Downloading Music Legally??

[Miller Time]

Hey guys,

My dad recently got a new computer and he wants to download a burn cds legally. In the past I used Napster, then Kazzaa but neither of those were "legal". I know Napster is safe to use now, but you can only use it in the US (I'm in Canada).

I found the site MP3entertainment.com, but I don't think it is legit. He doesn't mind paying the .99 or so per song.

Does anyone have any suggestions???

Thanks!

[samifan24]

You might try BuyMusic.com or the Apple store.

[mckerney]

www.musicrebellion.com - probably can get some of the best deals here. I use Napster mostly though.

[SackAttack]

iTunes is great, from what I've heard. I use MusicNow, but the selection isn't quite what I'd like there. It's good, but their focus is less on older rock/country (which is what I listen to) and more on hip hop and the crap they call contemporary pop rock.

Just my two cents.

[McSweeny]

from what i've heard iTunes is really good. I'd give that shot. The preview song feature is great

[Miller Time]

Thanks guys, I'll set him up with one of those. That is what I love about this site, you can always find help with anything.

Thanks again.

[SackAttack]

Oh. fair warning, some of these services require specific operating systems. If you're on Windows XP, you're fine, but if you're still on 98, you might run into problems with a couple of them. (I'm on 98, and MusicNow works great, FYI).

[yabanci]

I would say iTunes by Apple. The iTunes software is of the quality you would expect from Apple and it allows you to preview a cd, purchase and download the mp3s, organize and listen to them, and even burn music cds. The software is free and works with Windows/Mac. The prices are .99 for a song and 9.99 for a full album.

[k0ruptr]

iTunes for sure,

[Crapshoot]

I tunes is great, but raphsody (sp ?) is supposed to be pretty cool as well.

[clintl]

Emusic.com is another place, although I am annoyed with them at the moment, and may cancel my subscription because of recent changes.

[Front Office Midget]

Purevolume.com man... it's the new mp3.com

[Dutch]

Great question. I have been wondering this myself. I'll have to check these out. 99 cents a song? I can live with that and put my renegade past behind me.

[Simms]

iTunes (the store) isn't available in Canada yet.

I know there are a couple of Canadian-run setups that are similar, but I highly doubt that any of them have anywhere near the library to choose from that iTunes (or even Napster) does. Can't think of their names off-hand, but I'll see what I can find.

[SackAttack]

Didn't the Canadian courts (or maybe the Canadian equivalent of the FCC) recently issue a ruling regarding downloaded music? I could've sworn I read something about the RIAA not being happy because the Canadian agency, whichever it was, said "yeah, go ahead, download all the music you want, we'll tax the media you burn it to in order to compensate the artists."

[Shucker]

Isn't Wal-Mart supposed to have an 88 cent site? Haven't been there, but I thought I had heard that. Not a big difference in absolute price, but it would be 11% cheaper if that is the case.

[AgPete]

You guys that mentioned ITunes, I checked that site out the other day and it looks like I can only burn the music to a CD or transfer it to the Apple MP3 player. I've been trying to find a legal service lately that just gives me the MP3 file and lets me do whatever I want to with it. I have an MP3 player, it's an RCA and it uses the MusicMatch jukebox software to transfer songs. I can transfer any MP3 file. Are all the legal music services regulated? Are there any that just allow you to grab the song and don't have to be compliant with a particular brand of MP3 player. I checked Napster and it said it only worked with about 5-8 specific models of MP3 players.

[Nyarlahotep]

Originally Posted by Shucker

Isn't Wal-Mart supposed to have an 88 cent site? Haven't been there, but I thought I had heard that. Not a big difference in absolute price, but it would be 11% cheaper if that is the case.

And 75% more edited.

[sabotai]

It's probably best to sign up for a few of them. I have iTunes and it doesn't have all of the stuff I want. I'll probably end up signing up for another one just so I have a wider selection.

[sabotai]

I've been trying to find a legal service lately that just gives me the MP3 file and lets me do whatever I want to with it.

