Downloading Music

[Iandefor]

Sure, I love downloading music for free.

Where would I be without CC'd music that was redistributed without charge?

[Kingsley]

I download freely because music, software, etc. is "right there" and I have a fast connection. IMO, there's no point in buying music off sites like Itunes when the same music is easily available for free online with little or no consequences. As far as supporting the artists that I like to listen to, forget it. Rap is my favorite genre and it's well-known that most rap artists produce songs about having lots of money and hustling. So if you look at this from a certain viewpoint, I'm not being hustled when I download music!

[Spike-X]

Downloading (whether legal or not) is evil full-stop.

You end up with a low quality piece of crap / low quality piece of crap with DRM, which is marginally cheaper than a CD.

What about flac files?

[stalker145]

There are alot of people saying why they don't download for free. Yet according to the poll most people tend to do download for free.

So free downloaders, why do you? I'm really interested in hearing both sides of the arguement.

Monsieur Dozier

I voted to "stick it to the man" since it's the closest.

I stay well away from downloading any copyrighted music due to 'legal issues'. I do, however, frequent Jamendo for the majority of my tunes.

While, as mentioned, one doesn't get the highest quality when downloading music, I don't need super-high quality. I listen to my music on tinny laptop speakers or on my MP3 player while running (who can tell the difference between high and low quality when huffing and puffing on a run?).

There are a lot of good groups out there... you just have to wade through the mediocrity to get to it.

[tehet]

Funny story. Someone I know does reviews for an on-line magazine. He got a new album for review but it wouldn't play in any of his devices. Turns out the DRM-stuffs on there prevent you from playing it on any device that can play burnt and/or mp3 disks. So he had to download the tracks in order to do the review ...

Supposedly only review copies are affected, though I'll make sure never to buy anything from that label again.

Where I once replaced all worth while d/l-ed music with proper copies I'm less and less inclined to do so these days.

[Soarer]

I think the question is more complex. I wouldn't use iTunes, partly because of the DRM but also the poor quality and high cost.

Since it now seems allofmp3.com is actually legal (until the next court case) I think they provide a useful model of how it could work. On there, an uncompressed album costs approximately $6, compressed about $3. This should be enough to pay the artists, but would not cover the massive overheads of the record labels. Who would pay for all the Britney advertising?

Now we have the internet and search engines, and can preview music before buying, do we really need those labels to 'discover' artists for us, and have them pushed to us on TV and in the press? If the answer is no, as i believe it is, the model is broken and allofmp3 shows one way to fix it.

I would happily pay this kind of money for music, even though I could get it for free on P2P. But I won't pay $15+ for an album on CD or on iTunes. Who is stealing from whom in that case?

[click4851]

once it becomes digitized, its almost impossible to stop it from being copied. As a band tries to make a living, do they just live off their live shows...? Just chalk up any recordings as advertizment?...who knew moving from tape and vinyl combined with broadband internet would reveal such a puzzle.

[n3tfury]

Funny story. Someone I know does reviews for an on-line magazine. He got a new album for review but it wouldn't play in any of his devices. Turns out the DRM-stuffs on there prevent you from playing it on any device that can play burnt and/or mp3 disks. So he had to download the tracks in order to do the review ...

Supposedly only review copies are affected, though I'll make sure never to buy anything from that label again.

Where I once replaced all worth while d/l-ed music with proper copies I'm less and less inclined to do so these days.

and i wonder why they implemented such moronic measures? HMMMMM

[bruce89]

What about flac files?

Obviously it is excused.

[jacob01]

yea i believe it is stealing but i also believe that the companies are charging way to much for the music. the artist hardly gets any thing and the recording companies make billions by jacking up the prices. if you think about it the recording companies are in a way like ms they make billions and no one does any thing because they want it so they give in and since all recording companies do it people don't realize they are getting screwed.

but any way, with out the recording companies their would be no music or it would be harder to get the music so im not really complaining other than saying they charge too much and jack the prices up.

yea if you think about it 99 cents for a song is allot especially when it is bad quality and when it has all this protection on it limiting you from playing it on another device.


btw what percent of the money from an album you purchase goes to the artist? i don't believe they get much