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Similarly, the "I wish I hadn't bought this CD" effect is why I've giving up on commercial music (especially mainstream music). I got tired of buying CD albums of which only a fraction of it's tracks were enjoyable and of which I would eventually get tired.

Then I discovered mp3.com (before they sold out), other mp3 hosting sites, and netlabels in the late 90's, and my purchasing of CD's quickly came to and end. Well, almost. I found 4 dronology tracks of the Stars of the Lid at Epitonic and enjoyed the free tracks so much I bought their double-disk Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid (the only CD purchase I made in 2005).

My point is that if you want the music industry to change for the better, it might help to give up on their music while exploring all the legally free music distributed online. Downloading copies of their music only shows them there's still a demand for their stale product, which encourages the RIAA to simply try to channel that demand back to CD sales instead of forcing the music industry to evolve and innovate.

As for myself, I've found enough artists and netlabels (and netlabels at the Internet Archive) that freely distribute music only through the Internet (netaudio) that I don't care if the industry fixes itself or not, and I enjoy searching for new sources of netaudio: it's like online treasure hunting. Sure, there's a lot of questionable and non-creative music online, but there's also a greater diversity of music online than there is in stores.

Just like there are good FOSS alternatives to commercial software, there are good netaudio alternatives to commercial music. And if you can't find anything you like there's plenty of free audio software to help you fix that problem, because problems don't fix themselves, and few of those that cause them bother to address their problems as long as they can get away with it.

But if you really want commercial music and need to listen to it before buying it, there are always sites like Napster's that allow you to listen to full albums a limited number of times. Then at least the music industry will know that you didn't buy any tracks or CD's not because you had downloaded free copies but because you didn't like what you heard.

There's still fantastic music being made, just not on major labels.
I recommend these websites:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/
http://tinymixtapes.com/
http://www.epitonic.com/
And to a lesser degree, http://www.allmusic.com/.

If you can't find new music you like, you aren't trying hard enough!

Probably? So there is music that you download instead of buying, like it, and never pay for? Does this happen often. This week? Today? Why don't you buy it kahless2k? Is $13.99 an album too expensive? Is $.99 a download too much for you? Tough. 3D Studio Max is too much for me so I just don't buy it. I'll work something out.

It's pretty funny how despite admitting you own music you like that you haven't paid for you tell him to adapt his business model. How does a business adapt to a model that's getting it for free? How does a business compete with that. You would think the obvious answer is to make it available online as legitmate downloads. Well, it's been here for 2 years yet P2P music sites are still busy as ever.

What do you suggest? It's hardly expensive, unless $.99 for a song is too expensive for you, in which case you've got BIGGER problems. Is it because the quality is bad? No, you've got music you like that you haven't paid for? So what is it? What makes you download music you like and not pay for it, and how is a business meant to adapt to that? They've lowered their prices in the past few years, yet people will still bitch about it. If you don't want to pay for music then try a site like http://epitonic.com/ and check out some indie music which is available at no charge, and the quality is excellent.

This might help to prevent a few people from sharing copyrighted material, but what's to stop the RIAA from suing due to the fact that someone could still find a way around the filter? Remember napster had a similar issue when it was used to trade music online. Even with the filters in place, napster had to shut down until its filters didn't even let one single copyrighted song to pass through.

Of course, what's the need of using software like limewire, kazaa, etc, go to Dmusic, allmusic.com, or even Epitomic.com. For movies, go to archive.org. For software, use your favorite search engine to look for any OSS, Freeware, or Shareware equivalent.

Epitonic.com can help you find a whole lot of good indie/experimental music, and they even have free, full-track downloads of songs by the artists they have info on, so you can get a decent feel for the type of music before you go out and buy their CDs. I'll also shamelessly plug a very useful LiveJournal, which has been finding good indie music downloads for a long time.

Pitchfork
Insound
Epitonic

One of the cool things that Pitchfork has been able to do is translate their on-line success into off-line events as well. We attended the Intonation Music Festival a few weeks ago and it was great. It's encouraging to see other entrepreneurs start with a reasonable investment on the web instead of going broke the traditional way.

