best free music download sites

[juanbenae]

just recently got a mp3 player dealeo and im looking for some good free music sites. looking for rock and the like. any suggestions?

thanx in advance

[Purrybonker]

If you're interested in sharing data files on themes of common interest with other people, Limewire can be a good conduit for such activity.

[motion]

Be careful, the music industry is suing people left and right for sharing music these days... I do it and I know millions are doing it, but its getting to the point where it might make some people nervous.

[GrindingGears]

I've been under the impression, they are only prosecuting people who allow others to upload mp3s. I.E. if they can download a file from your computer then they can bust you.

As far as downloading goes, I dont think they have a way to prove you are doing something illegal.

To answer your question, i downloaded the program called 'kaazaa' a while back and having been getting free music that way. i dont consider it stealing, rather, payback for all the $18 cds i had to buy over the years.

if you want to be 100% legal, check out itunes.com, they've got a lot of songs, all are $1 a pop.

[motion]

You might not consider it stealing, Philip, but that's exactly what you're doing. I'm not slamming you... I do it also, but its not exactly on the up-and-up.

[osidak]

From the way I understand it the way they bust you is as follows

You download a song with a RIAA tracking app attached to it. The app then scans the default share directories that all the various programs use. If it finds multiple files then it forwards your IP information back to their databases.

The RIAA then contacts the ISP associated to that IP and asks for the person that it was assigned to at that time. So far Verizon is the only company that has refused to give that information out.

So I guess in theory if you keep that share directory clean and download obscure music I doubt you would ever get busted.

As for iTunes and the new Napster I have not been impressed. They have the current pop music but the obscure stuff is seriously lacking.

I myself have stopped as I really don't want to risk my Porsche funds because I was too cheap to buy the rip off CD's that the music industry shoves down our throats

[juanbenae]

thats what im confused about. to download (free) it is not a crime, but buying a song, then sharing it is? again im late to the party and its an offense. i may go back to 8 tracks.....

[djmcmath]

8-tracks are definitely the way to go.

Listening to music without paying for it is, according to our good friends at RIAA, stealing. Buying a CD, then sharing it is conspiracy to steal, which isn't any better. Downloading music via Kazaa, Limewire, et al provides no return money to the artist (or, more importantly, to the RIAA), so is stealing. Downloading from iTunes or similar provides no money to the RIAA, gives a significantly greater chunk of money to the artist than buying a RIAA-sponsored CD, and is legal (though the RIAA hates it because they get no money).

Search for this topic on slashdot.org, guaranteed to find endless hours of discussion on this very topic. Good luck,

Dan

[jrdavid68]

I would recommend against Kazaa unless you want to tinker with a squirrelly machine after it is installed. See here for a little info on Kazaa or do a search for more info.

http://help.isu.edu/disppage.php?doc_id=335&sec_id=41

I have had to deal with a number of machines that were flaky due to Kazaa installations. There is a Kazaa Lite out there now that might work better. I will tell you that Kazaa will NEVER get installed on any machine that I own!

[Schrup]

My I.T. guy told me that some of the files are infested with viruses & that is what destroyed my harddrive about a month ago. My teenager used to download from Kazzaa Lite, but I told her she can't download anything else untill I get her her own PC. I personally don't give a crap about the record companys & especially Metalica, but if I want music, I'll go out & buy it to support the artist creating it.

[on-ramp]

Originally posted by motion
You might not consider it stealing, Philip, but that's exactly what you're doing. I'm not slamming you... I do it also, but its not exactly on the up-and-up.

well, radio is free, television is free(not cable), why not music...just another form of media.


i personally dont think it's stealing. When I have to pay $18 for a CD, that's stealing but in reverse. anyway, these music companies have billions of dollars in corporate bank accounts. where'd that money come from? was it 'stolen'? of course not(tongue in cheek)it came from people like you and me. go figure that one out.

[john70t]

The artist recieves only a few percent of the total CD profit. Most of those bling houses and cars are rented only for the video. They only make real money on concert venues.

The rest is sucked up by the recording industry infrastructure (manufacturing, agents, legal, advertising, videographers, etc) that the artist has to get through to get a minute of air time. It really seems like a vertical-trust monopoly that could be broken by the gov if it wanted to.

Kazaa-lite is supposed to be free of the adware that Kazaa is filled with. My own suspicision is that the recording industry is the originating source of a lot of those viruses, and I'd love to charge them for the hours spent reinstalling the operating system and all the data lost.

Most of the music I've downloaded (and Of Course erased...) has either been unavailable at most record stores, or digital recordings of the content sold in unstable form (i.e. my scratched Metalicca vinal).

I had bought the rights to listen to the music decades ago when people were all saying "dude, 'talicca will never sell out, dude".

[GrindingGears]

Originally posted by osidak
From the way I understand it the way they bust you is as follows

You download a song with a RIAA tracking app attached to it. The app then scans the default share directories that all the various programs use. If it finds multiple files then it forwards your IP information back to their databases.

i'm no techy by any means, but it doesnt seem possible to have that kind of "tracking app" in a mp3 file. mp3s are compressed AUDIO files, anything else other than audio would change the file type...right?

Also, isn't that an invasion of privacy?

Lol, i need a computer scientist and a lawyer for these two.

[nostatic]

Originally posted by on-ramp
well, radio is free, television is free(not cable), why not music...just another form of media.

broadcast radio and tv are NOT free. Commercials support the content creation and distribution.

Music is not "just another form of media." It is content (or "art"...depends on your viewpoint) that some person or group creates. Then a record company distributes it. I'm not going to argue that CD's aren't overpriced, and that the record industry is working from an outdated 50-year old business model, and that it isn't hopelessly screwed up (all true). BUT, that doesn't mean it is OK to steal music. And that is what you're doing.

You're in my wheelhouse here...we've been in meetings with major labels about these issues, sat in roundtable discussions with the major studios, and also talk with researchers who look at these problems, as well as the people behind some of the innovations (Magnitune, CreativeCommons, Apple, etc). Not only that, I'm a musician that creates music. And while I want people to enjoy it, I also don't want it stolen.

On a semi-related note, here is an interesting story about "remix" culture: http://www.illegal-art.org/audio/grey.html

[widebody911]

Kazaa, BearShare, etc are full of spyware.

I used to use LimeWire, but now I use WinMX.

There's supposed to be one or more anonymizing clients coming out, if they're not already.

I download like crazy, and share what I D/L, but the types of music I download don't even make the fringes of the RIAA radar.