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Obtaining Legal MP3s Outside of the U.S.?
frankkubiak asks: "I recently bought the new iPod with 40GB. I understand the arguments of the record industry, that I should buy the music I want to hear. Alright. So I don't want to get MP3 files by file-sharing. But here is my problem: I live outside the U.S., in Germany to be exact. iTunes only offers service to those inside the U.S. (see this related Slashdot article). I don't want a CD, vinyl record, tape or minidisc. I simply want to listen to the music. Even if I decide to buy a legacy audio CD, it is often copy-protected and won't load in my PC. So, strictly speaking, it is not even an audio-CD. Heise keeps a database of those un-CDs (German language. English speakers can use this fish-translated page). It sounds incredible, but even after hours of research on the web, I don't see a legal way to use this device with new songs. The only way I see to use this device is to buy a CD, and if I can't rip it, I'll have to [break the law and] download the MP3-file via file-sharing. I believe there are more people like me out there who want to listen to their music, without feeling guilty. Why is there no one meeting this demand? How does Slashdot feel about this?" Before you mention Napster, let's note that it has similar restrictions (see the "International Considerations" section). So where can non-U.S. internet users go to download the legal MP3s that they want?
MP3 = Terrorism.
You could buy the CD, download an MP3 from a site and play it. You own a legal copy, you're not technically stealing.
the music is owned by its copyright holder. if they don't want to offer it to you, you can't get it legally.
them's the ropes, and our just desserts for allowing the hegemony of major labels to monopolise music for so long.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Is it illegal to download [and not share] the mp3's of an album if you own that album?
Because the record companies don't want it.
... my music. It keeps me sane on a daily basis. Why do people like iTunes and Napster restrict service like that? Isn't the general idea to market to as many people as you can. Are the anti-copyright laws in Europe that incompadable with the ones here in the US?
I know we've got a few over-bearing laws here, but I'm sure other copyright protections are more than sufficent to cover this sort of thing.
-Adam C. Greenfield
Go ahead -- being bad never felt so good...
I have the same issue living in Canada, Puretracks has a small selection, but I haven't found anything I want there yet, and my discman only plays MP3s not WMV.
I gave up and resorted to buying CDs, ripping them, then burning them. Most CD ripping software seems to be capable of working around the 'copy protection' on the CDs I have had experiance with. Its horrible because I live in tiny student housing and generally end up leaving the jewel cases and discs at my parents to save space and clutter.
The music industry's grim determination to stop me from listening to music I have paid for has yet to cease amazing me.
paul reinheimer
... wonders why people are drawn to illegal file sharing...
Perhaps you could use Mein Kampfzaa?
Slashdot has feelings? Next I am expected to give her flowers, say nice things and nibble her ear...
Beings aspergers AND pulling chicks... I enjoy the challenge!
When you download music. Illegal is not immoral. Better music than the dross the record companies push is available on www.iuma.com all nice and legal anyway.
I do find it ironic that people masquerading as capitalists come out with the ultra-socialist "it's important that creators are guaranteed compensation" when I"P" is discussed.
Situations like this is why you shouldn't feel guilty about downloading "illegal" music.
I haven't had a problem ripping any of the CDs I've purchased. Is it really that much of a problem?
The only way I see to use this device is to buy a CD, and if I can't rip it
Did they create a WORKING copy protection scheme yet? i.e. one you can't circumvent by shift key or just by using the CD under Linux???
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I recently bought the new iPod with 40GB
;)
40GB with no access to legal music. Not that's gotta hurt. iPod mini might have been a good start
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It is illegal to rip but not share mp3s!
Give me your money and I'll send you "legal" mp3s
Install a gnutella client, or e-mule and be done with it.
If you are really worried about the law, only download those songs you already own on CD.
It seems like there's hardly a mode of copy protection that hasn't been broken - whether via sharpie or shift key, there's usually a way around these things.
Last I checked, recording songs that are played off the radio is still fair use. Just hook any headset radio to the Line-in port of your sound card...
Buy the cd and download the unrestricted mp3's. Or just donate directly to the artist if you can, or buy some merchandise from their website. I was pissed when I bought my 10GB iPod and was unable to use iTunes in Canada.
This P.I.G. will walk on the water, This P.I.G. will walk on the sea, This P.I.G. will walk whereever he wants.
You get them at http://opsound.org !
Licenced under Creative Commons licence...
especially with the new EU resolution, this is an interesting prediicament..... luckily in canada i'm allowed (by law) to DL music
Face it, these "legal" mp3s are a real pain in the ass. Why deal with all of this legal bullshit when you can use kazaa? Recording companies you say? Modern-day versions of legal gestapo in germany? Pfff, the chance of getting your comp raided by those greedy bastards is almost 1/5 million+. Screw that restrictive Itunes shit, rip your own cds or use the not-so-legal p2p apps. Just my 2 cents.
Does it mean that the current business models and laws are flawed? Or that 'other' consumers just have to put up with it until such time that it is legal to obtain the product?
Imagine if you want a Cuban cigar, but you can't get it in Canada, and nobody can sell it to Canada, should you try to smuggler some in, or wait for it to become available in your local friendly shop?
To be honest, I would love to see a case where someone downloaded MP3s for CDs they owned end up in a non-american court (and hense free from the majority of direct RIAA lobying). Once you own the CD, fair use should give you the right to listening to it on your PC, discman, or other portable electronics, and as such you should be able to legally use whatever means are at your disposal.
Hopefully the precedent setting case would come down on the side of the consumet.
paul reinheimer
i get a bit tired of listenting to all the holier than thou itunes mess Ya just gotta learn to quit caring and savor the current internet for all you can....... usem while ya gottem.
The fine folks over at Allofmp3.com will sell you MP3s for a wide variety of artists. They don't seem to care what country your're in. As far as being legit, they say that they're registered with the Russian copyright authority and that they're authorized to sell what they're offering. I haven't heard about any independant verification of that, though.
Much of the copy protection testing happens in Europe, and a larger portion of copy-protected CDs are sold there.
Myself, I'd suggest expanding your horizons of music. There are plenty of legal sources of mp3s out there - they didn't all die with mp3.com.
Any decent CD ROM drive, paired with one of very many good ripper applications, can rip the CD regardless of any copy protection scheme. Just get yourself a good ripper and enjoy your music. The music labels want you to believe their copy protection schemes are more than just FUD, but they're not. They're useless and easily cirumvented by anyone willing to spend just a little time getting their environment optimized.
muzik.agnula.org All of it is Creative Commons licensed music.
I use mp3search.ru. They have a deal with the Russian equivalent of the RIAA, so these downloads SHOULD be legal where ever you are. They tend to have the CDs we in the US pay more for because there "imports". Lots of B side selections and remixes. Downloads are around 10 cents a song.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
1. Buy patent license from mp3licensing.com. Note that you must first become a company - they don't sell to end users. Consumers must go to Best Buy and pick up a copy of MP3 Encoder Pro(R) for Windows(R) for $29.95.
/dev/urandom. Find "open music." You can't copy from a CD though.
2. Obtain content. Sing into a microphone.
3. Use lame. The license you buy allows you to use an "in-house" encoder. (which must be compiled to become an MP3 encoder)
I have yet to find a CD which protection cannot be defeated. Remember DMCA's only jurisdiction is USA (or at least it should be), so you are free to break the protection.
Chappelle's show demonstrated it best. The internet was a shopping mall. The legal pay music store was tiny with no selection. The free music was a giant store with a huge selection. Then Dave had some net sex, ashy larry was there too I think.
Damn foreigners, always looking for a loophole. How about lowering the prices for BMW spare parts first?
RIAA is monitoring this thread, by the way, so post all you desire.
mp3.com is gone... but I'm sure there are some similar sites out there. The music isn't the same as in the stores, but much of it was good. Anyone got suggestions (bonus points to those who find good non-RIAA sites).
I personally have a collection of about 3GB worth of music including alternative/rock/etc, techno/trance, darkwave, and some old amiga stuff. I believe most of it is free to distribute in a not-for-profit manner (old mp3.com stuff)... contact me if interested (and if you like some of it, but the CD for a friend).
How likely are you to get ambushed by RIAA (or European equivalent) goons?
Since you aren't planning to distribute the MP3's, IMHO you are ethically free to record them again in the medium of your choice.
So- obtain a (legal) copy of software than can record from your sound card's Line In jack, then play the CD into it, convert the stream to MP3, then save it on your device. This way (passing through an analogue phase) you loose a tiny bit of quality but effectively strip copy protection.
That is, of course, if your question is as it seems. If instead you're trying to point out how stupid and counterproductive such things as the DMCA and its ilk are, I wholeheartedly agree, but you're preaching to the choir (as no doubt the other responses will confirm).
Good luck and happy listening!
Any generalization is a stupid one.
Have someone in the States buy you an iTunes Gift card. The only requirement is that the billing address for the ITMS is a US address. You should have no problems using the gift card outside the US.
Alternatively, buy iTunes/Pepsi codes or gift cards from eBay.
Any answer there is to this question will be at the best unobvious and at the worst massively convoluted. If the average consumer wants to use their digital technology effectively, they have no choice but to break the law. The lack of insight that has brought about this situation is the primary reason that the music industry is seeing such a massive downturn: it's the financial results of a cultural backlash against narrow-minded profiteering.
I seriously wonder what they would say.
You have a device and nothing to fill it with. You ask them for songs and they tell you...what? Encourage you to break the law?
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I know they're questionable due to privacy and patent concerns, but they have a lot of music you can buy for download.
What's more, they have a lot of music you can legally download for free.
You're not going to find Top-10 and latest releases there, but there's at least a start...
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
Do what you feel is morally right and damn the torpedos.
Why not listen to German music? Why is everyone so hooked on the (utter shit) music that comes churning out of American record labels like so much cat vomit...
You can get cd's on the newspaper on even in street corners. Price is like 0.5-1$
Sometimes you get a "mp3 cd", so audiophiles can notice the decrease in quality
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The point is, buying an iPod is a reasonable thing to do. The implication that iPods are useless for law-abiding Europeans is, as the author puts it, incredible, and merits discussion.
they don't restrict your use, will sell to people outside of the U.S. and have a decent selection of non-U.S. artists. Of course, if you are looking for Bravo Charts or something from the Dome you are most likely SOL. If you are more into the types of music on the soundtrack to Herr Lehmann, you should feel right at home.
In Australia you aren't allowed to create an mp3 from a non-protected audio CD that you own. Or copy your CD to a tape for playing in the car.
Of course there are ipod ads on TV and mp3 players can be bought everywhere a portable CD player can.
