What is a good free server software that can allow authenticated people to log in and use their broadcast their audio/video recordings (ie. microphone/webcam) through the website with HTTP? Also it should only allow particular listeners who are authorised via the web server (mod_python).

I've somewhat got Icecast working, but is it only suited to public Internet radio?

http://www.icecast.org/docs/icecast-2.3.2/icecast2_listenerauth.html

rtfm, noob.

I have read that and my question is how does the Icecast server and the Apache server match the same user...

Django's sessions are based off cookies that store the session ID on the client computer. So how would the Icecast server get the session ID and password from the client in order for the Icecast server to validate it with the Apache server?

You specify a certain header that your Apache script sends back to icecast if they are authorized.

Assuming you go with the first option, icecast-auth-user: 1, then the Apache script just has to send that back.

<?php
if(user_is_authorized) header("icecast-auth-user: 1");
else header("icecast-auth-message: <reason they are unauthorized>");
?>