The internet has definitely leveled the playing field for the small guy.

I sat through a concert of Messiaen's organ works at my church, the Livre d'Orgue was one of the pieces played. 47 minutes of atonal, disjointed crap.

Thanks for that! It sounds really interesting. Tonality is over-rated. I'll have to take another trip to the university's "reference-only" music resource room. With my laptop. Most of Messaien is an "acquired taste". Turangalila-Symphonie sounds like a mess when you first listen to it, but after about five goes your brain starts to make sense of it.

For the ADHD crowd, no, it's not Nine Inch Nails and yes, it really is that long.

OK, you can diss Messaien all you like, but leave those exceedingly long fasteners alone! I mean, what next? "The melody of Ayers, Everall and Harris's Mesmeric Enabling Device was saturated with late-eighties cheeze, evocative of Pete Waterman snorting parmezan off the black keys of a Casio?"

Wow, that's news to me. Who knew?

Sonic Youth (shitload of mp3s for free here)

The Brian Jonestown Massacre (they give away mp3s of all their songs here, though that doesn't stop MS from trying to sell them at 99 cents a pop)

Modest Mouse (a couple free mp3s here)

The media may be convinced that p2p is synonmous with illegal activity, but they love scaring viewers by "exposing" crimes that may be happening in your neighborhood! Right next door!

However, the "average user" is much more concerned with their pocketbook than with nebulous notions such as "intellectual property" and "digital rights management". When I bring up the subject to family members, friends and students, their eyes just sort of glaze over. I honestly don't think the average person gives a shit about copyright. The only people who care are those who make money by creating copyrighted works, and those who market/produce/protect those works.

At the high school where I teach and do tech support, the first RIAA lawsuits a few years ago sent a number of students and teachers scurrying to me to see if they might be in trouble for downloading music. My two favorites were the stoner kid who didn't realize he was sharing 4000+ songs on Kazaa, and the evangelical principal who subscribed to Roadrunner for the sole purpose of downloading Christian music (illegally).

The RIAA/MPAA fight is not one that they can ultimately win, because the rules have changed with the ease of copying. They should really look to the model that Scott Kurtz of PVP and Epitonic - give the content away as a means of promotion, then make your money selling related items such as t-shirts, books, concerts, etc. Sure, books and videos can also be pirated, but until they're as easily accessible as music is via an iPod or something similar, there's still money to be made. Hell, most bands make their money on tour from t-shirt sales.

Anyway, don't think for a second that the "average user" thinks p2p is "wrong" - most users I've encountered are just annoyed that it isn't easier to find things.

Because (with the exception of a few excellent free, legal sources of sample music like http://www.epitonic.com/), the record companies and musicians don't think they can make any money from providing non-DRM'ed music files, this means that iPod users can't buy from any other store.

iPod and iTunes are Apple's toys (and excellent toys they are!), so they can do what they want with them, but it's not the most consumer-friendly stance to take.

How about Epitonic for free music downloads! Free, legal, and something that everyone will like.

Or indie bands. Here's a goood place to start and unlike local unsigned bands, chances are they will come near you on their next tour, the music is just as good if not better, and its a form of commercialization of music you can endorse without feeling unethical.

A lot of the RIAA bullshit doesn't fly with most indie labels. That's not to say they are all saints, but there's enough disdain for the RIAA way of doing things to keep most of them pretty clean. If not, artists are free to leave and move to labels which offer them more freedom or better deals.

Indie labels have been dealing with proper ways to handle ownership and copyright issue for decades. What's new to the net-based "the music industry sucks" crowd is old hat to the indie labels.

Also, don't confuse indie with vanity or lesser known RIAA labels.

Oh, and epitonic.com streams tracks too.

They Might Be Giants sells unprotected 256 kbit MP3s of their catalog for 99 cents per song or $9.99 per album.

Epitonic sells a much more diverse catalog and offers songs in MP3 format.

Do your part to talk with your acquaintances and encourage them not to support the RIAA.