"I believe there are more people like me out there who want to listen to their music, without feeling guilty."
It's easy, just don't feel guilty about downloading music. The music companies are screwing over consumers and artists alike, and have been for years. Download the music you like, and support the artists more directly by going to see concerts when they are in town, buying T-Shirts, etc.
The mentioned magazine c't actually has a test of like 8 or 10 legal online music stores which are accessible from within Germany in its current issue..
100% legal MP3s, but you'd better like the music on the Warp (as it only sells that label's catalogue).
Warp Records entire catalog, including rare and out-of-print, and vinyl-only stuff available at Bleep.com.
Good quality VBR, and whole-song preview too.
y
Remember the little old lady that the RIAA busted? She claimed she owned all the music on CD already so it didn't matter if she downloaded all the music off the net? RIAA checked the checksums of the files vs her CDs and they were different. She was only able to use MP3s of the songs SHE RIPPED HERSELF from her CDs. You only get the right to own that particular copy of the song, not someone elses ripped copy. Silly, but true.
Just record the CD from a player through your sound card and then compress to mp3.
In most cases the listener will not be aware that the track wasn't ripped digitally from a CD. Its not like there are artifacts in the recorded sound like there were in the viynl days.
In fact with a good turntable most people can't tell the difference between a ripped cd and a recorded lp.
But in your case, yeah just record the cd and compress.
Then again, it's impossible to do plenty of fair use things without breaking the law. Need a backup of your favourite CD for when it gets scratched? Oh no you can't! That DVD? Forget it.
Welcome to the free market - enjoy your stay. And don't get caught.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
If you're looking for anything on warp records, check out bleep.com...
They don't have any international restrictions...
Of course, don't go there expecting anything too mainstream. But, it's still an option for non-American music downloaders...
for buying an iPod. You should have researched this before buying it, then you would have realized what an annoying situation the whole music industry is.
The simplest solution is to not buy any music, ever. Plenty of local bands make great music as a hobby rather than as a way of supporting themselves.
I guess it boils down to whether you'd rather support artistic expression or big business.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Granted, it doesn't have Britney Spears or Moby, but you may be surprised at what you can find there.
Ok....so nobody is meeting this demand. I have two suggestions. Either try to start such a service that DOES meet those demands, and hopefully profit off it while you get your music fix, or just go ahead and break some laws. How can you feel guilty if they offer you no legal option for getting your music this way? You really have no alternative, so there is no reason to feel guilty, especially after you have decided you want to do things legally, and they have failed to provide you with a way to do so.
Before I get people giving me arguments about things like "well, I wanted them to give me a way to smoke pot legally, but they failed to provide me a way to do so", I would just like to state that this isn't an issue about whether you can use something or not, this is a format issue and a license issue, which is quite different.
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I don't know about germany but in holland it is a legal right to make a copy. Copy protection denies that right so again it is the music industry that is acting against the law.
So why should I feel guilty when I download music?
Asnswer I don't. Poor musicians starving to death? Awh, best artists in history were poor. I am doing art a favor. I didn't see music artist protest when changing technology made miners unemployed or when thousands of factory workers lost their jobs to robots.
For years people have been making suggestions of how the music industry could easily sell its entire catalog without the expense of keeping cd's in stock by burning on demand. They didn't want it. Voting with your wallet is the only thing that works. Any who buy copyrighted cd's and then jump through hoops to get it to work on their player are pawns. You are sending the message that the current business model is fine with you.
Since in holland you pay a tax on dvd's and cassetes anyway that goes to the music industry I see that as my payment. No more wrong then them getting money for my linux install cd's.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It sounds incredible, but even after hours of research on the web, I don't see a legal way to use this device with new songs.
:)
Perhaps this research should have taken place before you shelled out the money for your new iPod?
-- jimmycarter
One of my favorite sites is Epitonic.com. I've found so many great artists there...
The Philosophy of Liberty | lewrockwell.com
Yes, it's fair use, but the SNR of normal FM transmissions is less than 50 ...
The Raven
Simple - allofmp3.com - they're located in Russia, where the royalty laws for downloading music work similarly to those for radio airplay in North America. Because of this, they are able to offer a HUGE selection of music without having to hammer out deals with the major labels.
How much does all this cost? How about $0.01 US/megabyte downloaded? What if I told you that the vast majority of their catalogue was available in high quality formats, that you can encode to your file format of choice (including LAME with --alt-presets, or OGG)? Would that sweeten the deal?
Frankly, I don't know why these guys havn't taken off in North America, aside from a lack of publicity. I suppose there is some fear of giving your credit card to a Russian company, but their processor is highly reputable, and they now also accept PayPal.
Here's some reviews and FAQs about their setup and its legitimacy:
http://www.techimo.com/newsapp/i9599.html
http://www.techimo.com/newsapp/i9599.html
did you do a google search?
I'm in france and found loads of sites and recently saw them advertised. typically 1 a song.
radio stations also offer the 'service'
Looks like Apple's itunes won't be available in Europe anytime soon (apparently Napster seems to want to come back in Europe though).
. . . you could avoid buying hardware from companies that support unreasonably restrictive licensing schemes. At the risk of being modded a flame, I've got to say that it's people who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to companies that take away their rights that make this sort of thing possible. Want to legally own your music? Here are three easy steps: 1- Take your ipod back to the store and ask for your money back. 2 - Buy a player from another manufacturer that handles mp3 and ogg formats without any nasty licensing restrictions. 3 - Take the hundred bucks you saved by not purchasing a nifty Apple logo, and use it to subscribe to emusic.com, or to buy albums from magnatune.com. Or, go to your neighborhood music store and buy albums from distributors that don't add copy protection to their CD's. The only thing sillier than shooting yourself in the foot is paying someone else to shoot your foot for you and then complaining about it on slashdot.
You Europeans are getting way ahead of yourselves. "Legal" MP3s are not proven technology yet. Stick to the file-sharing for now, and leave the other stuff to the early adopters in the U.S., at least until the bugs get ironed out.
Breakfast served all day!
Someone in the US can set up a website where they offer to buy iTunes music (for 99 cents) for people located outside the US, and selling it to them (for $1, say). Is there anything illegal with this?
Needless to say, IANAL.
I've got about 15Gig of stuff I snarfed from MP3.com while they were online.
Since they're offline now, what are my requirements for the music? Besides just keeping it, of course. Can I make it available to others? For downloading? For fighting the system, muahahahah?
I guess if there's no legal use for an iPod in Germany, then Apple is trafficking in technology whose sole use is to steal intellectual property. Are they looking down the barrel of the European DMCA?
Uh-oh.
according to the new stuff thats been passed through the EU though, as long as you only have the MP3s for your own use, and not to make money out of them, then they won't do anything about it. Sometimes it is good to live in the UK :P RIAA style tactics cannot be employed over here until that gets changed
If at first you DON'T succeed, Skydiving is NOT for YOU!!
So far I haven't had problems ripping any audio protected tracks with cdparanoia, including two cds imported from germany which claimed to be copyprotected. Windows couldn't deal with them, though.
I see a lot of people saying that its easy to defeat copy protection. I think the issue is that a court has just ruled in the case of DVD's that it is illegal to circumvent copy protection under DMCA. Of course we can do it. Can we do it leagally?
Perhaps the biggest problem here it the question of how can it be done and not feel guilty. Maybe that is at the heart of the problem. If a law is unfair should we feel guilty about breaking it? Should Rosa Parks stay at the back of the bus until the courts or the legislator deside she can sit in the front?
I am not advocating file sharing. But if I purchase a movie, a song, or a video game, I will use it any way I see fit, in any format I choose. If the powers that be choose to make that illegal then I will join a long line of tradition of dumping tea into harbors, and drinking from the wrong water fountain. I will face my day in court should it come and pray our system will be fair enough to see justice through. But I will not feel guilty.
.. ripping every CD I buy to vorbis and uploading them to my Zaurus.
Pity the money still goes to the RIA*, not the artist, but what can you do when they've signed contracts?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I don't know if this sounds stupid to you guys, but it's an easy alternative where you'll probably never get caught.
At the public library (at least the one in my area) they do have a section for people to rent CDs and DVD videos. I just bring my iBook and have a few CDs ripping while I'm reading their magazines.
I guess there's a sortage of teeny pop songs there, but they have a wide variety of classics and old rock.
Firstly, iTunes.com doesn't sell MP3 files -- their music is in AAC format, which is only authorised to play under some circumstances.
/. and if it weren't for petty corrections, the signal-noise ratio would be way better. The usual IANAL/YMMV disclaimers apply to this situation as well.
Secondly, it depends on what you mean by "legal". Does anybody know anybody who has been successfully prosecuted for transferring CDs they own to MP3 format? Because what matters when you talk about "legal"/"illegal" behaviour is any precendent which is applicable to your situation.
It seems inevitable when you hear someone describing something like this as "illegal", they're either a member of the RIAA or Apple or somebody with a distinct interest in making sure you buy separate copies for every purpose, or somebody who is under the impression that any copying is wrong (I'm looking at you, Grandma) and that "fair use" is bollocks.
This is all a bit hijacked -- I think what you mean to ask is whether there are places you can buy MP3s from on the internet. The answer, as posted elsewhere, is "Yes".
These points are small and probably uneccessary corrections, but this is
Look at it this way:
Your hard-drive, flash memory, cd-R's, etc all may have had a tax added to them to pay the music companys a royalty for any music that may be copied to them.
Morpheus for what you want, and if they come after you, tell them that you paied, just not through normal channels. Present recipt as nessary.
md5sum
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
The iPod is not useless for law-abiding Europeans. I bought one a year and a half before the iTunes music store was around in the US. I took my MP3s (that I had burned from my CD collection into iTunes) and dumped them onto the iPod. I don't see how that is so difficult.
You can always take the line-level output, and record your songs that way. Record a 60 min CD in 60 minutes to a 600MB WAV file, then split it up by hand to individual WAVs, then encode each to MP3 and label them yourselves.
Yes, it's a pain but it is a legal copy of your music in a format you can use.
"Hey Slashdot, I'm in Holland, and I just bought this gun only to find out that I can't get bullets, nor can I legally use it here!"
Seriously, this story is just a troll. He's just trying to infuriate you.
I live in the U.S. and I sell gift certificates to the iTunes Music Store at a small premium. Please e-mail me at sales at rossonwebs dot com if you're interested. Most of my sales come from European countries, and the gift certificates work like a charm on iTunes. It's not a TOS violation either, believe me, I have checked and rechecked.