That's going to be a problem. The whole point of limiting use is to make sure people don't just download the song and then throw it up to KaZaA.

Well...you could technically do that. But the files you download gets "stamped" with your info. So if you pirated it, they could track you.

That's not to say that people haven't found ways around that though...

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by sabotai

That's going to be a problem. The whole point of limiting use is to make sure people don't just download the song and then throw it up to KaZaA.

Well...you could technically do that. But the files you download gets "stamped" with your info. So if you pirated it, they could track you.

That's not to say that people haven't found ways around that though...

Napster deals in .wma files, and being I want my music to be in .mp3 I just burn it onto a CD-RW and then rip it off of there as an MP3.

As far as pricing goes, Music Rebellion has the lowest prices on some songs. I've seen as low as $.30 at times, with low prices on some albums as well ($4.29 for It's Hard to Find a Friend with 12 songs, and not to mention that they're the only site I've seen so far with a decent Pedro the Lion selection). It's in .wma as well, but most of their stuff is burnable so it's not an issue.

[sabotai]

Napster deals in .wma files, and being I want my music to be in .mp3 I just burn it onto a CD-RW and then rip it off of there as an MP3.

Yeah, that's a way to get around it that I forgot about.

[AgPete]

Originally Posted by mckerney

Napster deals in .wma files, and being I want my music to be in .mp3 I just burn it onto a CD-RW and then rip it off of there as an MP3.

That's good to hear. Glad to know I can convert it to an MP3 so I can use it in the MP3 player.

[Dutch]

iTunes is great (and a lot of fun). I just downloaded 12 songs. Price of an album. But they are in M4P format? What the heck is that and how do I get them in MP3 format?

[Miller Time]

A lot of the sites are for US residents only, emusic looks like one I'll set up but it would be nice to view their catalogue of music before I set up an account (my dad likes a lot of the old time stuff). I haven't had much luck finding any Canadian sites of any quality but I'll keep looking.

[Miller Time]

my mistake, you can view their catalogue before setting up.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Dutch

iTunes is great (and a lot of fun). I just downloaded 12 songs. Price of an album. But they are in M4P format? What the heck is that and how do I get them in MP3 format?

Well, like was said before, you could burn it to a CD and then rip it off as MP3. I don't think there is a program to convert M4P to MP3 yet, but wait long enough and someone out there will make it.

[Dutch]

Ahhh, I had iTunes configured to burn MP3's to the disk, but it would fail. I changed the configuration to 'data' burn and it's burning now.

[sabotai]

That's not going to work. It's just going to burn the files "as is" to the CD. You need to burn it to a CD as an Audio CD.

[Dutch]

You are correct. Now I have a bunch of M4P's on a CD. Lot of good that does me. Audio CD it is. Then I can rip them back to MP3. That kind of leaves me where I was for buying CD's at the store, however...but with the benefit of picking and choosing which individual songs I want.

Thanks for the help.

[Shucker]

Originally Posted by Nyarlahotep

And 75% more edited.

Really? How do you mean? They go in and remove "objectionable language"?

[samifan24]

Originally Posted by Shucker

Really? How do you mean? They go in and remove "objectionable language"?

Well, I'd imagine it's just like actual Wal-Mart stores handle objectionable material: they only sell edited versions of those CDs. If you went to Wal-Mart and wanted to buy a CD with objectionable material on it, you'd be stuck with the edited version only. Like I said, I'd imagine that wal-mart.com has the same policy for their downloadable material.

[3ric]

A Canadian resident can use Itunes if you can get a friend in the US to act as a front, using his/her street address/zip code when registering. I have a friend here in Europe who uses Itunes with his US-based friend's permission... if anyone would ask, he'll just say he's at that address currently. Silly, but it works.

[AgPete]

Originally Posted by mckerney

Napster deals in .wma files, and being I want my music to be in .mp3 I just burn it onto a CD-RW and then rip it off of there as an MP3.