Whining on Slashdot won't get much accomplished. Convincing people that they won't be able to enjoy music how they like it in the near future will make a difference.

Just last night I carefully explained to a friend who enjoys listening to Cold exactly why she should take a look at which record labels publish those CDs. It's pretty simple--sure, you may be able to buy the CD now, but the next one might be copy protected. If you buy stuff that is put out by those who aren't part of this major media conglomerate, then you won't be encouraging such business tactics.

I don't know how much of my message was actually heard and how much was just glossed over, but by the time I finished talking she seemed to be at least a little more aware that there should be more to CD purchasing than just finding what you like.

For me, it is COMPLETELY about the record label. I use the RIAA Radar like nobody's business, and I try my absolute hardest only to buy CDs that come up clean when checked there. There are several highly-desirable purchases I refuse to make because I would be supporting the RIAA. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make because I understand the implications of giving in.

Fortunately, my music tastes lean towards electronic ("techno"), which is quite predisposed towards free sharing and downloading. Right now I can give you URLs to four artists' music sites that allow you to download 128kbps or better mp3s of those artists songs without any DRM. There are plenty of indie labels and pro-P2P/sharing musicians out there in other genres, but it appears to me that my favorite type of music has the largest percentage.

I have yet to see a copy protected CD from any of the labels I usually buy from - as a matter of fact, many of them are making their music available as ultra high qualioty Lame VBR MP3s through eMusic.

More people need to check out the free mp3s at Epitonic and Insound to get a taste of what's available from indie labels - virtually all of it in unprotected formats, and virtually all of it far better than the slop the major labels dump out on Clear Channel. Check out The Streets - "Fit But You Know It" at Insound - catchiest single I've heard for years! Great stuff!

The reason music is dead is very simple. There is no innovation.

Music is not dead. What a stupid sound bite. Music will never die. Perhaps the way the Big 5 get it to us might change.. perhaps their pricing model might change.. perhaps the Big 5 will dissolve themselves in a fit of greed. But on thing is for sure.. as long as there are humans, there will be music.

And yes, there still is GOOD music out there, but the Big 5 is not hocking that kind of music. Indie labels are tho. If you don't like Big 5's music, then stop caring and stop complaining and go figure out what the hell you DO like.

Most everyone I talk to thinks that top 40 music on the radio sucks. I happen to agree (except for 50 cent, haha)

I think I'm one of the few lucky enough to have lived by and grown up with an excellent college music station. Through their various shows and DJs, I've been able to find out what type(s) of music I'm really into, rather than having the Big 5 tell me what I like.

The moral of the story is that if you dig a little deeper than what's on the surface, you can find the real gold. I believe Indie bands always prove to have much more talent and creativity than the producer-molded garbage you hear on top 40 stations.

That said, Epitonic is a great site to listen to cool songs and figure out how to break away from that mainstream cycle.

• Speed. Though I'm sure many can provide their own anecdotal evidence on how iTunes works fine on their machines, that doesn't invalidate the many, MANY claims of iTunes being a bloated, resource hog (at least on Windows.). Foobar and Winamp with a little tweaking open almost instantaenously, while iTunes lags behind on starting up. Even when minimized, iTunes is taking up far more CPU than a media player should (even more than WMP!).
• MPC/FLAC/SHN/APE/etc. support. If applications like Foobar, Winamp, and QCD can pull it off, why can't iTunes, with it's beefy 19.5 MB download, play simple file formats like these that've been around for years? Wouldn't it work in their favor to allow their users more choice, to let their users listen to their music in whatever format they've chosen to encode them in?
• Queueing. Once again, something included with XMMS, Winamp, and even MMJB. If your listening to a huge random playlist of songs in Winamp, but want to hear a particular song after the one your listening to, just select the song in the playlist and hit 'Q'. Winamp will finish the currently playing song, then play the song you selected, then return to randomly shuffling the tracks automatically. You can do this with multiple tracks, picking an order you want to hear those songs, and then shuffling the rest. Or you can hit 'J' to search the list of the songs in the playlist, and select the song(s) you want to enqueue.
• Downloading Songs Off iPod Through The Media Player. Instead of assuming your user is doing something criminal and (flimsily) preventing them from easy access to the songs on their iPod, why not give them the freedom to move songs back and forth onto their hard drives. ml_ipod, a plug-in that lets you manage your iPod through Winamp's media library, not only allows you to transfer songs from your iPod, but lets you even "reverse-sync" them.
• Support for competing MP3 portables. I think I read somewhere that iTunes may support another mp3 player besides the iPod, but that really isn't enough. Once again, I think it'd be beneficial the popularity of the program if they supported other players. Have they released an SDK for their community to toy with? The Foobar and Nullsoft teams did this, and they got great results.
• Gapless playback on iPod. This is a big deal to audiophiles, and I'm really surprised by the iPod's lack of support on this. The Rio Karma does this. Why not iPod?

