How can I tell if an MP3 site is legal?
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Topic: How can I tell if an MP3 site is legal?
Posted By: kiwi
Subject: How can I tell if an MP3 site is legal?
Date Posted: February 24 2008 at 14:58
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Sites selling MP3s range from well known sites such as iTunes that charge for music to others that claim they are legal and charge as little as 9 cents a track. I want to purchase music legally - how can I tell? Also tracks I have purchased from iTunes have annoying metallic distortion. Is this commonplace? ------------- We, verily, have made music as a ladder for your souls, a means whereby they may be lifted up unto the realm on high.. (Baha'u'llah) music |
Replies:
Posted By: Wilcey
Date Posted: February 24 2008 at 15:06
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Basic rule.......... if it looks to cheap to be true then it usually is! If you are unsure check with the band via their website.
But most of the 9 or 10 cents per track sites link back to a site called mp3 fiesta, they tell big fat lies, they DO NOT give royalites to bands, they are NOT authorised, in fact Visa and Mastercard are blocking them, (they used to be called allmp3 or something and are Russian, and deal aminly in credit card theft! so BE CAREFUL!)
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Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: February 24 2008 at 15:47
| As p-c says, if the tracks are cheap then they're probably illegal. Anything with the .ru domain is probably also illegal. I would try googling the name of the site and see what comes up. |
Posted By: kiwi
Date Posted: February 24 2008 at 15:49
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Thanks for these responses. What about Napster? Is is legit these days?
------------- We, verily, have made music as a ladder for your souls, a means whereby they may be lifted up unto the realm on high.. (Baha'u'llah) music |
Posted By: Angelo
Date Posted: February 24 2008 at 16:57
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Napster is legitimate in some countries, not all though. In Germany and the US for sure, but for example not over here in the Netherlands.
------------- http://www.iskcrocks.com" rel="nofollow - ISKC Rock Radio I stopped blogging and reviewing - so won't be handling requests. Promo's for ariplay can be sent to [email protected] |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: February 24 2008 at 17:05
I learned this thing the hard way, in 2001 I just had got a golden Visa, and one of those sites charged me US$ 3,000.00 in CD's, thanks God that as a lawyer I always take an insurance, so that added to the fact that Peruvian courier company had only received 2 albums, I was saved, but still had to pay the deductible which was US$ 300.00 (10%).
So be careful with the sites you pay to, some seem legal but are not, as Prog Chick says, if something seems too good to be real, more likely it's a fraud.
Iván ------------- 
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prog-chick wrote:Posted By: kiwi
Date Posted: February 24 2008 at 18:18
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So it appears there are two issues - legality and ethics. A country may have laws that don't prevent dodgy operators so users have to be happy that royalties are going to bands. Another problem with legal sites is the range of music available. Any recommendations? ------------- We, verily, have made music as a ladder for your souls, a means whereby they may be lifted up unto the realm on high.. (Baha'u'llah) music |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: February 25 2008 at 02:55
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The only legitimate mp3 site with considerably cheaper prices than the big shops is emusic.com ... and I very much recommend it. On my website I even added a "source" selector to the chart so you can narrow it down to albums which are available on emusic: http://ratingfreak.com/home/charts.xhtml?chart.source=emusic - http://ratingfreak.com/home/charts.xhtml?chart.source=emusic (the list does *not* feature all albums available on emusic though ... only those which I marked as such. But I'm continually adding/marking albums) Napster is also legitimate and a great source of music ... if you happen to live in one of the countries where it is available. They do not sell mp3s though ... they offer a flatrate subscription which allows you to listen to all they have for ~$10/month. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to: 
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Posted By: JLocke
Date Posted: February 27 2008 at 22:18
| wow, this is a new one on me . . . illegal downloaders actually pay for their songs? What is the point, when one can get them free and just as illegal? |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: February 28 2008 at 03:07
Care to explain what you mean? Both Napster and eMusic.com are 100% legal. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: Utah Man
Date Posted: February 28 2008 at 10:18
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Here's some lists of legal download sites: http://www.riaa.com/toolsforparents.php?content_selector=legal_music_sites - http://www.riaa.com/toolsforparents.php?content_selector=legal_music_sites http://kidsmusic.about.com/od/digitalmusicforkids/tp/legalmp3s.htm - http://kidsmusic.about.com/od/digitalmusicforkids/tp/legalmp3s.htm . |
Posted By: JLocke
Date Posted: March 01 2008 at 01:41
Um, what I mean is . . . if there are illegal websites that actually charge for their songs (as suggested by the topic starter), I don't understand why people would pay for it knowing it is illegal. I mean, they are going to break the law whether they pay from them from an illegal site or download them for free. So, why not do the latter if you're gonna break the law anyway? Did that make sense this time?
I guess I'm just a bit bemused by the thought of people actually paying for something that isn't legal. I mean, when I pay fro something, I do it because it is legal and I know that the profits will go to the proper places. Paying money for something illegally sold is pointless, since none of that money ever reaches the artists themselves in the first place.
Hopefully I made myself clear, there. I'm not supporting illegal downloading, but I am just making what I think is a valid point. Bottom line: what is the point of illegal download sites that you pay for? It is absolutely possible to download the same stuff for nothing, and it is still just as illegal as if you had payed for them from an illegitimate download site.
P.S. When did I ever say in my post that Napster and eMusic WEREN'T legal? I was refering to the original poster's question. It simply shocked me that there were download sites that charged for illegal crap. Paying for illegally pressed compact discs with artowrk and all, I could understabnd, but when it's raw data, and if you know it;s illegal, then why pay for it in the first place? I guess the guy was trying to avoid doing just that, but, yeah . . .
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: March 01 2008 at 03:40
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^ it was a misunderstanding then ... your post immediately followed mine, so I thought you were replying to what I had posted. As far as your question is concerned: At least in Germany in know from many forum discussion that people use illegal pay sites like allofmp3 for two reasons: 1. In order to avoid the risk of prosecution when using illegal file sharing, 2. to ease their conscience. They're paying a small amount of money for the downloads (about 1/10 of what you would have to pay regularly) and they simply ignore the fact that this money does neither go to the artists nor to the record companies. I don't understand it either ... but some of the people I discussed this with would rather give their money to a Russian criminal syndicate than to a big music company. Their usual argument is that the music companies only give a small percentage of CD/mp3 revenues to the artists ... but on the other hand they're not using websites like cdbaby.com either ... there the mp3 downloads are relatively pricey, but the money goes directly to the artists. Quite hypocritical if you ask me ... both supporting illegal file sharing and using illegal mp3 stores is massively hurting artists IMO. The only illegal practice which I still support is to swap some songs with your buddies in order to find new music ... but even that has become pretty much obsolete now that there are sites like myspace.com or last.fm. The new Amazon.com download pages are great too ... you can listen to high quality samples, only 30 seconds of each track but from the middle of the track, and for a 10 track album this is really sufficient for you to get an impression of whether you might like the album or not. @Angelo: It's strange how you put it ... Napster is completely legitimate, the problem is that the service is only available in a few countries. For many other music services it's even worse - they're only available in the U.S. or *maybe* in the UK, such as Amazon's new mp3 download or subscription services like Rhapsody or Yahoo Unlimited. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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