Domain name registration for $8.79 per year
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If it wasn't for services like Soulseek and Suprnova I probably wouldn't know half of the good music I know now. My policy is to download the music, evaluate it, and buy it if it's something I want to keep. Since the music I listen to rarely get any air time on the radio, I don't have much choice.. short of blindly wasting money on random CD's. And no, I don't believe that 30 second 32kbps/22khz mp3 previews does music any justice.
So well, it sucks to break the law, but as long as you can avoid getting prosecuted I believe the moral question is up to yourself: "Is what I'm doing wrong?". I mean, in my case the record industry is actually getting more money from me because I've got access to fileshare networks.
Eventually, the record industry will have to move with the flow.. I believe we'll see many more "iTunes sites" in the future.
1. give the recording industry the finger 2. download whatever you want artists get most of their money from the signing bonus, not from cd sales (unless they're platinum, in which case they're rich and the music probably sucks) -m
European music and artists : independent (mp3).
ecompil : universal (wma)
a cool label
epitonic : good independent site (mp3)
This is just a selection from google
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
I've used www.weblisten.com in the past. They have a very good selection of legal music downloads in unprotected MP3 and WMA format. They are based in Spain and pay royalties to the Spanish music performers body.
They offer a number of payment options; per song, or an all-you-can-eat option either for a month or a weekend.
The only problem I've found is that occasionally downloads could hang part way through. Apart from that though they are very good and I would recommend them.
Is it using the copy protection scheme mentioned here? If so, it seems that its not very hard to just buy the CD you want, and rip it, regardless of whether it is "copy-protected".
The RIAA lawsuits were against heavy *uploaders*. The cost of downloading a song is already established -- $0.99 at iTunes, $1--$2 if you buy a CD and rip it yourself. Downloading isn't necesarily illegal (fair use allows you to copy from someone else, not make a copy for someone else).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Downloading music via file sharing, if you own that exact track in CD form, is no different than ripping it from your CD onto your computer. Either method is to obtain a copy of your music in another format, the only difference is RIAA-clones can detect it. The question is wether you are legally allowed to own your CD-bought music in another format, something not nearly as clear as it should be.
In reality though, it doesnt matter anyway. If you own the CD, you are never going to be sued for downloading the same music in MP3 form.
FWIW, people in the UK can use "My Coke Music". I have no idea if it is available for people in Germany.
It's in Spain, it's legal and their site is both in English and in Spanish: Weblisten.
I mean.. wasting all that money on a iPod, only to figure out you don't have any method of inputting songs into it? just do what everyone else does.. rip the CD, and boycott people who use copy protection.
In these situations I always ask myself What Would Jesus Do?
I think he would buy the the cd, rip it with audio hijack, and then load them up onto his iPod.
Simple. Laws vary country to country. What may be legal and enforcable in the US or Canada might not be legal or enforcable in Japan or Germany or wherever.
The result of this is that a company will pick either the biggest viable market (the US), or their local market (Japan for a japanese company), and roll out there first. Where a product or service gets rolled out next depends on which markets are most compatible (language and law wise).
Its not that the companies would not like to part you and your money. Its just that other customers are more convenient right now.
END COMMUNICATION
Email me at flamingmonkeyofjustice@hotmail.com, and I'll help
Pardon me for thinking in pre 1990s terms, and not having direct experence with audioCDs that won't play on the PC. For the moment, I'm going to assume you can't play audio CDs on your PC digitaly, and assume you can either play them on your CD drive just with the analog output, or get an external portable CD player jacked into your sound card.
In theory, one can do a digital to analog copy, and have it considered to be fair use. I'm not sure where you live, you'll have to check to see if it's legal to copy a CD to cassette for example. While the process is slow, as in you have to record in real time, you can get a very decent copy via digital to analog back to digital. You'll need an application to either record
Things I don't know.
1. Can you do this even with a new protected CD, as in will your average CDrom drive play it independent of the PC, or must one do this with an external player.
2. Can one record CD content via an analog to digital converter, or are there new forms of copy protection that prevent this.
3. Would this be legal if the intended application is to get the damn music on the ipod.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
And now you want us to solve your problem?
Ok, here's the solution. You send that nice, new bit of plastic to me along with a list of songs you want and money to buy them with. I'll be sure to get it right back to you.
Oh, and since you seem to have some extra cash, I have a nice bridge I'd like to sell you...
iRATE gets you free & legal mp3s without disriminating in regards to your location in the world. It also promotes the little guys and tries to save the world from sucky radio.
I use large 200+ albums for the disks themselves. Software and music stored the same way but seperately. The jewel cases I packed in xerox boxes, and kick those up onto a shelf I built over my garage door opener (tallish garage).
For the music, since I don't like to take hundreds of cd's everywhere, I've indexed with post-its (what aren't they good for), and I brake those into smaller traveling cases or CD holders that hang off the visor in the car. For the software that needs it, I take either the insert in the jewel case, or snap it apart if need be, and stick those in with the disks. For the software with more elaborate instructions, I have a section of hanging folders just for them.
I'm not the RIAA or anything like them, but until there's a service that works in .de, you can't do what you want to do. Music isn't free unless the artist says it is. Certainly it's an inconvenience to buy CDs, but that's what you're stuck with. If ripped-off music (not your own rip) is more important to you than being legal, then use a p2p and suffer the consequences-- if there are any.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I don't really understand the problem you're talking about. I have yet to encounter a copy protected CD that good ripping software couldn't just bypass in error recovery or secure mode. In fact, I cazn generally bypass any protection on a CD with the NORMAL ripping more at like 6x or so for accuracy.
Some of the programs I use include:
- Easy CD-DA Creator
- EAC
ECDDA is the easiest and most robust tool I've found, and it rips straight to any of about 10 different codecs including Ogg, MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, WMA, etc. EAC is nice in that it has a secure mode that "guarantees" you get an exact copy of the music file, but it doesn't rip straight to certain standards and can be a bit irritatingly complex.
In the case where I did encounter a protected CD I couldnt bypass I would just return it to teh store and tell them that I couldn't use it per my rights under fair use (i.e., it didn't work) and I want my money back.
-rt
if you want legal, free, live music-go to archive.org (the music section) or furthurnet.org to get SHNs and MP3's via p2p or ftp. good luck
It might be illegal to rent a virtual server in the US, with a US assigned IP address, and run a private proxy server there for your own web access use. So for that reason you shouldn't do it.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They're primarily a WMP9 shop, but I believe at least some of the resellers use mp3's, which should work on your ipod.
iTunes itself is coming to europe, in theory the first half of this year; but it's anyone's guess as to when they'll actually launch.
Personally speaking, I prefer to still buy CD's, as I get to choose the rip quality (high quality ogg's for my PC, 128vbr mp3 for my flash mp3 player).
I just refuse to buy the corrupt disks, and stick to the smaller labels, especially the indie's. If you do want to import (cheap) CD's, I can personally recommend CDBaby for non-label music, and cd-wow are insanely cheap for more well known artists.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
My local branch seems to have a heavy empahsis on blues and country, but if I drive across town, it changes to classical and more middle of the road fare. not sure if this is available out side of the US though...check with your local library.
If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
In india, I purchased 3 CDs in Indian Rupees 100, roughly equal to 2 bucks. And my penis is already larger than yours, so sit quiet and let me do your wife.
Record the sound through Total Recorder:
High Criteria
This doesn't address the problem of ripping from your computer, but you can if you get a line (either directly from the CD drive or through the MIC or INPUT line from a CD player) to your computer, the Total Recorder program can record the sound in MP3 or Ogg Vorbis.
people like me out there who want to listen to their music, without feeling guilty.
See now that's your problem. The guilty part I mean. Start off by ripping the CD's that all your friends own. Then move up to the world of P2P. After that you can even start using warez FTP servers to swap music. Pretty soon, you have a fairly impressive music collection, and by that time all the guilt has worn off!! Tons of music and zero guilt. You know you want to.
The only way I see to use this device is to buy a CD, and if I can't rip it, I'll have to [break the law and] download the MP3-file via file-sharing.
Go look in the back of your computer. Specifically, at your sound card.
There are two "in" jacks, and one "out" jack. Even if somehow the technology to record directly escapes you, you can resort to the time-honored and unpluggable analog hole to make an electronic copy.
It just sucks hard when you move on and play by their rules and pay for music, and then it's still wrong.
Let's say fuck it and hooray for piracy. Cmon, it's like communism!
Just get them with via P2P and save your head from exploding.
If you like the CD, buy it. If not, don't. Simple, really.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Studio K7 has some limited offerings in MP3 as well.
I think both sell internationally - Warp is in the UK and K7 is in Germany.
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.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
There are some links on this page you might find useful. There's plenty of free stuff too: some student radio stations like icradio.com archive their shows and make them available for free download and some artists provide a few downloadable mp3s on their own websites - Kate Rusby for example.
Check out Nupha, an international cross-platform (win & mac) music store.
:)
0.99 per song
8.99 per album
Unlimited burns,
unlimited transfers to mp3 players,
compatible with iTunes & Media Player 9.
Sounds good, but I have yet to try it. Someone to sponsor me an iPod ?
Just go to www.iuma.com
Or - email the artists you are interested in and tell them you want to buy some of their music please and that you just want an ogg vorbis format that you can play on your ipod.
Personally I won't support the recording industry but my reasons are probably at variance of most people. I just do not like the music they are trying to stuff down our throats!
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.
I have been buying CDs for years and it was always been my understanding that I could make a copy for backup so if my CD can no longer play then I have a copy can still listen and as long as I keep the CD I am covered, just like software.
Now with that in mind if the person who a CD that has CD Protection(Which you can get around by using CDEX or Easy CD Extractor) then I can not see how someone that downloads the MP3s of the CD that he or she owns is breaking copy right. After all these people have spent there money to buy CD and wish to listen to it on there MP3 player.
If I am wrong please let me know
On a personal note:
Now I would sooner buy CDs then buy music on-line becasue the audio quality of a CD is better than most of the on-line music stores offer and then you can rip the CD down to an MP3/OGG/FLAC(which is what I am going to be doing with all mu CDs)or what every format you wish. It gives you the freedom of choice which is something I think they are trying to take away from us.
"The most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose." - James Baldwin, American author
There is a difference between ethics and legality. You cannot legally use MP3s in your country. You've been conditioned to think of copyright as "intellectual property," rather than a social contract between creator of content and the consumer, which associates concepts like stealing and piracy with what is, in the end, not theft but copyright violation. This brings with it the feeling of guilt. You've also been conditioned, probably by the German society, that laws were meant to be followed and that ethical people follow laws.
