The Great "Cheapest Legal Music Downloads" Hunt.

Crescendo_2

Hi
I hope this is the right place to post this - but if not please accept my apology.

Does anyone know whether this is an ok site for downloading music and are there any pitfalls?

https://www.allcoolmusic.com

Thanks for your time.

Crescendo

Fran

Crescendo wrote:

Hi
I hope this is the right place to post this - but if not please accept my apology.

Does anyone know whether this is an ok site for downloading music and are there any pitfalls?

https://www.allcoolmusic.com

Thanks for your time.

Crescendo

As it is not a UK site, it has to come into the "grey area". What might be ok in other countries (like the examples they give under "legal") might not be ok here.

RufusA

AFAIK AllCoolMusic is poor value for money, and very dubious legally.

What you are paying for is P2P software and to use the Limewire service which is free anywhere. The tracks you download are as with any other P2P service (such as Kazza, Bittorrent etc.) a mixture of legal independently released music, and a majority of illegally copied music.

Their claim that it is a "Legal Service" releates to an out of date American court judgement that using P2P software per-se isn't illegal (although downloading copyrighted tracks that you haven't paid for obviously is).

There is no money being paid to the artist by AllCoolMusic and what they charge you for is "free" software. They do not filter out copyrighted material.

IMHO avoid like the plague.

YMMV - Rufus.

Rajesh

Buy this months "Computer Shopper" magazine and get a free Napster trial
Quote:
"One month's access to 1,600,000 online music tracks"

mimp

Does anyone know of any legal download sites that we're allowed to mention which let you get your music as wav/aiff or lossless compressed (FLAC etc..) files? I know bleep does but only on a very select bunch of releases and at a higher price.

Although it's not the cheapest and it's a niche site, it's not ridiculous and the back catalogue on there can be much less expencive then hunting down some deleted vinyl release on ebay. Probably sounds better too.

I can't really understand why most people would bother with download sites for albums when a real CD can usually be had as cheap. I imagine it's destroying what's left of the CD single market tho.

Fran

The Woven Wheat Whispers website has yet to be launched fully yet but looks promising for folk & related music.

mentm

Back on topic what are the legal cheaper alternatives for ipod users who think itunes is expensive and the bit-rate is too low.

Thanks in advance

biglugs

We can argue "legality" all we want, but personally I'm going to keep using that great Russian site, which gives me top quality downloads at a sensible price. But I don't give them my credit card details though!

koru

chrb wrote:

I see your point, but it's not stealing, it's copyright infringement.

Stealing involves someone losing something precious to them, something which they had to work hard to obtain. Copyright infringement only involves producing a copy of something; nobody has anything taken away from them. Lowering the value of an original item is not the same as stealing money which they already possess.

Morality is a tricky thing. What if you bought from one of the Russian sites, and sent the money you saved to the Oxfam Earthquake appeal? Are human lives worth more than propping up a market model that relies on artificial scarcity? Those are the kinds of questions you end up asking yourself when thinking about the moral issues, but then, I guess we can convince ourselves of anything if we want to.

This is just semantics. I can define stealing differently: taking something that is owned by someone else without paying for it. The mere fact that what you are taking is an intangible copy, rather than a tangible object, does not mean you can help yourself.

Copyright infringement IS a subset of stealing. I agree it is not as morally reprehensible as, say, burgling an old lady's house and taking her money and valuables. It would be even less morally reprehensible if you donated your savings to charity, but I doubt anyone really is doing that.

As you say, you can convince yourself of anything if you want to. But that will end up in anarchy. If you are poor, is it OK to steal money from someone who is rich? For 99.9% of us, there is always someone who is poorer than us and would therefore have the right to help themselves to our stuff. Given the obscene wealth of every user of this site compared with most Africans, shouldn't they have the right to march to Europe and grab their share?

Better, in my view, to stick to simple principles like it is wrong to take what you haven't paid the owner for. I'm not even saying don't do it. We all do things that are wrong: speeding, "borrowing" pens from the office, taking a sick day to watch the cricket, taping a friend's LP, over-egging an insurance claim. None of them are the worst crime in the world, but let's not pretend we do it because it is morally acceptable. We do it because we can get away with it and because any loss we cause to others is exceptionally small and spread over many people.

rich_the_moneysaver

Just spotted woolies are selling quite a lot of the digital singles chart for just 59p!!
Its amongst the cheapest on the net -but be careful as some singles can be up to £1.49. However if it`s just a `track`- i.e. just that song you want, you cannot complain with a cost of 59p surely??

Here`s the link for you to browse:-

Woolies cheap downloads