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Know any good sites that of course will have samples of the music to help guide me?

Jamendo, Magnatune, Bandcamp, Amie Street, TheSixtyOne and Zunior; to name a few.

The real useful function of the labels was traditionally separating the hits from the duds. They weren't perfect at it, of course, but that was their job. They seem to have forgotten their job function, however, and instead chase trends ("hey this singer is hot, let's sign a dozen more like her!"), interfere with the artists ("we think your song would be more marketable if...."), and generally just try to get away with ripping off as many people as possible ("pay for play" musician law, "losing" the addresses of well known artists so as to be unable to forward on payments, P2P lawsuits, etc).

One of the things I like about Amie Street is that the users take on the label's job. Songs start out as free and rise in price to a maximum of 98 cents as people buy them. So if you buy a 98 cent song, you're guaranteed to have something that many people like. Otherwise, you could buy a free/very-low-cost song, taking a risk that it is as good as the song preview makes it out to be, and not risk much money. With the $15 that you might use to buy one 12-song CD, you could buy 15 hits and 6 nickel-priced possible hits. 21 songs versus 12 songs and that's not even counting free songs you could take a chance on.

I'd suggest a slight alteration of rules 1 and 2:

1. Stop buying new music from RIAA affiliated labels
2. Stop going to shows of new acts signed up with RIAA affiliated labels

There are plenty of good artists whose music you can buy and whose shows you can attend who aren't affiliated in any way with the RIAA. Don't punish them for the RIAA's sins. In fact, let's reward them for not being part of the RIAA-mess. If artists see non-RIAA artists doing well, they'll realize that they don't need the RIAA. I recommend signing up with http://www.emusic.com/ and http://www.amiestreet.com/ and purchasing some songs from there.

You can hear the tunes from the 7th Guest and 11th Hour again, and download them, from Amiestreet: http://amiestreet.com/music/the-fat-man-and-team-fat/7-11-soundtrack-to-the-7th-guest/ I tried to make the audio CD a real nice experience, flowing from track to track, and kind of telling a story. I think it came out pretty enjoyable--it feels better to listen to than the CD that came with the game, or the mp3's. At least to me. I hope you enjoy it... http://www.texasmusicroundup.com/The_Fat_Man_p/ru0206.htm

There are multiple alternatives here are some suggestions (and there are lots more than this out there).

If you just want to listen try http://last.fm/ for streaming music of artists that you like (if you scrobble it's easier to find artists that sound like artists you like as last.fm will make recommendations - you can also subscribe to a postcast and get free songs). For some free songs try the shop at http://www.sellaband.com/ (the non free songs are 50 cents each - there's usually 3 free songs per artist). Amie street can also be a cheap place to find indie or older mainstream music http://www.amiestreet.com/ (the more popular songs are more expensive but the less popular songs are cheap). I didn't like it so much but there's always we7 http://www.we7.com/ - it used to be ad supported (not sure about now) but after some amount of time you can download a set number of ad free songs per month.

As with all things YMMV compared to what I've liked and found useful. As with all of these sorts of sites registration is required. None have been particularly onerous with excessive emails and they usually have ways of opting out of getting email from them.

There are a few sites out there working to change the perspective of the masses and open a reasonable store that cuts out the cartels and pays the good artists well.

I've made one of them. It's still pretty early and we're slowly building our music catalog. Our take is we give away free mp3s to people who will rate some randomly assigned stuff. This lets you passively hear a sampling of whats out there. It also lets you find music you might like in a top-25 like interface (that you can sort by everyones ratings, your friends, etc.). http://www.choosik.com/ if anyone wants to check it out. I'd love to hear feedback if anyone has it, too.

I also highly recommend http://www.amiestreet.com/ . Each song starts out cheap(.15, I think) and raises in price as more people buy it.

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

These aren't obscure or unknown Indie bands like those you'd find on Amie Street

Or, better yet, how would a border guard be able to tell that the MP3 file on my MP3 player is illegal versus legally purchased from a shop that sells non-DRM-ed MP3s (Amie Street or eMusic for example)? Both MP3s could look exactly alike and it's not like I can whip out the source CD to prove that I bought it legally. Sure, I could check the website, print out a list of my purchases, and prove it that way, but what if the website goes out of business? If I buy a song from eMusic and then eMusic folds, can I be heavily fined and have my player taken away since now I can't prove that my non-DRM-ed MP3 is legit? Is the legitimacy of my music now going to be tied to whether or not the site I bought it from is still operating?

I first thought that an opt-in model along with protections against copyright infringement lawsuits would help repair an otherwise stupid idea, but then I realized: The RIAA members aren't the entire recording industry. There are lots of artists out there who are members of indie labels or self publish. Let's say I sign up for this Hypothetical Blanket License To Copy and then download some Marina V songs illegally from a P2P network (i.e. without properly paying for them). She's not part of a major label so will she be compensated? Does she lose her right to sue me because the major labels (of which she's not a part) have a deal with me? I highly doubt that would be a legal arrangement. So at best this deal would leave users even more confused. It would be ok to download Label A's music, but not Indie Label B's, yet just fine to download a song from Label C, but not from Artist D.