The reality is quite different. Laws are, at best, an attempt to codify and enforce ethics by committee. The committee is usually right, but does, on occasion, make errors. In those cases, there is sometimes no compelling reason to follow the laws. Worse, as in the case of Eastern Europe under Communism, the committee maybe corrupt, in which case, the ethical thing to do is often civil disobedience, and intentionally breaking laws. To me, this feels like one of those cases.
You should strive to follow ethics, not laws. I would argue that there is a compelling ethical argument not to give money to record companies, so they can better buy off governments to pass acts like the DMCA mandating DRM, and destroy your right to write free software capable of interacting with the mainstream world (you cannot, right now, write free legal DVD players, or players for DRMed CDs, even if they have zero uses for copying content). If this is allowed to continue, in short time, GNU/Linux computers will no longer be able to legally access music and video, followed by books and electronic texts, and eventually, mainstream documents. Once this happens, GNU/Linux and free software will have been effectively legally banned from any sort of desktop use (and quite possibly, eventually, server use).
I would sidestep the issue of benefiting personally from illegal action by making sure you do not benefit. Donate the money you would have spent on CDs to either the artists, or organizations like the FSF, the EFF and similar. Make sure you donate at least as much as you have in illegal content. Then, gather the content illegally, and use it as you see fit. I believe this is the second most ethical course of action (the most ethical being that you only boycott all mainstream music, and listen only to independent labels uninvolved in the push for DRM).
there are already download services at
www.saturn.de
www.mediamarkt.de
i think they offer pretty much songs, also in the ebm or gothic area.
From the introduction:
In particular, you should be listening to iRATE radio. It downloads and plays those legal MP3s that the artists have on their websites, so you don't have to go hunting for them. If you've already tried out iRATE, note that version 0.3 was just released, so get the update if you don't already have it.Request your free CD of my piano music.
As on La Repubblica.it (use the fish if necessary) today, the EU Parliament approved a proposal for regulating P2P stating that acts committed in good faith by consumers - such as downloading music from Internet for personal use - won't be prosecuted. It still has to go through the EU Council, but it's a good start...
IS that eNGRISh?
huh?
wha?
hoo?
asd?
I STICK IT IN YOU!
check out www.allofmp3.com
its got lots of mp3s on their in multiple formats and its only 1 cent/mb IIRC.
its in russian but theres an english version on the site. hooray
Magnatunes.com lets you download music in 128kbit MP3 and VBR MP3 ("virtually" lossless quality). Not exactly mainstream music though.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
- Produce CDs as crappy as possible : at most one track worth listening, annoying copy protection, outrageous price.
Nobody wants to buy a crippled CD for only one track,...certainly at that price. This will ensure dismal sales.
- wait for the track to appear on P2P networks.
- scream bloody murder, claim huges losses, sue everyone for pirating.
- income:
collect money from outrageous settlements ( US ),
or from taxes on blank CDs, Hard disks, CD burners..( a few other countries )
- cost reduction:
no need to pay the artists ( not enough sales )
no need to pay (much) the CD manufacturer ( same reason ).
- Profit ! ! !
And think of it : the lower the CD sales, the higher the income, the lower the costs, and the higher the PROFITS ! ! !
No copyright owner or agent for same has ever sued an individual in Australia for making any kind of copy for personal use. The legislation has never been tested in court. It may well fail against Common Law fair use rights.
The fact that it has never been tested must give you some idea of the Australian music and film industries' level of confidence that it would be upheld. As long as they never test it, they can continue to claim that it is illegal to tape shows off the TV, rip CDs to MP3, etc, etc.
Don't believe everything the Copyright Council says.
Politas
We're also stuck with the not-in-the-US-then-you-can't-get-this-cool-thing problem here in .au. Its especially annoying with services like iTunes, which for me, is something that I'd use regularly. I'm about to invest in an iPaq with the goal of buying a lot of eBooks (actual softcover paper books cost like AU$25 now - the new Tom Clancy was _$50_ in hardcover when it was released, are you kidding?!). I forgot to check to see if I can buy eBooks online, so hopefully I can.
If not, I'm giving up on waiting for the world to get their ass into gear about it, and I'll do whatever I can to get these eBooks (and iTunes/Napster/whatever is best at the time tracks). Fortunately I have relatives in the US, so if worse comes to worse, I can get them to run a proxy there and use their billing details to do it all. Still, I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. The whole point of this stupid Internet thing is that its global.
Incidentally, there are a few online music retailers in Australia. Destra Music and BigPond Music. Both of these only supply heavily DRM'ed WMA versions (which I've heard are at a fairly low bit rate), so most people with a clue aren't interested (not to mention their range of music is extremely limited).
I've spent a good chunk of time in the last couple of months trying to figure out what is involved in setting up a legal online music distribution thing - either for streaming/Internet radio or to sell music - our company is one of the largest content distributors (via our mirrors sites) in Australia so I think it'd be something we'd be good at.
However, it is practically impossible to find out what you need. While APRA, the company responsible for licensing the musical work, have been quite helpful, that is only half of what licensing you need - you also need to license the mechanical work (the recording). At this point in time, no one in Australia represents record companies to do this (eg, there's noone like the Harry Fox Agency in Australia). There's the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia, but they don't issue licenses for online applications (apparently, they will be "in the next few months"...).
So, as far as I'm aware, your only option is to try and contact the record companies (each one) individually (this is what APRA told me almost straight off the bat, but I didn't believe them, so kept researching). Of the several I've tried to contact, I've had no reply (not just email - even leaving phone messages with the appropriate licensing department and not getting called back). I've contacted the Harry Fox Agency - apparently they do international licensing - but haven't heard back from them either.
To me, its no wonder the state of the industry is in such a state of shenanigans. You probably have to drive a dump truck full of money up to these guys to actually get their attention. The pathetic options available everywhere outside the US are obviously not enough to stop people pirating music - why would you bother when you're going to get a superior product (if you don't mind a bit more searching, of course) for free?
Didn't see it mentioned, which surprises me. This may not be a solution to find all the legal commercial MP3s you want, but it is a great way to find all the legal indie music you might like.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
buy the cake and then eat it.
So just buy the CD and then use file-sharing to get a digitized version (mp3) of it (just don't share it). One would think they'd be covered if they legally own a legit copy that they should be able to obtain a digitized version without hassle.
You can always go and buy USED cd's (older CD's aren't un-CD's). Or you can try getting them from a consumer friendly region (import them). Finally, don't forget to b*tch to your local national politician and to b*tch to the media about your dilemma. And don't forget to rally the "troops"...err...I mean your neighbors and friends and ppl on the street, etc. Public awareness is the double-edged sword to the industry (e.g. CSS as a "trade secret" or Microsoft and it's "vulnerabilities" vs product awareness, tv ads, etc.).
You are talking about copyright infringement, not piracy.
Piracy is when you illegally board a ship at sea by force and take either the entire ship or the cargo. It usually involves violence, and often death to the crew of the ship being boarded.
Not really the same as having a copy made of a piece of art, is it?
Politas
http://www.nzmusic.com/downloads.cfm
have a nice day
my blog: good times, man, good times
Why can't you VPN to a computer in the US, buy your songs and ftp them to Germany? Is it illegal to transport your songs out of the country?
To summarize this question: "There are several ways to get legal music for an iPod, but I don't want to use them. How can I get legal music for my iPod?"
Well, I stumbled upon allofmp3.com, make sure to click "english" up at the top if you're not a native russian speaker! They offer 100MB of MP3's for $1, easily the best price on the web so far and ontop of that you can get them encoded pretty much whatever bitrate you want in whatever format you want!
They seem to be licensed through their russian multimedia and internet society, legality outside of russia is suspect but I doubt that as an end consumer you'd be liable for anything in most western countries.
I got a $20 MasterCard gift card in the mail
.wma files does allow 10 or so burns
as part of some travel rebate program.
What to spend $20 on? Amazon wants $25 orders
before they give free shipping, restuarants
will try to add a 20% charge to the authorization
total, etc. I ended up buying a bunch of 88cent tracks on Walmart.com.
Of course you get Windows Media (.wma) files
from Walmart, and they have DRM, and it is not
worth $20 to hack. But the license with
Walmart's
to audio CD format on CD-R or CD-RW. So what I
did was burn them to a CD-RW (seems to be
much more reliable to burn to CD-RW than CD-R),
and then copied the CD-RW to a CD-R. From there,
there are lots of tools that will let you
burn mp3s (for your own use of course).
What is really needed is a pseudo device driver
for Windows that looks like a writable
CD-RW disk to the operating system, but instead
is a file or folder on a hard drive. This way,
the "burns" would be guaranteed to succeed.\
Like you, I once (recently) set out on this Quixotic quest to discover a set of self-consistent rules within society, whereby one can function adequately. My conclusion that, while "society" says one thing, in reality it conspires to produce "law-breakers". Societies do not care so much about producing law-abiding citizens, their primary purpose is to produce law-breakers, who they will then punish.
Since "society" cannot realize this about itself, it often leaves most criminals unpunished. Therefore it is better to be a criminal.
You'll go insane the other way.
Download the MP3's off P2P.
Send a few bucks (whatever you think the album is worth) direct to the artist.
Voila. RIAA foiled, artists get compensated, and you feel better.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Request your free CD of my piano music.
looking for content for your pod in the EU? Here's a very good starting point for y'all legal heads and your portable media:
Tokyodawn Records
There's still some free AND quality content out there, thank god!
Sounds like you didn't do a whole lot of thinking about this before you grabbed an iPod or you might have bought a Diskman instead.
If it is bugging you that much just return it.
'Same speed C but faster'
iRATE
If the mainstream music organizations want to make their music difficult to listen to, why take the extra effort?
Hey,
Shameless self promotion. www.HearsayMusic.ca Canadian indie music. We have a whopping 11 artists thus far.
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Daniel
http://people.cinn.ca/daniel/
Well said and bravo--mod the parent up. I always enjoy reading a post that focuses on the issue and its nature, not on feelings or rehashing on what we already know (and what's already been posted).
Separately, I wonder about the new video CD standard. Wheather it's 1, 3, or 5 years from now, some new disc format is gonna appear. Now, for all those yahoos out there who feel it necessary to own every film they like on DVD, they're screwed in that the $18 they paid for a title won't carry over to the new disc format. And since they're dedicated movie people, they'll no doubt start to buy all their beloved titles on the new format, shelling out $$ the same publisher/distributor. (This is why I tell peolple, amoung other reasons, why netflix is the way to go).
Andy
G-Force music visualization
1) return the iPod and explain why.
2) get a no-strings-attached music player that supports OGG format - free, unpatented high-quality audio format (better than mp3).