Though I'll admit that the join-tracks feature was much-welcomed, what else did iTunes users get? Instead of downloading songs with propietary DRM, now we can encode our songs with a new proprietary DRM--songs that won't play on anything else? I think I'll stick with FLAC. The ability to publish my important music playlists for the whole world to see? I think I'll stick with Audioscrobbler. A free song from another bland RIAA-sponsored band? Epitonic has always provided a good sampling of independent artists and their music for you to try out. A wishlist to download those Top 40 songs later? Well, why don't I just download the songs now off allofmp3 now with their ridiculously low prices, in whatever format I want, without DRM? Import unprotected WMA files? Winamp

avoid riaa stuff at all costs. here's some amazing music to check out via p2p or via what few links i've bothered to dig up. what follows is a nice selection of pop and rock from some outstanding bands on some very fine record labels. support these artists, or artists like them--unencumbered by the riaa. support these labels. they do wonderful things. these are great songs from great albums.


aislers set, the - mission bells from (suicide squeeze/slumberland) aislers set on epitonic

ballboy - donald in the bushes with a bag of glue from silver suits for astronauts ep (sl)

barcelona - i have the password to your shell account from moshi moshi: pop international style (march) barcelona on epitonic

beulah - popular mechanics for lovers from the coast is never clear (velocette records) beulah on epitonic

boyracer - tell me where my hands should go from to get a better hold you've got to loosen your grip (555 recordings) boyracer on epitonic

bugs in amber - roller coaster ride from rocketship letters (sign language)

camera obscura - suspended from class from underachievers please try harder (merge)

can i be she-ra? - pizzacato

carissa's wierd - sofsticated fuck princess please leave me alone from songs about leaving (sad robot) more songs

catch, the - empty your pockets

cinerama - your charms from the flirt compilation

currituck county - the collision from unpacking my library (teenbeat)

decemberists - red right ankle from her majesty the decemberists (kill rock stars)

east river pipe - my life is wrong from (merge/sarah) east river pipe on epitonic

evening lights, the - in a day from landscape cdep (shelflife) more songs

faint, the -

avoid riaa stuff at all costs. here's some amazing music to check out via p2p or via what few links i've bothered to dig up. what follows is a nice selection of pop and rock from some outstanding bands on some very fine record labels. support these artists, or artists like them--unencumbered by the riaa. support these labels. they do wonderful things. these are great songs from great albums.


aislers set, the - mission bells from (suicide squeeze/slumberland) aislers set on epitonic

ballboy - donald in the bushes with a bag of glue from silver suits for astronauts ep (sl)

barcelona - i have the password to your shell account from moshi moshi: pop international style (march) barcelona on epitonic

beulah - popular mechanics for lovers from the coast is never clear (velocette records) beulah on epitonic

boyracer - tell me where my hands should go from to get a better hold you've got to loosen your grip (555 recordings) boyracer on epitonic

bugs in amber - roller coaster ride from rocketship letters (sign language)

camera obscura - suspended from class from underachievers please try harder (merge)

can i be she-ra? - pizzacato

carissa's wierd - sofsticated fuck princess please leave me alone from songs about leaving (sad robot) more songs

