Virtual music server

Hey there, does anyone know if this is possible, at work we run a windows xp pro network with all our project files etc on the server. Ideally we would just set up one old computer to store everyone's music and act as a music server. However, to keep the company at least semi-clean in respect to copyright we aren't allowed to do this, all "personal" music is to be stored on our individual computers. Of course everyone shares their music folders but pretty much we have ended up with bugger all space left, lots of duplication and a big mess.

What I want to know is is it possible to somehow set up a "virtual" music server? The way i reckon this would work it would essentially just be another network drive but instead of the music stored there it would essentially just contain links to everyone's music on their personal computer's. That way we could all easily see all the music available and also see what music is duplicated etc so we could free up a lot of space (for more music of course)

Anyone got any ideas? Incase its not already obvious i'm not some computer whiz kid so you have a solution involving programming soemthing or whatever then it's probably going to be beyond me but between us all here we do have half a clue about computers. Thanks in advance

This isn't really a direct solution to what you are asking for but using iTunes makes it really easy to share your music to other people on your network. Everyone did this at my last job and it worked out really well. My guess is alot of the people you already work with are using iTunes so all they have to do is turn on sharing. For the people who aren't using it, it's easy enough to install and configure iTunes.

To turn on sharing just go to Edit -> Preferences and then click on the Sharing tab.

Check the box to look for shared libraries and to share your own library. If it finds any other people sharing on your network they will be listed on the left hand side of the main iTunes window.

There seems to be a lot of people on here who hate iTunes so I might get some shit for this but I've never had any problems with it and it makes it very simple to share music in the type of environment you are in.

if the best solution (a dedicated "music" server storing and sharing the whole library over the intranet) is not available, you can do what a few university dorms' networks have done: a crawler that indexes the music available on all shares of the intranet and presents them on an internal website with the possibility of streaming (well, you have the network resources internally you can stream a lot of audio live, it doesn't take much).

the crawler can be run daily or weekly and the site as elaborate as you wish.

Your "personal music" is still stored on company computers so the company is still exposed. Go buy a big external USB drive and stick all the music there. It's like a server but not. As long as the company doesn't own the drive it's just a rogue employee with a lot of music.