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Audiogalaxy was an Internet music service with three incarnations. From 1998 to 2002, it was a file sharing system that indexed MP3 files. From mid-2002 to mid-2010, it was a promotional website for the Rhapsody music subscription service. Finally, from mid-2010 through 2012, it was a personal audio place shifting service. Audiogalaxy ceased operations on January 31, 2013.
Audiogalaxy's stated mission was to facilitate sharing of music, though it was also notable for its strong community due to such features as chat-enabled groups and per-artist/per-genre peer moderated . This strong community also facilitated a very broad reach of content across many genres, particular those that tend to remain under-developed in more modern systems. Even very obscure or emerging artists could be heard. Moreover, it served as a teaching/learning tool for anyone wanting to explore, explaining subgenres of music, with thousands of examples readily available.
In June 2008, CNET Networks hailed this incarnation of Audiogalaxy as one of the greatest defunct websites in history.
Even though Audiogalaxy claimed that they were trying to cooperate with the music industry and block songs from their network, many of the network's users continued to share unauthorized copyrighted music files, causing Audiogalaxy to face a lawsuit by the RIAA on May 24, 2002. On this day, Audiogalaxy blocked sending of all blocked songs. A month later on June 17, 2002, Audiogalaxy reached an out-of-court settlement with the RIAA. The settlement reached would allow Audiogalaxy to operate a "filter-in" system, which required that for any music available, the songwriter, music publisher, and/or recording company must first consent to the use and sharing of the work.
From 2008 through 2010, Audiogalaxy worked with failed Choruss venture headed by Warner Music Group and longtime record-industry/Internet technology expert Jim Griffin. Choruss was an experimental effort to monetize peer-to-peer file sharing among college students, and Audiogalaxy software was to provide a possible technological basis for the system.
Until mid-2010, some of the message boards remained active, but the Audiogalaxy website only promoted the Rhapsody subscription service and its featured artists. It also briefly promoted the original incarnation of Merhej's FolderShare project, before that service was acquired by Microsoft.
This incarnation of Audiogalaxy service enabled MP3 and AAC files stored on an Internet-connected computer to be searched and media streaming on-demand for playback on a separate, Internet-connected computer, phone, or other device. Special software had to be installed on the computer hosting the music files. The files could then be browsed and played through a Adobe Flash-enabled web browser, or via a smartphone or other device running special software.
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