For added convenience, the music is integrated with a new application called SXSW4Pod from CitizenPod.1 Instead of carrying around the schedule of SXSW bands and venues as a dog-eared brochure, festival-goers can download the lineup electronically and transfer it to an iPod.

At the festival, which starts next week, fans can search for shows by time, venue, genre or band name, and then listen to a full-quality MP3 of the band to see if they're any good.

The SXSW website is also providing a smaller BitTorrent file (345 MB) of 30-second song clips.

"We wouldn't have been able to do this without using BitTorrent, because this is such a huge file and it would have taxed our bandwidth resources beyond our capabilities," said David Rose, webmaster of the SXSW site.

For the bands, providing a free MP3 of their music is optional. Of the more than 1,350 bands scheduled to play the festival, 758 offered an MP3. The songs can also be downloaded individually from the conference website.

"There are over 250 people downloading (the BitTorrent file), so I know there is a lot of interest," Rose said Monday. The file was first made available Sunday night.

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