Music Downloads

[DarkAngel]

Just wondering what everyone uses to download songs from the net..? I havent loaded anything yet as i want to know whats legal and whats not...? A few friends have got Limewire and Soulseek..but i dont think they are legal.

Any suggestions much appreciated.:)

[Mr_Me19]

Almost anything from limewire or other P2P programs is illegal. There are of course some files that aren't. Music generally is however. Now as for sites I know that Russia's laws are not as strict as ours and you can get music extremely cheaply and sometimes for free on russian sites.
Then of course there is iTunes and the like. Personally however I would rather buy the CD as it is much higher quality and is permanent. No worries if you accidentally delete a song.

[gollach]

iTunes (http://www.apple.com/iTunes) is legal and costs minimum of 79p per track. There is also eMusic (http://www.emusic.com), where you pay a set amount per month in return for a set number of downloads of your choice.

I use iTunes but you are restricted to the number of different computers/ipods that you can play the music on (unless you use iTunes to burn the music to audio cd first ;)) I am not sure if their downlaods work on other mp3 players without first burning to cd, maybe someone else can advise?

Not sure what else is legal just now. Allofmp3/mp3sparks were shut down but their legality was questionable at best.

[Mr_Me19]

No iTunes songs do no work on other players. At least not the 79p ones. You can buy songs that don't have the DRM on them for (I think) £1.29 and these will play on other players. Personally I think apple has the right approach on this. They think that no song should have DRM. But because the record studios don't agree they make apple pay more for DRM free songs. Causing them to have to charge more in turn for them.

[DarkAngel]

Ahh thanks for that...Ive got iTunes already.. :)

[porshiepoo]

Zultrax is pretty good, so I've heard!;)

[Bobinovich]

Whenever I get a song with DRM I play it on the PC while another piece of software (Creative Wave Studio which came free with my soundcard) records the output as a WAV file. I then use another freebie called Audiograbber to convert the WAV file to an MP3. Hey presto! one non-DRM MP3 file for use on any player.

I've also used the same proces to 'grab' the audio from a video file, and to record from tape and vinyl through my PC's line input socket. Simple but effective!

[George Brims]

I use eMusic. Their mp3s are not protected so you can shift them to other machines or burn to CD. They are very good value at (currently) 30 songs for US$9.99, 50 for $14.99 or 75 for $19.99. I actually get a slightly better deal as their cost went up but they let existing subscribers keep their old rates.

The downsides to eMusic are they don't generally carry much mainstream stuff, more independent label music. If you want your favorite artist you are more likely to find them on a compilation or a music festival CD or a retrospective with other people doing their songs. Oh and your downloads don't roll over from month to month, so sometimes you have to just grab one or two tracks from a CD just to use them up, then get the rest the following month. However there's a handy "save for later" thing that makes that easier.

On the plus side, their collections of classical music, folk, and blues are pretty good. The London Symphony Orchestra recently decided to start selling their back catalogue through online sales so there is some good stuff from them as well as some other orchestras.

Oh and one last thing - there are a number of places you can get a free trial offer. Last time I downloaded the newest version of Winamp there was an offer of free tracks. I also got a coupon for some when I bought concert tickets through Ticketmaster. Unfortunately these free offers don't apply to existing users!

[George Brims]

Whenever I get a song with DRM I play it on the PC while another piece of software (Creative Wave Studio which came free with my soundcard) records the output as a WAV file. I then use another freebie called Audiograbber to convert the WAV file to an MP3. Hey presto! one non-DRM MP3 file for use on any player.

I've also used the same process to 'grab' the audio from a video file, and to record from tape and vinyl through my PC's line input socket. Simple but effective!

I have done the same thing using a program called Polderbits Sound Recorder. It's one of those you can try for free for a month (with full features) then pay for. It's not very expensive and they let you upgrade to new versions forever at no extra charge. It now has crackle/pop filters (whatever happened to snap?) for use when you convert those old vinyl LPs.

Between that and the eMusic thing I mentioned before I need a bigger hard drive!

[Mr_Me19]

Just to clarify as gollach said: you can burn the DRM protected songs onto discs and then rip them off again to get music files that are NOT DRM protected.