Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Which International Online Music Stores Are Legit?
rjnagle writes "I'm an American lover of music who is interested in buying legally music from other countries. How do I know which CD/online music stores are legit and actually benefit the artist? I'm very cost-conscious and prefer indie music anyway, but the types of international music for sale on Amazon/iTunes tends to be from the bigger labels. Suppose I wanted to buy music from Pakistan/Ukraine/China/Brazil/Chad. What's the best way to identify which labels or online stories are authorized to sell them? Perhaps all I need is a list of the best known online music stores for each region (Yesasia.com, etc)."
Try magnatune.com
Fantastic music: Magnatune works with artists directly, not with record labels, and all their music is hand-picked. On average, they accept 3% of submissions
Perfect audio quality: you get CD quality audio WAV files, as well as super-high quality VBR MP3s, AAC, and open source friendly FLAC and OGG formats
No DRM: No copy protection (DRM), you can do what you like with your music
Listen to everything: all their albums can be listened to in their entirety before you become a member
Download everything: their monthly membership allows you to download anything from their entire catalog--no limits.
Musicians get paid: 50% of your purchase price goes directly to the musician, not to labels and their lawyers
Album art: every album includes high quality album art (in both Adobe Acrobat and 300DPI JPG formats)
Give to your friends: They encourage you to give 3 copies of any music from your membership to your friends
Artists direct: They sign contracts directly with musicians, so you can rest assured that they can legally license music to you, and no middlemen get in the way of the artist's royalties
Podcast-legal: non-commercial podcasters can use their music for free
No major labels: they have absolutely nothing to do with major labels or the RIAA
Financially support Open Source: they financially support several open source projects such as Amarok and Rhythmbox
Most artists have links to purchase or download their work on their website.
Go to the artists' website. There you'll likely as not find a link or ten to Amazon or iTunes if they have a pressed-disc contract, or to direct downloads via http/ftp or torrents or some other free method if they're that way inclined to distribute their music. It's a model that works - just go to the Stereophonics website and download an album or two - and donate what you want! They made more off a single album this way than they ever did through a Big Five label with all their other material combined!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Or try www.jamendo.com and donate
Seriously, is this a joke? First, the list of countries is a who's who of who ignores copyright. China especially is legendary for pretending the concept doesn't even exist. Second, let's say in some fantasy world, these countries decide to honor copyright, at least of their own artists. Guess what happens? They grow a tumor known as "the Music Industry."
It's a horrifying system of lies and betrayals where a corporation demands artists sign for many many albums before they will publish the first album, then loads the bill with so much random assorted bullshit that by the end of the first album, the artist owes more to the record company than their record will earn. This cycle is repeated for each album. It includes such creative accounting as astronomical studio fees, ludicrous equipment fees, and "promotion" that never actually happens at all. Then, when the artist is played out even as catalog filler, they are dismissed, never to be heard from again. If they attempt to self-promote, they discover that the record company owns everything they ever did, may even own the name under which they did it, and will not even answer the phone if they attempt to negotiate to perform their own back catalog. Contract law is enforced with draconian measures against the artists, in favor of the record company, in an asymmetrical relationship that only misses literal slavery by a hair's breadth.
But all of that pales in the face of one monstrous truth: record companies steal more from artists than consumer copyright infringement ever has or ever will, and for one simple reason: record companies steal the proceeds of actual sales from artists. They lie about the accounting, claim with a straight face that the album has never turned a profit, and pocket every dime of the income. Actual money.
Let me repeat that, because it's something that keeps getting lost in all of Slashdot's attempts to talk about copyright. Record companies steal real money from artists. Enormous amounts of it.
What do you think pays for those asymmetrical laws, and asymmetrical enforcement? Stolen money. Boatloads of it. What do you think pays for all the propaganda Slashdot is forever at pains to fight? Stolen money. Actual stolen money. Consumer copyright infringement rarely involves money changing hands. The number of dupers who charge money for copies is microscopic. Certainly all downloading, including torrenting, does not involve money. So we all know the RIAA's claims of huge amounts of money "lost" are nothing but creative lies. What we persistently forget is the huge amounts of actual money being paid to them that the artists never see.
So I ask again, is this a joke? And if not, why do you hate those countries you named? Why would you wish upon them this cultural parasite that the US has? This parasite that is so bloated, so greedy, and so entitled that it has caused international incidents in the pursuit of its own thieving ways. The police (and citizens) of New Zealand have been humiliated and shamed for knuckling under to the demands of this "industry". I put "industry" in scare quotes because you should be scared of anything that has systematically raped culture and those who create it for nigh on a century.
The answer to your question is this: the artist. ONLY the artist. No other source is legitimate. No reseller, no record company, no middleman, no matter how altruistic they claim to be now, can be trusted. Nor should they be encouraged to develop in places that aren't already subject to this scourge. This is the Information Age. Indeed, I've heard claims that we're already in the post-Information Age. Go straight to the artists. Tolerate no middlemen. They will turn into monsters before your eyes if you give them any money at all. Keep them starved, and ignore them.
How then do you find artists, you ask? Ask your friends. Seriously. This has always worked best, and always will. A lot of the affect of music on human culture is the shared exp
Considering this is Slashdot, I'll bet that more people understand Klingon than Icelandic.
Yes. This. And it only occurred to me recently.
I'd seen a band at a festival, and decided to buy some of their stuff. I could have just gone to Amazon, and usually I would have done. But on a whim, I posted on their facebook page -- "hey, if I want some of your CDs, which online shop gives you the biggest cut of the profit?" They replied "buy it direct from us".
I ended up sending a cheque in the post to a residential address -- and the CDs arrived a few days later, and I have warm and fuzzy feelings from supporting the artist. They also had "tour exclusive" CDs which weren't available any other way.
Of course if I'd had my wits about me, I could have bought those CDs from them at the gig.
It might be harder work with World Music, but it's surely worth investigating.