3) buy the cd's you want to listen to - used. rip them to high-quality OGG files.
4) enjoy.
true, you have to buy the CD. but you're doing the right thing, used CD's will be cheaper, and you won't put more money into the pockets of the industry that refuses to sell music to you in a convenient way.
you also have the cd's on-hand if you want to rip at another quality level or in another format.
if you splurge for a huge, cheap IDE RAID array, you can have your entire music collection available digitally in your home so you never have to hunt down and load a CD again. this is what i do at home. i put an icon on my wife's debian desktop that does the following:
- rips the cd currently in the tray to lossless FLAC and to highest-quality OGG.
- transfers the FLAC copy to archive storage
- transfers the OGG copy to our massive music server.
the cd is then immediately available throughout the house via web browser using a remote X connection.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
With the lack of paid services there is also a lack of laws in other countries.I live in India and i havent heard of anyone getting sued for mp3 downloads or any law wwhich prevents us from doing so.Of course US laws have no jurisdiction over here.
So theres nothing to stop us downloading from kazaa besides the guilt feeling (and adware).It would be nice to have something like iTunes especially as these services are very affordable.
Lord of the Binges.
if you have friends in the US, you could ask them to purchase cards - or an allowance - for you. This is quite possibly what the fellow suggesting you email him will offer to do. I should think it's legal - there's no law I know of preventing me from buying a CD and sending it to you.
The copyright owner does not have any right to prevent you from listening to the music on the CD you've purchased, nor to require you to listen using only "approved" equipment. If you have to download the (mostly) equivalent bits on the internet in order to listen to the music you have purchased, so be it.
Even the DMCA does not override fair use, though media companies claim it does. The DMCA, U.S. Public Law 105-304, specifically amends 17 U.S.C. 1201 to state:
Mod me a parasite but...
Seriously, if you can not legally download the songs you want, consider that pirating them forces the record labels to get their act together.
It sends a clear and unmistakable signal to the recording industry: it's time to actually offer these songs in mp3 format.
Nota Bene: You will have to buy legal copies of those songs when they are available. But while you can't, you need not feel guilty. A music lover's got to do what a music lover's got to do...
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
I can't say that I'm an expert in iPods or mp3 commerce or anything like that. I have one and I am pretty happy ripping the songs I need from my existing CD collection. Plus I live in Canada so if I'm really hard-pressed, I can always take a day-trip South.
That said, I am pretty sure that online retailers like Amazon have native-currency retailers in countries all over the world, including France, Japan and Canada (and probably Germany). This company's overarching strategy seems to be waiting for a market to "ripen" then pluck it up - even at a premium - and take over. (Example: Remember when Amazon was basically just a book store and there was an online music retailer called CDNOW? And there there was one.)
I anticipate that if the MP3 player market continues to pick up steam, companies like Amazon will start to recognize the potential of the international market and scoop up some quasi-independant online store, assimilating them into the fold. Of course, this is all speculation, but I would say it's pretty realistic.
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
IANAL, but I read the new German copyright laws (being a German myself) and they say that private non-commercial circumvention of copy/access protection is not allowed but it also is not considered a crime. There is no punishment, at least not by the government.
Now, the copyright holder still can come after you for damages but in Germany we also already pay for private copying when we buy empty media, copiers, etc. Depending on the lawyer or judge you ask up to 4 or 5 copies to friends and relatives are considered fair use. So, there is no damage, especially if you only copy it for yourself and bought the original.
Perhaps not a solution for the original post, but some reading this thread may be interested in RipDigital. You mail them your collection of CDs and they mail back your CDs along with ripped MP3s on a data DVD they burn for you...
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Don't support copyright holders who want you to consume under restricted circumstances. There is plenty of free music out there.
Confine your purchases to Bleep - Warp's online store You can buy mp3s from anywhere in the world in GBP, EUR or USD. No DRM either.
Legal music downloads may be available in Europe as early as 2nd quarter 2004, according to this 2 month old article.
Vote for Pedro
For those interested in obtaining legal copies live music by bands that support free trade of live music, check out www.etree.org. The traders there use the SHN format (lossless), and you can frequently get any show you want for free (either via FTP or sending a blank disc and a self addressed stamped envelope - B&P) if you ask nicely. For personal use, you are allowed to transcode the SHN o MP3, but please don't trade any shows in MP3 format (and likewise, don't turn an MP3 show into a SHN).
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
he said guilty, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, guil haaaaaaaaaaaa, I can believe what I'm reading... hahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Sorry I can help it
greetings form Argentina
NEOCA - Custom LED Flashlights
1) If the music you want comes on CD...buy the CD. If it doesn't work, exchange it and try another. Repeat until you don't feel like it anymore then return the CD for real. If they refuse to give you a refund on the grounds that it was meant (not) to work that way, you probably have a case for fraud as the product was deceptively packaged to appear to be a Digital Compact Disc. If sufficient people were willing to do this, retail music stores would be forced to make changes to the way that they package and market prescratched digital media.
2) Explore music. There are many fabulous bands that, for whatever reason, have control over their own music. Most of these artists will distribute their music in MP3 form (which is really what mp3.com was all about). This method has huge benefits both to you and the artist because of the nature of your relationship to the band and their music. Music is about communication. Buying a CD from the band directly (at the show or online) lets the band and yourself communicate at an entirely different level and gives each of you a better understanding of the other. A band like Metallica, OTOH, has about the same relationship to their audience as the guy who fills peanut butter jars at Kraft.
I've tried iTunes and Napster. Neither downloads MP3s. They both download wma, and iPod has those m4as. In either case, it was my observation that, in order to get mp3s, one must use a 3rd party file format converter. Of course, to do so would be a violation of the licenses for those services. Maybe there is a feature I of which I am unware and perhaps someone will tell me about it. This is inside the U.S., BTW.
and why hasn't anyone else mentioned it?
Screw 'em. You aren't really hurting any artists by downloading the music from the net. Only the mega-super-duper-stars actually end up in the black from a record deal with one of the music cartels, and they're the ones that don't need more money. Support the artists you like by going to their concerts and buying merchandise there. Or get music from artists that didn't sign away their souls. Indie records generally assume that the common consumer is an honest person, and trust you enough to allow you to listen to the music the way you want to.
My favorite sitelist (not sure about international relevance, but whatever):
www.downhillbattle.org | www.eff.org | www.boycott-riaa.com
Um that was kind of my point, funny you mention the Nazis since they put Hitler into power in the first place, much like we have put the RIAA in power.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Check out iRATE radio. It is a collaborative rating system that downloads music from groups that have explicitly permitted their music to be released for free. It also has the nice effect that it gets things based on how much you say you liked the other stuff, and what other people thought of it. As time goes on, what it picks for you gets better and better and you find out about all kinds of artists (and styles!) that you wouldn't have otherwise heard of.
It is an open source project, so if you feel like hacking some code for an entertaining project, developers are welcome.
After a while, you end up with a nice "I'm not supporting the RIAA labels" feeling, also :)
Just put the CD into your normal CD player (not your computer)
Plug your players output into your computers input.
Record.
Granted, you loose some quality, you loose the convenient automatic retrievel of the song-titles, you may have to seperate songs by hand and ripping is only at single speed.
Convenient? Sure not! But it works. Always.
And it should be legal in Germany.
While it is illegal to circumvent a copy-protection, I would argue that you play the CD on a device that can play it and record it on a device that can record it, so you're not circumventing anything.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof for my post which this sig is too small to contain.
Check out mp3.com.au
They have heaps of tracks for free and for sale. It is an Australian site run by Destra who have been one of the first companies to sell legal music downloads in Australia. They have a lead on Apple because their is still wrangling with local record companies over the lax DRM of AAC.
Pssst... while your there, check out my band's mp3s at mp3.com.au/JeffMarni
Meat is murder, I eat chicken.
There aren't many CD's that can't be riped with 99 - 100% quality with this program.
You can also set it up to use LAME to encode to mp3 as it rips.
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
Simply buy the cd's, copy protected or not, and rip them. Most copy protection is broken before are soon after it is introduced mainstream.
You may want to seriously consider alternatives like magnatune.com and epitonic.com. There is a great deal of quality, free music. In my opinion, anything with DRM is not worth owning anyway. Seriously.
harmonious design
Every time someone brings up the topic of "illegal mp3s" (which does not make much sense), dozens of slashdotters respond with links to music services that either sell their music digitally or give it away for free. Here are some of these links:
m usic.com/m agnatune.com/
/ 70314
5 229
http://www.warprecords.com/bleep/
http://www.d
http://www.freeplaymusic.com/
http://
http://www.metropolis-records.com/
http://www.ninjatune.net/home/
The big "list", though, is at:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/9/5/05113
There's also an insane amount of free stuff in other formats (usually MOD-like, but you can usually convert to WAV and then compress to whatever format you need) at
http://www.scene.org/ and http://www.hornet.org/ plus one of the more involved scene artists, Bjorn Lynne, has lots of his stuff available for download, too: http://www.artistlaunch.com/artist4.asp?artistid=
So, if you want to listen to mostly electronic music, the internet is your playground. If you want to hear the "pop" stuff that plays on the radio, well, listen to the radio! (I'll trade you a radio walkman for that iPod of yours)
If the recording studios don't sell music under terms you like, simply don't do business with them. There's plenty of good music you can get for free or from independent records. Expand your horizons.
Try time-shifting... just download and save to disk one of the radio streams from icecast.org or shoutcast.org
It's a citizen's civic duty to ignore bad laws and challenge the evil within the system.
You can disagree, but you'll never see change unless somebody takes a stand. Civil disobedience gave Rosa Parks a seat on the bus just like everybody else, and, FAR MORE IMPORTANTLY, it empowered every single black person in America to do the same.
Ideas aren't property, even though the RIAA/MPAA wish to uphold the regime; copyright has its (limited) uses, but that doesn't make it morally imperative for every single citizen to follow along blindly.
It's good that you're thinking about the issue, but the fact is that downloading music isn't wrong - it might be illegal, depending on local laws (I live in Canada, different rules apply here) but it isn't wrong. That's an opinion. Follow your own best judgement.
just like the humble blood clot... turboporsche@telus.net
CDs are now legacy????
Both tracks are available for free download. Furthermore, The Bomb's first track, Running Scared is released under the new Fitehouse General Public Music License, which goes further than the Creative Commons or EFF Open Audio Licenses in that it requires the release of the studio master tracks from which a piece of music is composed: also on The Bomb's download piece are uncompressed WAV files with the raw, unmixed audio of each of the instrumental and vocal parts.