catch, the - empty your pockets

cinerama - your charms from the flirt compilation

currituck county - the collision from unpacking my library (teenbeat)

decemberists - red right ankle from her majesty the decemberists (kill rock stars)

east river pipe - my life is wrong from (merge/sarah) east river pipe on epitonic

evening lights, the - in a day from landscape cdep (shelflife) more songs

faint, the -

avoid riaa stuff at all costs. here's some amazing music to check out via p2p or via what few links i've bothered to dig up. what follows is a nice selection of pop and rock from some outstanding bands on some very fine record labels. support these artists, or artists like them--unencumbered by the riaa. support these labels. they do wonderful things. these are great songs from great albums.


aislers set, the - mission bells from (suicide squeeze/slumberland) aislers set on epitonic

ballboy - donald in the bushes with a bag of glue from silver suits for astronauts ep (sl)

barcelona - i have the password to your shell account from moshi moshi: pop international style (march) barcelona on epitonic

beulah - popular mechanics for lovers from the coast is never clear (velocette records) beulah on epitonic

boyracer - tell me where my hands should go from to get a better hold you've got to loosen your grip (555 recordings) boyracer on epitonic

bugs in amber - roller coaster ride from rocketship letters (sign language)

camera obscura - suspended from class from underachievers please try harder (merge)

can i be she-ra? - pizzacato

carissa's wierd - sofsticated fuck princess please leave me alone from songs about leaving (sad robot) more songs

catch, the - empty your pockets

cinerama - your charms from the flirt compilation

currituck county - the collision from unpacking my library (teenbeat)

decemberists - red right ankle from her majesty the decemberists (kill rock stars)

east river pipe - my life is wrong from (merge/sarah) east river pipe on epitonic

evening lights, the - in a day from landscape cdep (shelflife) more songs

faint, the -

avoid riaa stuff at all costs. here's some amazing music to check out via p2p or via what few links i've bothered to dig up. what follows is a nice selection of pop and rock from some outstanding bands on some very fine record labels. support these artists, or artists like them--unencumbered by the riaa. support these labels. they do wonderful things. these are great songs from great albums.


aislers set, the - mission bells from (suicide squeeze/slumberland) aislers set on epitonic

ballboy - donald in the bushes with a bag of glue from silver suits for astronauts ep (sl)

barcelona - i have the password to your shell account from moshi moshi: pop international style (march) barcelona on epitonic

beulah - popular mechanics for lovers from the coast is never clear (velocette records) beulah on epitonic

boyracer - tell me where my hands should go from to get a better hold you've got to loosen your grip (555 recordings) boyracer on epitonic

bugs in amber - roller coaster ride from rocketship letters (sign language)

camera obscura - suspended from class from underachievers please try harder (merge)

can i be she-ra? - pizzacato

carissa's wierd - sofsticated fuck princess please leave me alone from songs about leaving (sad robot) more songs

catch, the - empty your pockets

cinerama - your charms from the flirt compilation

currituck county - the collision from unpacking my library (teenbeat)

decemberists - red right ankle from her majesty the decemberists (kill rock stars)

east river pipe - my life is wrong from (merge/sarah) east river pipe on epitonic

evening lights, the - in a day from landscape cdep (shelflife) more songs

faint, the -

avoid riaa stuff at all costs. here's some amazing music to check out via p2p or via what few links i've bothered to dig up. what follows is a nice selection of pop and rock from some outstanding bands on some very fine record labels. support these artists, or artists like them--unencumbered by the riaa. support these labels. they do wonderful things. these are great songs from great albums.


