Slashdot Mirror

Anyone else know of other services with similar prices and selection?

How about WebListen?

mp3 and wma formats, this time a spanish site supposedly exploiting copyright loopholes. :-) Ironically enough, I didn't learn of it from piracy discussions, but from CNet in this very article. :-)

They started their site in 1997, and according to CNet have been sued once and survived. There were two sites sued at that time, and the other, Puretunes.com, had to settle with the industry for $10 million. Not sure how WebListen managed to survive.

This one?

There is a Spanish site, WebListen, which has been operating freely within the EU for over 6 years, under the same business model - they pay the Spanish author/composer societies. I believe that they have been sued by the Spanish equivalent of the RIAA, but won, suggesting that such an operation is legal in at least one EU state.

Weblisten offers about 150,000 MP3s and WMA for download, and pays royalties to the music industry. They claim to be legal around the world. They have about 150,000 songs available. Uses a simple web interface (I had problems using it with Mozilla, works with Opera, though), and various payment options.

Another one I have used is Allofmp3. They pay license fees in accordance with Russian legislation, so artists do get compensated, but I am not sure about the legality of downloading from them in Germany, or the USA for that matter. They have low prices, a nice site, and a large collection. Songs are available in various format, including Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WMA, at various bitrates, through their Online Encoding program.

HTH

weblisten.com provides relatively new albums on MP3, and a fair percentage, but not everything on Windows Media.

I've tried their service a couple of weeks ago and was able to obtain about 3 Gb of music over a weekend. They sell a night pass for a little more than $6 (Eur 5) or a night pass (GMT+1) or a weekend pass for less than $20 (Eur 15).

All you can eat downloads during a night or a weekend. Sadly it's mostly IE/Windows only and some of the MP3s (the older ones) are of questionable quality. But for trying it out the weekend pass is a steal.

weblisten.com provides relatively new albums on MP3, and a fair percentage, but not everything on Windows Media.

I've tried their service a couple of weeks ago and was able to obtain about 3 Gb of music over a weekend. They sell a night pass for a little more than $6 (Eur 5) or a night pass (GMT+1) or a weekend pass for less than $20 (Eur 15).

All you can eat downloads during a night or a weekend. Sadly it's mostly IE/Windows only and some of the MP3s (the older ones) are of questionable quality. But for trying it out the weekend pass is a steal.

Web Listen is based in Spain and lets you download MP3s and WMA (no DRM). MP3s are 192kbps.

They're licenced by Spain's licencing body - meaning they have access to all music (like radio stations), though they don't tend to have stuff thats not been released in Spain. Bit more expensive than the Russian offerings but that probably means more goes to the copyright owners. I've bought from them. There are no country restrictions.

For europeans only there is also OD2. OD2 did deals with the major labels and provides music to other outlets, Like MSN. You might be able to get to some services from the Premium Services button in Windows Media Player. Its more expensive than Web Listen and has DRM because the labels have control.

Letting the same licensing bodies that collect royalties from radio play do the same for downloads is definitely the way forward.

It's in Spain, it's legal and their site is both in English and in Spanish: Weblisten.

``I hardly get 4% CPU usage when watching media fullscreen.''
What player and driver do you use?

``If you use Gnome/KDE with antialiasing turned on, VNC will be certainly faster. Try xterms and fvwm, and you will not even be able to notice that the session is remote.''

Using WindowMaker and Gaim, either VNC or X works fine. But when I start Opera (needed because Mozilla Firebird doesn't play well with Weblisten), X crawls, whereas VNC stays usable. (Don't move the window, though. Likewise, don't even think about eclipsing part of the window under X.)

Effectively these services operate like radio stations, and pay over a certain amount, either per track downloaded, or a flat fee negotiated, to these organisations. The general consensus is that they are legal in their home countries (and for Weblisten, presumably in all of the EU). I believe that Weblisten has been sued by the Spanish RIAA-equivalent but has prevailed. Weblisten has been around for 6 years, and allofmp3.com for 2 years, so one would expect that they would be gone by now if they were not legit.

You can find a good third-party review here - he also received a confirmation email from the Russian copyright organisation confirming allofmp3.com's legitimacy.

I've been signed up to allofmp3.com for a while and had no problems with my credit card, although I've always used a 'one use' number. Customer support is quick and efficient; they've responded within minutes to my queries. There doesn't seem to be any recurring billing either, you just sign up for a fixed term.

They allow online encoding into MP3/AAC/WMA/OGG/MPC but this is taking quite a while at the moment (in the queue for several days rather than only minutes) - presumably due to this mention on Slashdot. Your order is transcoded from 384k mp3 files rather than the uncompressed originals. This hasn't bothered me, but audiophiles might take issue.

Try this or that - apparently legal, no DRM, and much more reasonably priced

It strikes me that amid all the hype about legal music download services, one of the oldest and cheapest ones is often forgotten: Weblisten.com has been in existence since december 1997, and offers about 150,000 songs in MP3 (and sometimes WMA) format at the lowest prices I have seen.

Weblisten.com. Legal, MP3, Europe.

``the continent's first major a la carte online download service. ... The move marks the first time European consumers can purchase song downloads off the Internet for under one euro ($1.13)''

What about Weblisten.com? They were there before, sell songs at less than a euro a piece, provide the songs in the standard MP3 format. 'nuff said.

Don't like indie? Go to Weblisten and get the latest music DRM-free. It's even legal!

This kind of radio-on-demand system is already available.

weblisten
puretunes

A new all-you-can-eat music download service that takes advantage of Spanish copyright law. The Madrid-based company, called Puretunes, is the second Spanish Web service to try offering access to a vast and otherwise unavailable catalog of music online without directly securing the record labels' permission.

Full article

Actually, the Music service (you need iTunes for this and click on the "Music Store" link) gives me a lot of "504 cannot load page" errors right now. I cannot browse pages and stuff... Well, I stick with Weblisten - all big name artists, download as many mp3s as you want, one flat fee of $30 per month :-D

• People outside the US cannot buy music yet
• As of right now, the "Music Store" (the Start page) is unavailable, despite the claims of Apple to be ready for many people
• Apple claims the Previews are full quality. But they sound really bad (like a 32kbit MP3), so I hope this is not what they call "full quality".
• All this is not too bad, however, since Weblisten just started a very attractive counter-offer: Download as many MP3s as you want, including from every big-name artist, for a flat fee of $32 per month. Sounds like a cool deal to me :-D

People are talking a lot about the new sites, i.e. MusicNet and Pressplay, but not saying a word about existing sites.

There is a site here in Spain called Weblisten where you can download thousands and thousands of songs (even full CDs) in MP3 (128 Kbps) or WMA format. They have been out there since 1998 or so and it's LEGAL. Yes, it's LEGAL. They pay a (big) fee to the SGAE, the Spanish Society of Authors.

They carry almost everything that is published in Spain and has any success. I mean, this it NOT only for new artists like mp3.com: Weblisten has REM, Leonard Cohen, Britney Spears, etc.

Their website is in English and Spanish.

BTW, I'm not endorsed in any way with Weblisten.com. I'm only a user.