct 20th 2006 8:01AM]

Does anyone actually know anyone that STOPS in a london underground station to do anything other then buy a ticket/update an oyster? (not counting waiting on a platform, unless they are putting the kiosk's there, ewwww tube snot!)

i think not!!

[Krono6 @ Oct 20th 2006 10:14AM]

I've spent hours on a journey in the London Underground. Especially when repairs are being carried out and certain lines are closed off, which leaves me to take an alternate route to my destination. It gets really boring, and very frustrating if I weren't listening to my iPod.
So I think people wouldn't mind stopping for a song here or there, in that case.

[Peter Garner @ Oct 20th 2006 8:59AM]

OK, someone has to ask, and I guess it might as well be me...

Does this mean the Internet really is becoming a "series of Tubes"?

Sorry....

[Seth cruver @ Oct 20th 2006 12:10PM]

This could have a lot of great applications when done right. I'd imagine making big suppositories of music with no common origin point could give you some idea of who uses the stations the most. who knows. i don't. Either way,If they bring it to NYC,they could use the existing bands and performers scattered about to make up the network. speaking from null experience with the london underground,i can't say i know wether or not they allow musicians to perform in the stations as they do here. just a thought.

[jbravo @ Oct 20th 2006 12:40PM]

wow, musical suppositories - that could catch on at least