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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?
In a place like Australia, is considered stealing even if you own a copy.
You get them at http://opsound.org !
Licenced under Creative Commons licence...
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.
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?"
Some record companies have no problem with it.
Audio Luncbox also allows you to have unrestricted mp3 or aac. Enjoy!
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Indeed it is - without explicit permission from the copyright holder, we UKians do not have the right to make any copy. That includes format shifting, backups, etc.
Kinda sucks, really - I guess that 260GBP iRiver I bought is just a nice USB hard-drive with built-in mic and FM tuner, as I certainly can't buy electronic versions of the music I like (ebm, goth, etc). Hell, some of the stuff I like is hard enough to get on CD...
On the plus side, the law is effectively unenforceable - I don't know a single person who doesn't have some sort of audio device, be it cassette, mp3 player, minidisc, or whatever. I suspect that the vast majority of people in the UK have broken this particular law at some point, most likely right now.
On the minus side, that really means that, should they want to investigate you for some reason, that's another line of attack they can take. Remember, they *wanted* Al Capone because he was a gangster. They *got* him for tax evasion...
Paranoia aside, it damages the Law as a whole to have unenforced/unenforceable laws on the books. I don't see it changing any time soon, though - in fact, in light of recent events (the EU "super-DMCA"), I can only see it getting worse.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Could you use an american proxy server to make your connection appear to come from here?
x y/proxy-list/
http://www.atomintersoft.com/products/alive-pro
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
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
Looks like Apple's itunes won't be available in Europe anytime soon (apparently Napster seems to want to come back in Europe though).
No I don't remember.
That sounds bogus, if ship ripped MP3's you can't check checksums. MP3 is a lossy format.
Doesn't mean they can't figure out in some manner, not via checksums.
Actually, in the US it does make a difference what the source of the copy is, as mp3.com found out the hard way.
Here in The Netherlands, anything you download as a private person is legal; how about that for fair use? (Putting stuff up to be downloaded is a different game; that's where the dues should be paid (and they make it hard enough))
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
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.
Just to clarify, while mp3.com required you to have a copy of the CD you were downloading mp3s for, and while you are allowed to make copies of your CD, the court ruled that YOU are allowed to make copies of YOUR CD, but are not entitled to copies from someone elses CD.
This is why the law is so stupid.
But believe me, I have downloaded many things I own in one format or another, and feel no guilt.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
They ran checksums on the MP3 files, not the audio CD. MP3 compression is lossy and files will be different depending on encoder and options, but once ripped the MP3 files that are traded will be identical byte for byte. There's not that many different rips of the same song being traded so the RIAA has SHA or MD5 sums of the song files being traded online. If the woman's files were identical to the ones on Kazaa, then she must have downloaded them from Kazaa or (less likely) ripped them from her CD with the exact same encoder, bitrate and options as the person who first uploaded it.
However, unlike downloading a few songs, handing out 10,000 copies would be criminal infringement under the current definition.
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.
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.
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
This came up during the one of the DMCA cases - the court asked about what happens when the protected content enters the public domain if it's illegal to distribute a mechanism to circumvent the protection. Under the current law, even if you have every right to the content, it's apparently illegal to take the necessary steps to get access to it.
This effectively gives the publisher an infinitely long copyright.
When people say vinyl has better quality than cd's, they are speaking strictly about quality, not performance. For an extreme example, humans can hear up to around 22kHz. A 22kHz sine wave converted to 44kHz digital then back to 22kHz sine wave becomes horribly distorted. The distortion becomes less as the frequencies drop.
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People who say they can hear the difference are primarily speaking about analog music, like classical. I personally have heard the difference between a perfect quality vinyl and a cd in some classical music. With music thats digitally created and never really becomes analog you most likely won't be able to hear any difference at all.
This difference in quality also was much more apparent when cd's first came out since AD/DA converters were not the quality they are now. If you can find a perfect vinyl record of classical music, a high end turntable, high quality amp and speakers and compare it to one of the first cd players that ever came out playing the same music, you could hear the difference quite easily.
Performance comes into play when you start talking about scratched records and cd's. Cd's hold on to their quality much better than vinyl.
When the cd format was first being worked on, one of the rules was that Beethoven's 9th had to fit on a single disc since it was 74 minutes long. The engineers found that for a disc to hold beethoven's 9th and have the quality of vinyl, it had to be sampled at 16 bit and was 12cm in diameter. This was too big to make portable cd players realistic so its size and sampling rate were decreased, resulting in lesser quality than vinyl. (http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/cd/cd_length_sk
No, "sound fidelity" is still wrong, and hopelessly vague.
Once again: it isn't a 16-bit interpretation. Sampling does not involve taking "pieces" of music and then throwing them back, hoping it's going by too fast for you to hear. Sampling involves getting a collection of samples that, when converted back into analogue, represents the input waveform (up 'til the threshold your current sampling specification allows) almost exactly.
As for digital recording, 24bit is used precisely because DSP is so popular. 24bit does give you a greater dynamic range (although popular music doesn't tend to use it), but it also removes the amount of dithering you have to do on a signal, as you have many extra bits being used for various digital process computations.
Sampling rate is another story entirely. Nyquist states that 44.1kHz should be adequate, but I understand the idea of leaving room for error; consequently, 96kHz is certainly appropriate. Anything higher than that, though, and studies show you're probably actually degrading the signal.