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Oxfam Launches Music Download Service

Posted by timothy on from the good-cause-and-human-interest dept.

rahaydenuk writes "The BBC reports that Oxfam is backing the Big Noise Music website, which launches on Wednesday and will offer 300,000 songs for download. 10p of the 75p or 99p charge to download the songs will go to Oxfam and the service will be available across Europe."

2 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. I was going to say something like that by KhalidBoussouara · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So I'll post what I was going to say as a reply. My post details each option (buying or giving the money directly to charity) and what benefits the latter option brings to you.

    Imagine you have 7.50GBP.

    You could buy 10 songs from the service. Oxfam gets 0.75. The artists get hardly anything. You get a crappy WMA file infested with DRM.

    or

    You download 10 songs from the internet and donate half the money you were going to spend directly to oxfam. Oxfam receives 3.50GBP (500% increase). You recieve a high quality audio file which will work on a variety of systems and contains no DRM.

    Which would you choose? For legal reasons, I will not provide an answer. Of course most people will choose option 2 and keep the money for themselves but that's not the point. If you really want to help a charity there is always a better option than bowing down to a company.

  2. I feel like a mineral resource. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am a musician. Always have been.
    Make albums. Record other peoples. etc.

    I support Oxfam, but I am starting to feel like some kind of object. Everything I make will probably end up in some kind of big discount sale. A few more years and it will be commonplace to get media with a thousand records on it. Probably as a free gift along with your petrol.

    It makes records seem like the free coupons you get when you buy the right brand of detergant.

    It's kinda sad.