So if you like, you could record yourself singing and mix it with the other tracks from Running Scared.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Unfortunately, you very little options as to how you can download mp3s legally. The RIAA thinks we're stealing from them, that we just don't want to pay for songs. I would gladly pay for songs . . . if I could get them. The RIAA either needs to shutup or give us something so we can download all music that's available on CDs. Its the convenience factor that has got me wanting to download songs, not the price factor.
Other countries have a similar law in place, you should check it out.
Wow. A story that combines argument about how oppressed we are by the RIAA with Apple's music appliance. We could cube this baby if someone would chime in with an exegesis of the ways in which a 40GB iPod is actually cheaper than an FM radio...
I'm very happy with the sound quality of allofmp3, for the most part. It's definitely better than iTunes or any competitor. However, they most definitely misrepresent the quality.
All of their CDs are stored in their database as a 384 kb/s LAME encoded mp3, not in a lossless form. So, you're pretty much wasting your time if you use extremely high quality ogg or mpc encoding since the quality can never be higher than the original mp3, and whatever you use will have been reencoded at least once, with whatever associated quality losses that entails.
Allofmp3 is trying to resolve this quality issue, fortunately. Right now, they have about fifty of their most downloaded CDs (White Stripe's Elephant, Outkast's epic album, REM's greatest hits, etc.) available online to be encoded losslessly. You have to check the box that says "use original cd data" and you also have the option of getting SHN, FLAC, or APE encoded music. It's not worth it for me though; it gets expensive downloading such large files. What is beneficial is that these albums are capable of being encoded into any of Allofmp3's formats (ogg, mpc, aac) from the original source. See this interview with someone working for allofmp3.
The interview also reiterates some of the legality issues, but of course, it's straight from the mouth of allofmp3 which certainly isn't a non-biased source.
you cannot, right now, write free legal DVD players
True, but this has nothing to do with copyright law and everything to do with patents on decoding MPEG-2 video and AC3 audio. Public domain works do not fall within the scope of the DMCA's circumvention ban, which applies only to "work[s] protected under this title". There exist public domain works published on region 1 DVD, such as pre-1923 works and works of the United States Government; any DeCSS implementation could advertise itself only with respect to those works.
Very likely you're correct, but a myth I'm working hard to dispel is the notion that the only bands worth listening to are the bands signed with the major labels.
I've discovered some great bands by listening to iRATE, or exploring the websites I list in my article.
Why is it, do you think, that in arguing its side of the debate over music downloading, that the RIAA and its member labels never mention the option one has to download music both legally and for free? Why is it that all the major press articles I see about legal downloading are about services which charge a fee, like iTunes and BuyMusic?
Why are the kinds of downloads I discuss in my article never mentioned? Wouldn't it solve the controversy if everyone downloaded the music I listen to? No one's copyright would be infringed.
But you see, if that were to happen, the RIAA labels would make no money at all, because in general the artists who provide free, legal downloads are not signed with RIAA member companies. If a fan likes an MP3 so much that she buys a CD, the major labels won't be making money.
Interesting, isn't it, how the RIAA has framed the debate to completely exclude the option I discuss in my article. Interesting, indeed.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Audio Lunchbox, an indie-only digital music store has made their entire catalog of music available globally. Cross-platform (Linux, PC and Mac compatible), No DRM, the option to choose either Ogg Vorbis (Q6) or high-quality MP3 (192 kbps VBR) and an excellent selection of music (Sasha, Death Cab for Cutie, Mozart and even Jimi Hendrix) is worth checking out. To quote from the About section: 'Audio Lunchbox was founded in April 2003 by 4 individuals with a common vision: to increase exposure and availability of great independent music.'
Yup. As usual, lots of rants about "just rip it" etc etc - but they guy wanted somewhere else to DOWNLOAD PAID FOR music.
So: try Amplifier (http://www.amplifier.co.nz/amp/home) - tones of New Zealand music, in most genres, and usually about $2.50NZ (which is about $1.50US)
Maybe go with something where you can just drag and drop the files: http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/335/C2564/
Isn't music store available some time this month in Europe???
If current markets aren't working for you, just buy the CD and rip it. I think you already know this will work, but for some reason you won't do it. Your loss. Until Germany starts its own version of Itunes Music Store, you're out of luck. Grow a pair and buy the CD.
I first saw a link on Slashdot, and I think others have pointed to CDBaby in this thread.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
But I think it's obvious. They don't want your business. Mine either. So I don't buy from them. I concentrate on dealing with more ethical companies that demonstrate that they do want my business. To keep buying from the music cartel when in your position does not make you a consumer or even a fan. It makes you an abused junky.
industry if they do not cater to your needs. If they do business in your country, you can sue them. Check with a local lawyer. The only way they are going to cater to markets outside of the USA is if people outside the USA take legal action. If your country permits you to have an MP3 copy of the music, and there is no way you can get one, then sue so that there can be a way.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
True in theory, but this isn't really much of an issue in practice. There is a balance to be struct, but when you look at society (and, especially, German society), the dominant problem isn't that people follow their ethics over the laws, but rather, the opposite.
Crime is a very serious problem, but when you look at crime, it is almost never people following their ethics over the law. The few cases that exist, one could argue, overall do more good than harm (from the purely good, like the free DVD player implementations for GNU/Linux, to the partially good, like some of the occasional vandalism of immoral corporations by organizations like ELF, to the purely bad, like the occasional psycho).
The only case that I am aware of where this causes very significant harm is in some cases of terrorism. That case, however, is far enough from copyright violation that it is not really relevant here.
To play back DVDs, you need to decrypt CSS. A tool that breaks CSS is illegal under the DMCA, whether or not it is advertised for playing Disney movies, or for pre-1923 works. You can read the law. That's why everyone is pissed off about it -- it bans the tool, rather than the act, and as a result bans a very large number of very useful tools.
http://www.trax2burn.com sells dance/house music.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Most of the artists today have one or two good songs on the cd. And all the rest of the songs are just fucking garbage. And then riaa wonders why the fuck they are losing money! Nobody wants to pay $20 to listen to 1 or 2 songs. Fuck that shit.
What you should do is, download the songs you like, put them on your iPOD, and lose the guilt. I bought 10s of cds in past few years, and I paid a lot of money for them. On every 10 cds I got, there were only 10 or 15 good songs. So the moral is, fuck riaa and get your money back. Thats all there is to it.
Actually the artists on I-rate radio have approved the release of their music. After rating, I've come up with some really great music. Go try it yourself and see!
The basic premise behind property is that if I build a house, there is one house. If you take my house, I no longer have it, and I am deprived of my property. It is, in economic terms, a scarce good.
Information, in contrast, is in economic terms a free good. If you create information, and I take it, you still have the information.
As a result, the two are fundamentally different. Information is not property (except in the legal sense -- which has a much broader definition of property than what we normally associate), and property is not information.
The concept of copyright is based on the idea that if we reward creators of information, we will have more of it. It is not based on some concept of property or control over one's creation. If you follow that path, you eventually run into contradictions. It is strictly a contract between society and the creators of information -- it is not a concept of control or ownership, but rather one of compensation for doing something that benefits society.
(One disclaimer: the economic definition of 'free good' and 'scarce good' is different than the common one, so please don't argue that point unless you're familiar with the economic definition)
In terms of Aristotle on property, I cannot see where you are coming from. Aristotle's view was that the natural way of generating property was through household management (which included managing slaves -- and he does, at length, argue for the merits of slavery), rather than one's own labor. He viewed trade as an immoral and unnatural way of aquiring wealth, and hated merchants. He viewed professions like banking as the lowest and most immoral way of aquiring wealth, since they were dealing in something abstract and non-physical. The concept of intellectual property did not exist at the time, but if it did, I cannot see him agreeing with it.
If you happen to like John Buckman's taste in music, Magnatune.com is perfectly happy to sell to anyone anywhere. You can also feel good about where your money is going, since half goes to the artists and the other half goes to the people who give the first half to the artists.
But in the U.S. you can have a digital copy of something as long as you legally own the original. This has to do with the Home Taping Act. So if I buy the new Red House Painters Cd and it is copy protected, I can legally download it from someone else. I already own the album... right? --Nick P.S. You can always do an analog rip. If you are compressing the music, the little bit of additonal signal degredation isn't noticeable, and a lot of software supports this.
http://cassettefetish.com
Each country has its own laws and music publishing companies (as opposed to record companies) which complicates things.
Apple (or whoever wants to start this sort of service) needs to make separate deals with the music publishing companies in each country they want to roll out their service to.
Trust me - the record companies and Apple would roll it out internationally if they could - but they can't until the legal complications are sorted out in each country.
Expect to see new countries coming online as these deals get made.
I just thought of a solution that all us, non-U.S music listners can use. Take a trip down to your US embassy, because remember... that is American soil, therefore you are still accessing the Napster client from IN the U.S!
Is this guy for real?
It sounds like he wanted on Slashdot so bad to impress his friends that he wanted to post anything to create some fuss.
Really, guy, you knew what services were available before you purchased the hardware (and 40GB at that, so you must have intended to put a LOT of mp3s on it somehow). So why question it now?
Do you somehow want to legitimize it in your mind to use file sharing methods because these "big bad new CDs" don't even constitute as "CDs" ??? You must have thought about it beforehand especially buying so much space (40GB is a lot of music).
"I don't want a CD, vinyl record, tape or minidisc." You are kind of cutting out your options since you are being so demanding and also knew you couldn't (legally) use iTunes and friends.
So what gives. You want to legally listen to new music? Buy the CDs are the only way pal.
You can rip it and put the music on the device yourself, legally....I didn't know that the DMCA transcends borders into Germany, but hey, you wanted to be on Slashdot so why not forget about that point and beat the old "fair use" (or anti-DMCA/circumvention/blah) drum.
One day soon will be known as "the day the music died."
It just won't be worth it anymore. There will be no legal way to listen to music at all. The radio stations will shut down, audio equipment will be taken off the market, and CD stores will close. All the musicians will move to San Francisco where bum payouts from the government are the highest.
P.S. If the nation's largest railroad also shuts down, a prophecy is being fufilled so watch out.
I lived in Germany for a year and used the iTunes Music Store all the time. The key was having a US addressed credit card account. So if that's an option...
After a computer you can't find apps and games for, they release a mp3 player you can't get music for...
Back to topic, I personally would look into some of the Russian sites previously mentioned here. Most countried have laws in place that force the copyrights to be recognized across borders so if you purchase it in one country legally, then it is legally bound in the other country as well. A while back there was a big discussion about some of these sites on /. and the overall consensus was that those songs would be legal in the US if you purchased them from some of those Russian sites, as those sites legally obtained the rights to distribute the content in accordance with Russian copyright laws.