Just to make it more complicated, take the example of the Barenaked Ladies. They used to be with Warner Music but left. Warner (to my knowledge) owns their earlier work, but they own their own latest album themselves. So it would be ok to download some BNL songs but not others. (Granted they probably wouldn't sue their fans since that's one of the reasons they left their label, but that legal option of theirs shouldn't be removed from them because a third party signs a deal that doesn't directly involve BNL.)

You'd get more people to visit a site if you turned it into a link.
It's really quite simple (here on slashdot, anyway): just put "<URL:" in front of the link and ">" after it.
In your case, "<URL:http://amiestreet.com>" becomes "http://amiestreet.com/".
Easy, no?

Have you tried Amie Street.com or EMusic.com?

See http://www.amiestreet.com/ for mp3 version of NIN songs for sale legally, max price 98c lots of songs less than 98c at the moment.

Or people could rip songs from vinyl, tapes, or CDs that they already own. Or they could have cheap music from online sources that is cheaper than $1/track, like Amie Street.

How much would it cost to fill an iPod with songs from used CDs?

Under current management, yes, they seem like they would rather bring the whole company down in a huge fireball rather than readjust themselves to fit the bottom line. However, I think that once some of those new, nimbler companies arise (and we're already seeing the beginnings of them with the likes of eMusic and Amie Street), the old companies will be forced to change course. Especially once new blood (that better understands the situation) rises into the executive ranks.

Sure they might start by trying to litigate or legislate the new-comers out of business, but that approach will only buy them a small amount of time. Then they'll create new "divisions" or "spin-off" companies which will experiment with the new model without impacting the name of the old model. Eventually, they will be forced to move completely into the new model. Or they will be forced out of business. Hopefully, if the latter happens, the copyrights to the music will revert to the artists and not to some random IP vulture that picks at the corpse. (Though the realist in me knows that the IP vultures will be feeding well when the old record companies start dying.)

Amiestreet.com is showing media companies and artists a new model. New tracks by any artist start out free. As demand warrants, the price of a track rises. Max price is $.98/track. Amiestreet keeps the first $5.00 to cover overhead, then passes along 70% of the gross to the artist after that. Much better deal than any other music distribution scheme.

I actually agree with this. Perhaps my idealism is fading as I hit the wrong side of 30, but I don't understand why anyone would feel they have the right to wholesale steal music. It's not that expensive to buy mainstream music off the internet. Even stores provide some added value.

Moreover, there are so many wonderful low cost sources of unusual hard-to-find music these days that I really no longer buy into the it's-too-hard-to-find-so-I-must-pirate argument. Certainly, the music by the garage band formed by your best friend in kindergarden who you then lost touch with may not be available on iTunes.... but he's also not going to sue you. He's also probably not trying to make a living off his music.

One thing that gets me is the argument that a musician isn't being harmed by music piracy. This is simply false. You can argue about the degree of harm, but so what?* Every song that's sold results at the very least in more publicity and bargaining power for the artist -- even in the rare case they don't receive any actual $ for their music. Stealing music from an independent struggling musician is just unconscionable. I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over Brittany Spears losing out on a few sales; but where do you draw the line? These days, artists have a choice whether or not to sign a big label deal -- this is not 20 years ago where it's play ball with the big boys or go home.

Finally, just to add something of value to this post -- I recently came across a website called http://amiestreet.com/. This is an amazing example of what indie music can be. Looking around on this site, I came across obscure little bands that I swore I would never hear from again, and yet here they are, trying to make a few bucks. What possible excuse do I have of stealing from these folks? Look at the prices -- I think I paid as much as 75 cents for one song and as little as $1.12 for an album.

Really folks, don't you think piracy is so 1999?

* My favorite story is from Jill Sobule, who is a truly gifted singer/song-writer. http://www.jillsobule.com/home.html She had one breakthrough hit many moons ago -- you may remember "I Kissed A Girl". That was hers. She's on record as not having made a penny from that song because of a bad record deal. Sure, they exist. But because of that one silly little song I found someone who's become one of my favorite artists and I've supported directly for years. The studio system is icky at its worst, but it also plays a role.

"Writing a RECommendation is your way of sharing a song you really believe in with the whole community. You get RECs each time you purchase credit on Amie Street and you can use them to earn free credit. Whenever a song you have RECd goes up in price, you earn free credit."

"You can REC any song you have purchased and write a short review and who it sounds like. The exciting part comes next, when you receive credit for more music as the song you recommended becomes more popular with Amie Street members. Just as a song rises in price as it becomes more popular, you are rewarded with more credit in your account as the song you recommended becomes more popular.

