Eric Castro's iSlsk new file sharing application for the iPhone has already been downloaded over 41,000 times, much to his surprise, allowing owners of jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches to search and download songs from the Soulseek file sharing network. He told us that iSlsk was the first mobile application he'd ever developed. If this sounds familiar, that could be because Napster was the first program Shawn Fanning had ever written, too.
We caught up with Castro to find out how he is handling the publicity, whether he feels liable for music traded using his software and when he plans to add an uploading feature.
Wired.com Listening Post: We're pretty impressed by iSlsk [although we encountered the music importing issue he mentions below]. Are you happy with it so far?
Eric Castro, iSlsk: Aboutthe application itself, of course I am! But not too sure about howsuccessful it was in just 2 days. I mean, when I saw this article at Wired.com, I was like what the f***!! Seriously, I never expected something likethis would happen. I was already impressed about my website going fromjust 10 to 20 visits per day to about +6000 visits overnight. Not tomention that iSlsk has already over 41,000 downloads, again, only in twodays. Those numbers may not impress most people, but they do for me,
since I never made something that massive.
LP: Was this the first program you've written for a cellphone/handheld?
EC: Yes,
this was the first 'serious' application I ever made for a mobiledevice. I tried to do some stuff for J2ME-enabled and Windows Mobiledevices in the past, but I got frustrated about hardware and softwarelimitations they had. But I was totally impressed about iPhone'scapabilities. So that's why I thought a P2P client was completelypossible (and fun) to do.
LP: Are you concerned about the copyright implications?
E__C:__ I
guess nobody who ever made a P2P sharing application would feelcomfortable with that question. Soulseek network was meant forindependent/unsigned artists to get known in the music industry. Then,
from Soulseek's rules: "You shouldonly share and download files which you are legally allowed to or haveotherwise received permission to share. By using this network you agreeto this and the other rules which are linked to from this page."
So anyone who uses iSlsk [is] completely responsible [for] the files theyshare/download, and [have already] agreed to its terms of use. It's notour fault, nor our responsibility if users breakthe rules.
LP: Can you give us hints about any upcoming features?
EC: Asof now, iSlsk is not capable of sharing your iPhone/iPod files. Thatcaused some regular Soulseek users to get really angry, and they blamedme and complained [about iSlsk] flooding the network with 'leechers' who onlymade larger queues. Because of that, I consider [uploading to be] the most importantfeature that needs to be implemented on future releases. I plan to keepimproving others like file search, (e.g. allowing multiple searches atonce), wish lists, and getting the music import to work better (it's notstable the way it is now), as well as also adding chatroom andmessaging support, since Soulseek is a community-based network.