aislers set, the - mission bells from (suicide squeeze/slumberland) aislers set on epitonic

ballboy - donald in the bushes with a bag of glue from silver suits for astronauts ep (sl)

barcelona - i have the password to your shell account from moshi moshi: pop international style (march) barcelona on epitonic

beulah - popular mechanics for lovers from the coast is never clear (velocette records) beulah on epitonic

boyracer - tell me where my hands should go from to get a better hold you've got to loosen your grip (555 recordings) boyracer on epitonic

bugs in amber - roller coaster ride from rocketship letters (sign language)

camera obscura - suspended from class from underachievers please try harder (merge)

can i be she-ra? - pizzacato

carissa's wierd - sofsticated fuck princess please leave me alone from songs about leaving (sad robot) more songs

catch, the - empty your pockets

cinerama - your charms from the flirt compilation

currituck county - the collision from unpacking my library (teenbeat)

decemberists - red right ankle from her majesty the decemberists (kill rock stars)

east river pipe - my life is wrong from (merge/sarah) east river pipe on epitonic

evening lights, the - in a day from landscape cdep (shelflife) more songs

faint, the -

avoid riaa stuff at all costs. here's some amazing music to check out via p2p or via what few links i've bothered to dig up. what follows is a nice selection of pop and rock from some outstanding bands on some very fine record labels. support these artists, or artists like them--unencumbered by the riaa. support these labels. they do wonderful things. these are great songs from great albums.


aislers set, the - mission bells from (suicide squeeze/slumberland) aislers set on epitonic

ballboy - donald in the bushes with a bag of glue from silver suits for astronauts ep (sl)

barcelona - i have the password to your shell account from moshi moshi: pop international style (march) barcelona on epitonic

beulah - popular mechanics for lovers from the coast is never clear (velocette records) beulah on epitonic

boyracer - tell me where my hands should go from to get a better hold you've got to loosen your grip (555 recordings) boyracer on epitonic

bugs in amber - roller coaster ride from rocketship letters (sign language)

camera obscura - suspended from class from underachievers please try harder (merge)

can i be she-ra? - pizzacato

carissa's wierd - sofsticated fuck princess please leave me alone from songs about leaving (sad robot) more songs

catch, the - empty your pockets

cinerama - your charms from the flirt compilation

currituck county - the collision from unpacking my library (teenbeat)

decemberists - red right ankle from her majesty the decemberists (kill rock stars)

east river pipe - my life is wrong from (merge/sarah) east river pipe on epitonic

evening lights, the - in a day from landscape cdep (shelflife) more songs

faint, the -

I'm an editor at the my college's newspaper. I received this in my inbox today from The Collegiate Presswire:

EDITOR'S NOTE: The president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is hosting an exclusive online chat with college editors and reporters this Wednesday, March 24, at 5 PM Eastern. The conference will focus on issues of music piracy on college campuses, and will have an interactive Q&A session.

Registration is free. To attend, go to http://cpnewslink.collegepublisher.com at the specified time, and click on "Enter Chat Room". Your email address can be used as your login name, and the conference password is "music".

Looks like the new lawsuits are just a part of a well-planned campaign to strike fear into us immoral college students. I guess this "conference" will consist mostly of the RIAA spewing propaganda with the hope that the editors and reporters in the chat will carry it back to their publications.

This news is very depressing. Shame on the RIAA for suing students! They could at least go after people who can afford the court fees.

I've found this site to be a good source of free downloadable MP3s. Gotta go grab more in light of this recent news ;)

Thought we already covered this topic. Alas...

In my attempts to kick my Kazaa habits, I find that many artists offer mp3s on their homepage. Also, try some of these sites:

• Epitonic
• Insound
• eMusic NOTE: Subscription service
• Warp Record's Bleep NOTE: Must pay for mp3s, but they're very high quality codes -- for you lame monkies out there, @ -aps)

Most mp3s available on the 'Net are from Indie groups. Definately check out band webpages, and label webpages (ex. Kill Rock Stars always is offering up the goods)

Don't be scared of buying cds though. It's by far the best way to aquire mp3s.

Warp make all new releases available electronically via their online store Bleep.com. It's based in the UK but sells worldwide. They are also ripping their back catalogue as quickly as they can.

You might also try Epitonic. Hasn't been updated for a while but they have lots o'stuff, catgeorised, reviewed legal and free to download.