Even though it works out to about $.90 an album, it is a legally obtained album. Most news networks/sites in the US will not cover this topic because many are fully or partly owned by many of the big media corporations, and they don't want you to know that you can do this legally.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
at http://www.bigpondmusic.com/
From what I remember, they've recently made a deal with Universal. I'm pretty sure they've got deals with other big names too. Don't know if this is Australia-only though.
These guys are offering mp3 at ridiculously low prices: mp3search.ru. They do not have most things that I want but that might be due to my twisted taste rather than their selection. They claim that it is all legit. You decide. Their network speed has been good in the past and pretty much kept up with my cable connection speed.
www.emusic.com is one option you have. Some albums are restricted to North America, but most aren't. If you live in Australia you can try Telstra's new music download service, but I haven't yet found a track I want to buy.
A tool that breaks CSS is illegal under the DMCA, whether or not it is advertised for playing Disney movies, or for pre-1923 works. You can read the law.
I have already read the statute. I will now quote the statute:
All three prohibitions refer to "a work protected under this title." How is a work of the United States Government, a work first published in the United States before 1923, or a work first published in the United States before 1964 whose copyright was never renewed, "a work protected under this title"?
So if you live in the US and want to listen to music from another country, what do you do? Say you like, I dunno, Japanese music. That's all I listen to. I don't listen to ANY American music. No BS.
Can't go buy much of it in stores, can't download it from Napster 2.0 or iTunes, so where do I go? Kazaa?
Sure, iTunes is about to launch overseas stores in Japan and other places, but what do you want to bet that will be for the local residents only?
What about US residents who want to listen to music from other countries? Here we are a country full of immigrants and none of the online music plans has addressed that. They just assume American music is it. But it's not, dammit.
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.
Indeed, sometimes it is ones duty to break the law: if the law is injust. Just like civilians in Nazi germany should have broken the law, we have the same duty in these times.
In my view the proponents of "intellectual property", the concept alone is hostile to civilisation and humanity, are the real criminals. Civilisation is marked by sharing of information and not withholding it. Those who try to implant ideas and laws that prevent information sharing are perverting civilisation and are enemies of humanity, at the same level as terrorists and other enemies of ours.
Therefore, those who do not break these criminal and dangerous laws, are collaborating with an evil system.
Hi there, it is very easily possible to download music with iTunes evenif you live in Germany. You just need an AOL (aim) account. If someone needs information about this, just mail me. Wolfgang
If the CD you want isn't copy protected, no problem. Just by the CD.
If it is copy protected, you could protest the use of copy protected CDs by not buying it. Otherwise you could possibly rip it with cdparanoia, or you can always do an analog copy. You could also download the MP3s off the net if you already own the album. I'm pretty sure that's not illegal anywhere.
Of course, if you only want single tracks and not full albums, then buying CDs won't help.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
www.mediamarkt.de
CSS is a "technological measure that effective controls access to a work protected under this title." It protects access to Terminator 2, and a number of other movies. It was designed for this purpose.
The fact that other works exist that are not "works protected under this title" is completely irrelevant. So long as the measure was designed to protect a work, and that work matches the definition of this title, you cannot circumvent it.
Quoting the law doesn't change it. Just because there are legally unprotected works controlled by DRM doesn't give you rights to break the DRM. Otherwise, to have legal permission to break a DRM, all I'd need to do is convince someone to release any piece of public domain material undr it.
Check out www.emusic.com (with which I'm not affiliated, but use regularly) They sell mp3's for 22 cents a piece and have a nice collection. Some albums can not be sold outside the US though because of regulations (different record companies for the same cd inside and outside the US), but this seems to be a small percentage.
GNUArt gallery : Free music and whatever..
Trolling using another account since 2005.
There are PLENTY of sites where you can legally download unrestricted mp3's and most are less "dubious" than allofmp3.com. Try eMusic. No... they don't have the latest Disney Factory clones such as Britney Timberlake or Justin Spears, but they have damn good music nonetheless.
Spend your money on the service that gives you exactly what you want - and let the rest know exactly why they can't have your money.
This is the best way we consumers can take control back in ANY market. It's all about the benjamins. If you're all willing to support the businesses that GIVE US WHAT WE WANT then it won't be long before services like eMusic will be able to offer us the Clear Channel Approved Top-40 artists as well (providing anyone even gives a damn about them by then).
It takes an idiot to do cool things - that's why it's cool!
Sorry, but allofmp3.com is, of course, illegal in Germany.
s ic .shtml
http://www.mp3-world.net/d/news/dienste/1centmu
The iTunes music store will be available in Europe later this year if everything goes well, according to Apple.
Martin
I hate to give a touchy-feely answer to a serious question, but it also involves a bit of human engineering. The Record was created at the turn of the century to reproduce classical recordings. From the point that music was recorded it was recorded with the intent of being played back on vinyl. Horns, violins, etc were used to tune the recording system and the recording system was used to tune the records that came out. Elvis still sounds better on vinyl.
Now, I while I can't say that modern music sounds terrible on a record (I have a disk here by Kosheen that would attest to that), most of the poppy, clippy... sharp modern recordings sound better on CD. They were recorded with CD's in mind, tuned for CD's, and released on CD. I can't guarentee that Janet sounds better on CD, but most of the modern, non-jazz or instrumental recordings I have heard recently sound much better on disk. Wayne Shorter seems better on Vinyl, but he makes for a more classical sound.
There another touchy-feely answer for you. Recordings sound best on the medium that they were styled, mixed, and recorded for, because they have been optimized for the strengths and weaknesses of that medium.
The ______ Agenda
www.allofmp3.com is a legal site that sells music and pays to the artists. This is a companybased in RUSSIA. ROMS (The RIAA of Russia) obtains the rights of hall music autmatically. This is in the agreement that ROMS obtained when Russia was communistic but still aplies today. Though that kind of agreement is insane to sign, it atleast at that time meant that some of the money would go to the artists. The RIAA has tried to shut down the site allofmp3.com but ROMS adviced that it would be a waste of time and would be thrown out of court before it even reached there.
Cheers
It's legal to download, but not to share to other than friends ( you need to own the original to share it ). Well buddy, you look like a fiend to me :)
Losses caused by sharing to friends have always been payed for by special taxes on all analog recording media. These days the law is under pressure due to changed habits.
All of the "copy protected" CDs that I ever bought were perfectly readable by iTunes, and are now nicely stored in MP3 format on my iPod.
Oh, maybe this is because I have a Mac :-)
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
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I live in Germany too, and as far as I know it's still legal (or better, not illegal) to download files off of P2P networks, etc.. There is legislation currently under discussion to do away with this, but it's not finalized yet. My advice to you is to just take the songs you want and if you like them and don't want to feel guilty, kick back a few bucks directly to the artist.
Unfortunately Play.com and CDwow have done an out-of-court deal with the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) which effectively stops them selling non-EU CDs. They used to be the best source of uncrippled stuff. You may need to order direct from the US, but there should be no Customs charges for such a small item.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
ROMS is Russian analogue to RIAA, it does pay artists for selling their materials, as much copyright law in Russia specifies. So, in my oppinion, it is barely legal to buy songs from them wherever you live. Talks about fair compensation for artists, i leave to loosers buying unworthy $1 tracks.
You may give a chance to some artists that publish their music for free. An example is Machinae Supremacy (www.machinaesupremacy.com)
And the European companies who plan to do a similar thing won't go for it yet, as they are inspecting closely on how the US businesses will do and hope to learn from their possible mistakes before putting in any real money.
So, basically.. let's just think that they are participating in a closed beta test in the States. It'll come to Europe.. eventually.
-el
archive.org
netlabel catalogue
netlabel reviews
there is even torrents for whole archives:
legal torrents
or to keep yourself updated subscribe one of these mailinglists:
netlabel releases
netaudio
There are laws and there are laws. But without enforcement , the situation is never going to change.
The problem here is that whats right and whats wrong have not been clearly arrived at and interpretations differ from country to country.If the RIAA and other music labels arent going full steam ahead with enforcement, it shows that they are still happy with the money they make. The moment they realise a threat to their survival, they would come up with concrete plans for defining laws acceptable by all. And then enforcement will follow.
Sorry, but there quite some site you can download from legally if you're ready to pay for it. http://rtl.musicload.de/ (don't wanne comment on prices & quality & choice;), http://www.mycokemusic.com/ should do it as well.
...
;)
I'm bit suprised since the author seems to be a "Heise.de" reader which actually means that he should find a lot of usuful references
Just my 2 cents
I don't know what there is in Germany, but in Italy there are several "offical" sites that allow you to download music for payment like iTunes, for ex:
. ph p?partner=kataweb
http://www.messaggeriedigitali.it/home_download
Under EU law they cannot stop you from buying anywhere in Europe.
There is a catch.....you can only listen to them with Windows media player!
You may be interested in my political party (see sig).
Based on the internet, tech savvy, and certainly knowledgable about copyright concerns. Jump into our forums, become a member and actually shape our policies.
All Australians are welcome to become members and all international citizens are free to post in the forum and give your own views on subjects.
Visceral Psyche Films
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.
Just get your mp3s of Kazza or other p2p like everyone else. If the record companies aren't selling then its their own fault. Actually this is the reason they are in the shit they are in now... too much hunger for control. Now their industry is bust, what can you say? Ha Ha. Go download and stop feeling so guilty over another idiots misfortunes.
Heise c't article has an abstract of the article. Note: the link points to a german site.
why not use http://www.weblisten.com - it's a fully legal mp3 site where you can purchase as many mp3's or wma's as you like. It's great value with lots of different subscription rates. I can't understand why no one ever talks about this site, it's been around for 3 or 4 years - way before itunes etc.
Just don't buy audio CD's that don't follow the red book standard
This register story gives the situation.
In Britain we have fair dealing, but it is quite restricted in scope, use appears to be limited to less than a "substantial part", ie if you can recognise the track from the clip it's substantial! Journalists it seems can do what they like (Copyright-wise) and claim it's research for a story.
The UKPO has this to say:
there's so much free music on the net - why not listen to some new stuff, instead of airplay music ;)
besonic.de
mp3.de
nachwuchsbands.de ......
Once more The Register comes to the rescue: http://theregister.co.uk/content/6/36178.html
is all you need. Read the iTunes disclaimer more carefully.
I live in London and have a credit card with a US address. I use a friends snail address for my initial application and statements.
This card is backed by a deposit ($500), and initially your credit limit is slightly less than the deposit. Over the limit is increased.
You also earn interest on your deposits.