If you REC a song while it is free and it subsequently rises in price to 98 cents, you can Cash Out and get that 98 cents back into your account to spend on more music. If you REC a song when it is at 1 cent or above you get half the difference back into your account when you Cash Out."

I love the Amie Street concept and I am likely to buy from their site but the information they provide is not complete. Maybe not all songs start at $0.

It makes sense though. Lately they have signed up a bunch of record labels that then introduces a whole lot of albums all at once. Have a look at http://amiestreet.com/elvispresley
All the Elvis songs start at $0.22. This is either because it is the introduction price or it is because only entire albums have been sold.

Actually, Amie street music ( http://amiestreet.com/ ) has been using this approach for quite a while. They sell DRM free downloads of independent bands, the prices are driven by the demand, and, they are probably the most customer oriented service out there.

Smells more like a copy than a novel business idea.

This is already a feature of the site. http://amiestreet.com/recs/buzzing/today/

Sure releasing your music on the Internet might mean that you don't always interact with your fans on a one-by-one local level, but it means that you can interact with many more fans on a national level.

To give an example, I recently purchased two songs from Enter the Haggis on AmieStreet.com. (The Barfly and No More Stones from http://amiestreet.com/enterthehaggis in case anyone's interested.) The band is based in Toronto and I would never have known that they existed had it not been for music fans on Amie Street posting recommendations (RECs) for their songs. I listened to the song previews, loved what I heard, and proceeded to buy a couple of their songs. I'll now be on the lookout for new music that they release and would even consider going to a concert that they played at if they came to my area. (Which, admittedly, is unlikely.)

I could easily take "Enter the Haggis" out of the paragraph above and replace it with any of the 18 other bands whose music I've bought from Amie Street. None of these bands had to go to the major RIAA labels and sell their musical souls in order to get their music to my ears. If that doesn't help music, I don't know what will.

I buy my music online from Amie Street. They give me my music with no DRM and it should work on any platform. (Their website works in FireFox, so I don't see why FF-on-Linux shouldn't work and the songs themselves are plain MP3 format.) The no credit card thing would be an issue almost anywhere you shop online though. And no, Amie Street isn't "big name celebrity singers" (except for Barenaked Ladies), but they have a bunch of smaller groups who have great sounds. Personally, I'd recommend Beats Working, Filthy Teddy, Foregone, and Seth Kallen & The Reaction. Your musical tastes may vary, of course, but there's a huge number of songs to choose from. (No, I don't work for Amie Street in any way, shape, or form. I just really like their service.)

One of the factors TFA skips over is that there are a tremendous number of high-quality songs available legally, for free. There is so much talent out there that would never be heard under the old label-production-distribution model. The average Joe can now write some great stuff in his bedroom using just his PC and get worldwide publishing overnight, for free. My favorite example of this is Amie Street, where songs start out free, and ones that get popular rise in price until they reach a maximum of 98 cents.

But if you own a license to the song, then what is wrong with obtaining a 1:1 quality of the song?


I think it all comes down to choice with regard to quality.

You will never get 1:1 quality with a CD. Its a sample of the sound, and has a degree of loss. Not much of a loss as it samples at 44 KHz, but still a loss.

Most people will say that the loss on a CD is less than the threshold of hearing. I'd agree with that in general. There is more loss on a MP3 or AAC file, but if its less than the threshold of hearing for you, does it matter? Probably not. If you are a real purist, you'll probably play off vinyl to avoid sampling/compression errors. Not that most music systems could do justice to this level of sound quality, and vinyl does scratch ....

Now I personally think that apple should sell music without DRM free and high quality. Possibly apple feels the same about this also, as they are in this game to sell ipods, not music.

If you are buying 128 Kb/s AAC (equivalent to 192 Kb/s MP3 roughly), burning it to a cd and re-ripping in high quality, perhaps you should consider one of two options:

1. Rip into a loseless format. If you are doing very high quality MP3's (around 320 kb/s) you might as well use a lossless code as the size difference isn't that much anyway, and you will have no degredation from the original on playback.

2. If disk space is an issue, use AAC, not MP3, as it should generally lose much the same information on the second pass encoding. MP3 drops different types of sounds to save space, so it makes more sense to use a similar codec on the second pass.

Or, where possible, use a music provider that doesn't encrypt your music.

Anyway, just my 2c worth,

Michael

Check out AmieStreet. Artists upload their tunes, and the price for each track is a function of how popular it is. All tracks are DRM-free. Many excellent tracks are also free-as-in-beer free (until they get popular, anyway).

I'd rather pirate the track and give the artist the buck directly. If only there were a way to do that...

I'd rather pirate the track and give the artist the buck directly. If only there were a way to do that...

I'd rather pirate the track and give the artist the buck directly. If only there were a way to do that...