Other than looking for non-RIAA music CDs, there are sites with legally downloadable music. It's not the pop hits of the day, but sites like Epitonic.com have great music that you can download in MP3 form legally. Google can help you find lots more sites if that's not to your liking; these are just the ones I have bookmarked.

European music and artists : independent (mp3).

ecompil : universal (wma)

a cool label

epitonic : good independent site (mp3)

This is just a selection from google

One of my favorite sites is Epitonic.com. I've found so many great artists there...

I'm going to be harsh here and tell you that failing to download a song you purchased strikes me as akin to flunking high school. I mean, how the...?

At the very LEAST, I would have considered it appropriate for emusic to have sent an e-mail saying "due to contractual obligations, our access to the following music will be ending in 30 days. Please download now or forever hold your peace." There was no warning.

I can understand that the music might go away, and if they were actually sorry, I might even be willing to forgive them for failing to notify me of that fact. But my big issue right now is the fact that they've "lost" their records of what I have and have not downloaded. So, while they're not calling me a liar, they are refusing to even let me exchange the missing music for something else in their catalog.

They were nice while they lasted, but I won't be going back.

unless a superior cost-competive online independent music distributor that provides unrestricted files happens to pop up, I'm sticking with emusic.

High quality. Great selection.

"I'm not sure that a device that would allow streaming but wouldn't allow you to copy would be very popular," he said.

I think you're right. He missed the point entirely. The problem is that he can't even think about the possibillity of radio being improved, enhanced, or otherwise changed. The RIAA and all of it's members are stuck with the mindset that the world will continue to accept their outdated model for music distribution. Their playing catchup (to be honest their not even playing catchup... they're just not playing) to new music distribution methods like epitonic.com, napster.com, and others, and their doing everything in their power to stop or otherwise hinder more revolutionary distribution methods. It all comes down to the simple fact that the RIAA was created as a method to protect the artist's rights and distribute music. Right now, it's not doing either particularly well. Out with the old, in with the new. And I'm not just speaking of an easily breakable DRM scheme... a totally new concept of how to profit from music is needed. Free mp3's and expensive concerts? Free mp3's and bonus material for cd buyers? Whatever method the future holds, everyone already knows that the RIAA won't be in the picture.

epitonic.com

Not quite the same as mp3.com as it hosts mp3s of bands who are already signed, but I've found quite a few bands I'd never have heard of otherwise

It seems implausible that Mr. Robertson did not make plans for the stewardship of uploaded content - whatever was his real intent in the first place?

mp3.com did evolve into a parody of itself, but he should have found another way to fortune rather than allowing this distribution channel to be silenced.

Let's hope bad things don't happen to Epitonic -- different model from mp3.com but it threatens to be a viable channel for distribution, if only more artists would sign up there exclusively.

I like Epitonic.com.

I've found a couple of good artists from there. Same basic layout as the original MP3.com, which I agree has gone farther down the tubes than last week's bad burrito.

But yeah, Epitonic's worth a try.

I recently discovered the epitonic web site which seems to specialise in obscure stuff from otherwise unheard of bands. I'm not sure how easy it is to get your own stuff onto the site but I felt the design encouraged exploration of new sounds better than most sites I've encountered.
Of course there is always iRate radio if you can figure out how to make it work.

eMusic had this. For about the price of two cd's a month, it was all you could eat. One of my friends was a subscriber, and with his downstream 'all you could eat' was quite a lot.

Now, there wasn't a lot of great stuff... but if you're not getting charged by the disc, there's no harm in experimenting ( and show me another online music service that features Arab on Radar and is associated with Matador Records, the New Pornographers label ).

Sadly, last month they changed the terms of service - at least for some users ( including my Friend ). Unlimited downloads are a thing of the past, and you get about two albums a month for the same price as before. At that rate, you might as well buy A list stuff from the record store.

Perhaps they were only targeting high usage users - there's nothing about the change on the frontpage ( no surprises there... ), but the free lunch appears to be over.

I've always felt trapped in Microsoft Hell
rhymes with GONAD!
and of course, my favorite song

what they're talking about

they'll probably blame it on the music I listen to....
;)

so I switched from my favorite web radio station to listen to this and I thought it sounded like a children's song. so I went back to the station and this was playing.

