DS Forums

 
 

Best legal download sites


Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 12-12-2005, 17:40
Stressed Eric
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 410

Thought i'd give downloading legally a go, but when i look on sites like napster / itunes / hmv, they either want subscription, or they want me to download their software package.

I just wanna give them a couple of ££, download the MP3 directly and get on with it, is that too much to ask?!!

Can anyone suggest a straight forward site, please?

Thanks

Last edited by Stressed Eric : 12-12-2005 at 18:23.
Stressed Eric is offline   Reply With Quote
Please sign in or register to remove this advertisement.
Old 12-12-2005, 17:43
parklife
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 372
itunes. 79p for one track isn't gonna break the bank and is good value for qaulity.
parklife is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-12-2005, 18:20
sounddesigner
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: London
Posts: 86
Most music sites have software for you to download, including iTunes, but the best thing is, the software is FREE!
I find Virgin Digital to be cheaper than iTunes, and you get the same sort of stuff on all these sites.
sounddesigner is offline Follow this poster on Twitter   Reply With Quote
Old 12-12-2005, 18:23
Stressed Eric
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 410
Thanks for your replies. Shame they can't keep it straight forward.
Stressed Eric is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-12-2005, 18:23
Misanthrope
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: In my happy place
Posts: 5,251
AllofMP3

Cheap, no drm and you can specify the type of file you get.
Misanthrope is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-12-2005, 18:35
KIIS102
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Coventry
Posts: 6,992
I dont like buying or downloading music. Occasionally i get a song or so every few weeks after i listened to it about 5 or 6 times i end up deleting it no point wasting 70p for a song that im only gona have maybe 1 or 2 days. I tried buying music but my CD's aint been touched in yearsss. Illigal downloading is wrong "ha thats funny" but atleast you dont have to pay for a song your going to listen to a few times then delete.
KIIS102 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-12-2005, 19:09
Richard_T
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: East Midlands
Posts: 3,842
I would recomend http://www.allofmp3.com not only can you chose your format ( mp3/ogg/wma/flac/ uncompressed .Wav straight from the CD) you can also chose the bitrate you want the file in.
Richard_T is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-12-2005, 19:13
lala
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 20,184
Originally Posted by Richard_T
I would recomend http://www.allofmp3.com not only can you chose your format ( mp3/ogg/wma/flac/ uncompressed .Wav straight from the CD) you can also chose the bitrate you want the file in.
Plus a whole album cost £2......

I know it's Russian law but at least its legal and the writers get their money. For those artist that don't write any of their songs...Diddums.
lala is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-12-2005, 19:31
Carmen Queasy
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Middesbrough (via Manchester)
Posts: 37,343
Most legal download sites have annoying DRM on, which is a pain. Also, 79p per track is quite expensive for one non-CD quality track, with limitations 9in regards to which media players, portable music devices etc.. you can use).

Someone already mentioned AllofMp3. I'd go with that, personally. You can also order via SMS, which makes things easier (no credit or dbit cards!)
Carmen Queasy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-12-2005, 19:33
lala
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 20,184
Originally Posted by Carmen Queasy

Someone already mentioned AllofMp3. I'd go with that, personally. You can also order via SMS, which makes things easier (no credit or dbit cards!)
I did that at a cost of £2 and got Mariah Carey's greatest hits . . On two CD's and the sound well like CD's lol.

Plus I haven't got any annoying adverts from them through SMS or nothing.

Hmm . . . I think I might give I-tunes a rest.
lala is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-12-2005, 23:28
delboy85
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Dublin
Posts: 1,370
Originally Posted by Richard_T
I would recomend http://www.allofmp3.com not only can you chose your format ( mp3/ogg/wma/flac/ uncompressed .Wav straight from the CD) you can also chose the bitrate you want the file in.
What a fantastic site!!! Thanks for sharing. Is it definitely all above aboard and legal??? It's so damn cheap and great quality!!! Plus you can get American stuff which isn't available on I-TUNES over here. I just downloaded CARRIE UNDERWOOD and it cost **** all. Am never using the I-TUNES store again. I'm all excited...
delboy85 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-12-2005, 23:37
starlight_xx
 
Posts: n/a
What a brilliant site!!! I was using Tesco.com but this is a bargain...
  Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 00:05
lala
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 20,184
Originally Posted by delboy85
What a fantastic site!!! Thanks for sharing. Is it definitely all above aboard and legal??? It's so damn cheap and great quality!!! Plus you can get American stuff which isn't available on I-TUNES over here. I just downloaded CARRIE UNDERWOOD and it cost **** all. Am never using the I-TUNES store again. I'm all excited...
It is legal because apperantly it is using Russian law to sell all these cheap to us. Although I would think in Russia it is not cheap.