As far as pricing goes, Music Rebellion has the lowest prices on some songs. I've seen as low as $.30 at times, with low prices on some albums as well ($4.29 for It's Hard to Find a Friend with 12 songs, and not to mention that they're the only site I've seen so far with a decent Pedro the Lion selection). It's in .wma as well, but most of their stuff is burnable so it's not an issue.

I took the plunge and signed up for Napster. Which utility do you use to convert the song into an MP3? I want to listen to the songs I paid for on my MP3 player but only a few types are compatible with Napster.

I love Napster's one hit wonder radio station. LOL Half of my library are songs from that station. It's a trip down memory lane listening to all those songs that I forgot about.

[Easy Mac]

http://www.cdex.n3.net/

[AgPete]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

http://www.cdex.n3.net/

Muchas gracias sir.

[SirFozzie]

I use allofmp3.com

2.5 GB of music (and *I* choose the bitrates) for $25

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

http://www.cdex.n3.net/

I just used this for the first time with ripping a iTunes CD I made....it took about forever. Does ripping 15 songs from an audio CD take a while? (I think it was at least 2 hours....I let it run after I went to sleep).

[Easy Mac]

hmm, it was probably going to take me about 25 minutes. I used I tunes to rip songs to mp3s and it took about 7 minutes. You might be best off just burning Itunes music to an audio cd, then using Itunes to rip the songs to mp3's (at least 192 kb).

[Dutch]

Easy,

That's what I'm doing, maybe my settings were off or my burner sucks. I'll have to run it again. If it only take half an hour, I would be much happier.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by samifan24

Well, I'd imagine it's just like actual Wal-Mart stores handle objectionable material: they only sell edited versions of those CDs. If you went to Wal-Mart and wanted to buy a CD with objectionable material on it, you'd be stuck with the edited version only. Like I said, I'd imagine that wal-mart.com has the same policy for their downloadable material.

Which is why they don't have a rap section.

[Buccaneer]

I find all of this interesting. Before, it was the thieves and their stupid rational vs. those rightly calling them thieves. Now we all can do what is a great idea (downloading copyrightable materials for a fee, legally). Isn't this a much better way?

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

I find all of this interesting. Before, it was the thieves and their stupid rational vs. those rightly calling them thieves. Now we all can do what is a great idea (downloading copyrightable materials for a fee, legally). Isn't this a much better way?

Just think what things could be like know if the record company execs had gotten their heads out of the asses years ago.

[AgPete]

Originally Posted by sabotai

Just think what things could be like know if the record company execs had gotten their heads out of the asses years ago.

I'd like to see the film industry following the recording industry's path. With big screen TVs and home theater systems, who needs the freaking theater anymore. Stream that bad boy directly to my house and skip the babies crying and Siskel & Ebert wanna-bes that sit two rows back.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by AgPete

I'd like to see the film industry following the recording industry's path. With big screen TVs and home theater systems, who needs the freaking theater anymore. Stream that bad boy directly to my house and skip the babies crying and Siskel & Ebert wanna-bes that sit two rows back.

Two rows back? You're lucky, they always seem to sit right fuckin behind me. Case in point, when I went to see LOTR: ROTK, the theater was half full, and I'm sitting off to the side, away from everyone (Where I like to be...away from people). In comes this coupel with their kid and the woman would not shut up! Every ten seconds, she said something else. About 10 minutes into the movie, I get up and move. First time I had to move to get away from someone. (Every other time, the people behind me say stuff and be quiet again for awhile. This time...god damn, she could not stop talking)

Anyway, I agree. That'd be a cool idea if they could do it right.

[Dutch]

I actually taught my kids how to behave in public. What a concept!

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Dutch

I actually taught my kids how to behave in public. What a concept!

Teaching kids to behave in public...that's so crazy it might actually work!

[Dutch]

[Yossarian]

1 cent per megabyte.

Seemingly legal - but probably in a very 'grey' kind of way.

amazing though. Just downloaded 5 albums for about $2.50

http://www.allofmp3.com

btw... a 'VIP' user is just a registered user who has added money to the account.

[sabotai]

It's a company located in Russia, fwiw.