I've never heard this song before, but it seemed much more appropriate in my opinion ;)

Why don't you try Epitonic?

I love alternative music, but lately everything has sounded like Creed, or some crappy form of pop-punk.

Here are some starter sites. I highly recommend checking them out.

New Music Canada
Epitonic
GarageBand

The days of the epic, themed rock and roll album are pretty much over.

Sturgeon's Law /prov./ "Ninety percent of everything is crap". Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, "Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud."

No commercial relationship, just a happy customer etc.

Cheers,
Ian

No commercial relationship, just a happy customer etc.

Cheers,
Ian

If everyone started downloading legal music instead, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs from indie bands, and seeing their shows, instead of enriching the major labels every time you buy a Britney or New Kids CD. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads are not copyright violations because the artists give you permission to download them.

Probably the best known site for downloading MP3s is of course MP3.com . See especially their genre index . Click the link. You will be quite astounded at how many genres there are.

Unfortunately the website usability of MP3.com is atrocious, and their streaming audio seems to be buggy - I can't get it to work in either Explorer or Mozilla. To get an MP3 file to download to your hard drive, you have to register, which I'm sure will result in merciless spamming. May I suggest registering with a throwaway email address from spamgourmet ?

The Open Directory Project has Bands and Artists and Styles indices. Not all the artists offer downloads, but the site says they list 48,000 artists and I imagine many of them offer downloads.

There are better sites for hosting MP3s than MP3.com. Some of them allow you to buy the band's CD from the same page as the MP3 download. Among them are The Internet Underground Music Archives, CDBaby, Epitonic.com, Lulu, SoundClick, Matador Records and insound .

Monotonik provides BitTorrents with zip files containing 60 to 100 MP3s apiece available here.

If you prefer the higher quality, patent-free Ogg Vorbis files you can find several download sites here . Ogg Vorbis players are available for many platforms - WinAmp will play them on Windows, and I understand iTunes on Mac OS X supports Ogg now. There are open source Linux ogg players and encoders, even an open source fixed-point decoders for embedded applications where the CPU doesn't have floating point hardware.

There are also peer-to-peer applications for distributing legal music. See Furthur Network and konspire[2b] .

Unfortunately, musicians are often not very good website designers, so poor usability is a significant obstacle to getting music directly from artists' websites. If you're a musician, and you'd like to know how you can improve your website so more people will download your music, please read my article If Indie Musicians Wanted Their Music Heard....

Finally, there is the problem of finding the music that's actually worth listening to. The labels do serve the (somewhat) legitimate purpose of picking out the good from the bad. But we can do that ourselves with legal downloads by using collaborative filtering, for example by downloading our music with iRATE, which you'll find at

Probably the best known site for downloading MP3s is of course MP3.com. See especially their genre index. Click the link. You will be quite astounded at how many genres there are.

Unfortunately the website usability of MP3.com is atrocious, and their streaming audio seems to be buggy - I can't get it to work in either Explorer or Mozilla. To get an MP3 file to download to your hard drive, you have to register, which I'm sure will result in merciless spamming. May I suggest registering with a throwaway email address from spamgourmet?

The Open Directory Project has Bands and Artists and Styles indices. Not all the artists offer downloads, but the site says they list 48,000 artists and I imagine many of them offer downloads.

Better sites for hosting MP3's than MP3.com are Epitonic.com and insound.

If you prefer the higher quality, patent-free Ogg Vorbis files you can find several download sites here. Ogg Vorbis players are available for many platforms - WinAmp will play them on Windows, and I understand iTunes on Mac OS X supports Ogg now. There are open source Linux ogg players and encoders, even an open source fixed-point decoders for embedded applications where the CPU doesn't have floating point hardware.

There are also peer-to-peer applications for distributing legal music. See Furthur Network and konspire[2b].

I'm sure if more people availed themselves of the wide variety of music available for free download, we will make short work of both the RIAA and ClearChannel. Our lives would also be richer for it.