So you can purchase music from the iTunes store; they don't check IP or anything like that.
Apple just wants you to have a credit card with a US billing address.
A message from our sponsor
posting from work...links should be
www.apple.com/support/itunes/s_allowances.html
www.providian.com
A message from our sponsor
Try www.wippit.com, not the most complete selection of music but a fairly comprehensive system.
R
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:
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.
It seems like this is an opportunity to someone to, using the somewhat wild and bumpy experience of US companies attempting to properly distribute legal software, to enter the European market. Now I know that atleast part of the issue is differing licensing and copyright legislation in different markets, but isn't part of the purpose of the European Common Market to create a unified set of regulations to allow easier trade?
Now if there is no legal way to digitize music in your country, you don't have a technical issue, you have a legislative issue, one which has to be addressed. I know it can't be purely because American music companies won't allow it because I do not believe we have all that many music companies, what with Sony, Bertelsman and others.
Obviously Apple and others are going to work to tap such a large market. Eventually there will be a solution.
Until then, there might be an opening for some European companies (likewise the rest of the world) to develop their own methods and get their own distribution licenses.
Beyond that, I am surprised about the copy-protected CD issue as I haven't yet bought a CD I couldn't RIP (I don't have an IPod and I don't download music (although my wife does use Apple's ITunes Music Store) but I do rip my entire music collection for convenience.
Perhaps the reason we don't have a problem ripping CD's is that we use Macs. So there is your answer:)
In spite of what the RIAA would have you believe, downloading music is not illegal (in the U.S.). Uploading is.
Try binary newsgroups.
Of course neither newsgroups nor P2P work if there is not someone willing to break the law and upload copyrighted files; but if the files are already there, you might as well benefit.
The reason why iPod headphones are white isnt fashion, its so that when we get the new totalitarian fascist dictatorship laws in the police will be able to just go on the streets and arrest white headphone wearing dissidents.
As i type im watching the news about the latest terrorist attack in spain, FFS why cant they target the politicians! if they really have to bomb someone theres no-one more deserving than the pig-fucking assholes who are responsible for half of everything thats wrong in this world.
Yeah go on, mod me down, ive got karma to burn and a lower UID than you've had women and thats low!!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Buy a cheap portable audio CD player, a mini 1/8" Stereo male/male cable (asuming you don't have these items already), and rip it through the audio in on your sound card. I don't imagine that you'll notice that much loss in quality assuming you adjust the levels properly and considering the degradation of the inherent in the mp3 format.
;-)
Or, go to your local embassy and see if they'll let you borrow some bandwidth for downloading... you'll be on "US Soil".
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
If you're german, I don't quite see where your problem is.
The new law explicitly _permits_ copying for private use if the source of the copy is legal. On top of that, it even explicitly _excludes_ market-restriction-technologies (Marktbeschraenkungsmassnahmen) from protection by the new law!
Apart from the fact that this law is designed by politicians who all over the world won't get that there is no thing as 'digital copy protection'and that that in fact is a contradiction in term and has no place in the plaintext of a law, I find the new german law not all that bad. There were just to many tech-savy people and german jurists stating that a german DMCA would be impercise, technically false and unconstitutional. This luckyly prevented the goverment from releasing the piece of crap their first draft was into the wild.
The law needs a serious redoo, no doubt, and it should have never be released, like lot's of other crap our politicians come up with these days, but what you're planning to do is currently perfectly legal nonetheless.
Borrow your CDs from the local library or a friend or close relative and make a private copy to your iPod. Voila. As long as you don't trade online or with others and don't play your collection in public your not breaking any current german law.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Ooo! Here's your solution. You can download "Legal" versions of songs on MPThursdays(9 per week) from ORock 105.9 in Orlando, FL. I guess it's still legal from Germany as well. :)
Buying a 40GB iPod and realizing that you don't have any Music.
Although, I still illegally download music and have no intention of stopping. RIAA be damned! The author brings an interesting point.
I feel that since you have the iPod, you want to buy the media yet there is no medium in place for you to legally do this. I suggest as you have stated, buy the CD rip it to your PC, should the CD prove unrippable download the songs. I submit to you that having purchased the CD, under current DMCA laws you have a legal right to a backup of youor media. If the CD is non-rippable, then I would feel no guilt having downloaded what I've already paid for.
SIDENOTE: I do download illegaly, but if I like what I've heard I will purchase the CD down the road to support that artist. If I don't like it, I simply delete it. I like to think of it as a try before you buy type deal.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
To rip a copy protected CD press shift while inserting the CD and release once the CD is finished spinning up. Or use anything but ms w*ndows.
http://www.vitaminic.de/main/
Big dumb kraut!
;-)
Watch it pal! I am NOT big!
I heard in TV from a lot of brazilian artists that they are totally fine with downloading mp3.
(i'm brazilian)
What they dont like is when someone starts to make pirated CDs to sell.
There is particulary Chorao, Charlie Brown vocalist, who said: "I think this is great when someone buy a cd and copy it for his friends."
I intend to live forever. So far, so good.
Yes, you are right. And my iPod is filled with 40 GB of German marching-music. ;-)
Herr Kubiak
At home and work, I use the MP3 format on computers.
At the gym, I use the MP3 format on my handheld player.
In the car, I use the MP3 player on my MP3 CD player.
All MP3 all the fime.
According to the RIAA, this makes me Public Enemy Number One. According to the RIAA, I should go out and purchase an overpriced CD (the RIAA has been successfully sues 5 times for price fixing) full of songs I just plain don't want.
So I go looking for a way to get my MP3s legally. Hmm. Lots of options for legal online music. crapPod, Crapster, buy.com, even Walmart sell online music. In special formats. Namely, not in MP3 format.
So what you're telling me is, when I download a music file at work from, say, Walmart, I get a WMA file, which can only be played on THAT machine.
Wait! Wait! Didn't I purchase it? Don't I own it? Why the bloody hell can't I take it home and listen to it? Why can't I listen to it at the gym or in the car? I own it, don't I? If I bought a CD, wouldn't I be able to take it out of my home CD player and put it in my car? Why not with digital music, then?
Solution? Give the RIAA the finger. Challenge copyright. Share MP3s! Tell the recording industry you want your MP3!
A bunch of guys in Boston dress up like Indians, trespass on a privately-owned ship, and proceed to dump its cargo into the harbor. We consider them heros for their act of defiance against a tyrant. Seeing a parallel yet?
:wq
I am going on my premise that ANYTHING that you can hear, see, or read on a computer can be copied no matter what copy protection they institute. So the CD is rip protected but you can still hear it. Simply download SoundRecorder from their site. Google it, free reg. Record the song into wav format and compress to mp3. You have just circumvented the rip protection.
Let's put it this way: Some laws were just made to be broken and this is one of them. Sounds to me like you're on a guilt trip or something. Besides which, most MP3s are so inferior to the original that I have always wondered what the fuss is all about anyway. So rip away and enjoy yourself.
Protest Records specifically says at the bottom of its mp3s page `use 'em yrself, give 'em to friends, just don't sell 'em'. There's some good music there. Unfotunately I don't think I know of any sites with lots of free/legal music other than Protest Records. Free is, unfortunately a very common word so it's not easy searching for `free music'.
You can often get an mp3 or two from a band's website too.
Even accepting the theory of why analog is better (which I do), it is moot since people do not play LPs once and throw them away.
Once you play a vinyl record, you introduce pops and scratches, losing the benefits of analog.
Simple solution - take the "protected" cd and hold down shift while putting it in the drive
...they offer the Bleep Music Store. All files are high-quality (VBR with the settings cranked up) MP3s, unprotected -- they *gasp* treat you like a customer instead of a serf. Also you can preview tracks -- not just 30 seconds of a track, but all of it (albeit in 30 second chunks, so you can't just rip the whole track to a .wav file before buying). Also there's Magnatune (tagline: "We are not evil" ;-} ). Warp have the advantage of 'famous names' though, like Aphex Twin or LFO.
So I don't seem hypocritical, here are my free classical music recordings!
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Shouldn't you have asked this question before you bought the $500 iPod?
Not all the MP3 material on emusic.com is licensed for outside the US, but most of it is. http://www.emusic.com
Should only be a short wait and whatever country you're in will be annexed by the US. Iraq and Haiti are already enjoying the benefits of the iTunes music store.
I admire the way that you are trying to find an ethical solution to your dilemma and hopefully I might be able to help.
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I have recently helped a number of European customers shop for audio visual products at the Chinese AV scrap markets, where the major labels dump all their surplus and tax write off stock. So far, I have been helping mainly French nationals who are interested in rescuing surplus that has been dumped my companies such as Fnac, Carrefour and Virgin but there is a great deal of German music and movies too with BMG being particularly well represented. If you would like more details please check out this link at the Boycott RIAA site http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/8915
or email me direct at 'wenshidi (do I really need to tell you what to write here) yahoo.co.uk'
Here are a few more relevant links to give you some background on the situation on the hidden entertainment industry practice of disc dumping.
Further background reading about sawgash CDs
'Zombie Discs' by Neil Gough
www.time.com/time/asia/news/column/0,9754,
or for those where Time is blocked by the great firewall
http://www.sonicchina.org/r/r1-6.htm
The Sinic Savant: Saw-Gashed CDs
www.chinanow.com/english/features/sinic/sawg
Wudaokou: Shopping Heaven for the Backpacker & Student Set
www.chinanow.com/english/beijing/city/featur
I have several music CDs with protection mechanisms, and I have learnt the hard way that they easily get so damaged that they're non-playable.
Therefore, when I buy a protected music CD I immediately make a personal "working" copy. How? I play it on an old 1-speed external CD-ROM drive and make the copying via MacOS 8.1.
I'm not trying to circumvent the protection in a technical sense, and since it is permitted under Danish law to make personal safety copies I'm completely legit.
I could have made a straight rip from the original, but I prefer playing the CDs at home - even top bit VBR compresssion is clearly detectable on my system
Regards
Peter J. Pedersen
This should pretty much cover your apetite for music. Take a look and I think you'll like what you see.
Myglobalsound.com - "Myglobalsound is the premiere portal for all genres of independent music. Our mission is to combine cutting edge technology, ingenuity, creativity, customer satisfaction and overall pristine product quality to provide our clients with the best means to get their music heard globally. Myglobalsound provides our clients with a wealth of resources and tools that provide the opportunity to interactively grasp a real world understanding of the music business and its interworkings, without having to experience any of the consequences. It is our goal to make you a success whether you decide to be part of a record label or if you decide independence is the only way to go. Whether you're selling, buying, or just learning, Myglobalsound is the only site, the only sound, that you will ever need."