But the music companies aint happy. But there is not much they can do since it is all legit.
lala is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 08:37
Inkblot
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: West London
Posts: 24,325
Tunetribe don't put DRM on all their downloads and don't, as far as I'm aware, require you to use their own software. I've downloaded MP3s from them and they play fine on an iPod, which obviously isn't the case with Napster, HMV etc. Also they are legal under UK law which has the side-effect that the prices are higher than in Russia but... as they explain on their web site:

Unlike other download stores we champion cutting-edge music and new bands as well as classic back catalogue...

We also give more money back to the labels and artists. We give them 80% of every sale. We let the labels set the price too. This helps the independent labels survive.
Inkblot is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 08:50
winny
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: East Mids
Posts: 194
Originally Posted by lala
It is legal because apperantly it is using Russian law to sell all these cheap to us. Although I would think in Russia it is not cheap.

But the music companies aint happy. But there is not much they can do since it is all legit.
I often wondered about this myself having used the site a lot myself in the past. I've come to the conclusion that if anything illegal or in contravention of copyright was happening, they would have been closed down. (Not withstanding the fact they're based in Russia)

I also don't see how the site's users are doing anything wrong either - we're within our rights to shop around and find the cheapest deal going, yes?
winny is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 09:51
luvsnail
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Leicester
Posts: 2,578
I've been using AllofMP3.com for some time now, and it's fantastic value. Since you pay for the amount of data you download, I find the best value comes when you download Ogg Vorbis files at 128 kbps. The sound quality is exceptional, there's no DRM and the files are small, so you save cash.

I bought 10 albums for less than a fiver a few weeks ago.
luvsnail is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 10:18
clover
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,858
http://www.warchildmusic.com/ has some interesting stuff on. It's not particularly cheap (99p a track) but at least some of it goes to charity.
clover is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 10:29
Granny
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: London
Posts: 2,025
Originally Posted by Inkblot
Tunetribe don't put DRM on all their downloads [/i]
DRM does annoy me. I have a couple of tracks I can't put on my MP3 player which was kind of the point of buying them in the first place.
I do like tunetribe though. Djdownload.com is also a great source for decent dance music albeit somewhat over-priced.
Granny is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 11:00
RPM
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 506
Just signed up at allofmp3. Seems too good to be true.
RPM is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 11:17
Misanthrope
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: In my happy place
Posts: 5,251
Originally Posted by RPM
Just signed up at allofmp3. Seems too good to be true.
I've used them for quite some time, I was a little hesitant at first about giving Visa card information to a borderline legal Russian download site..

I have had zero problems with them though and I get what I want at (what I believe) to be a fair price, in the formats (OGG Vorbis) that I want.
Misanthrope is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 11:40
writie
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 91
Originally Posted by lala
Plus a whole album cost £2......

I know it's Russian law but at least its legal and the writers get their money. For those artist that don't write any of their songs...Diddums.
Ey? How much money do you think a songwriter gets when a whole album costs £2-4? Remember, you have to take off the site's cut, the record company, VISA/MasterCard charges. The writers might as well stand outside a church with a tin can begging for money. They'd earn far more.

Don't add insult to injury, please. By the way, what makes you think it's legal?


M
A-Lyric
writie is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 12:08
writie
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 91
I just discovered this:

"Allofmp3.com does not have the right to communicate to the public, to offer for sale, or to authorise the copying of recordings owned by BPI members in the UK - whatever the decision of an individual Russian prosecutor. If you download tracks in the UK from the site, you will be infringing UK copyright law, even if it is for personal use. The Russian prosecutor's decision does not affect the position under UK law."

Why am I not surprised? It's patently obvious that "Allof..." are working in a technical loophole at the very least, and are more likely just more chancers selling other people's music. The Italian law used to have a loophole that enabled people to release live albums of artists that they didn't have contracts for. The hole was eventually closed. So "Allof..." will go the same way. Cheap, yes. Legit, give me a break.

M
writie is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 12:22
Misanthrope
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: In my happy place
Posts: 5,251
Originally Posted by writie
I just discovered this:

"Allofmp3.com does not have the right to communicate to the public, to offer for sale, or to authorise the copying of recordings owned by BPI members in the UK - whatever the decision of an individual Russian prosecutor. If you download tracks in the UK from the site, you will be infringing UK copyright law, even if it is for personal use. The Russian prosecutor's decision does not affect the position under UK law."

Why am I not surprised? It's patently obvious that "Allof..." are working in a technical loophole at the very least, and are more likely just more chancers selling other people's music. The Italian law used to have a loophole that enabled people to release live albums of artists that they didn't have contracts for. The hole was eventually closed. So "Allof..." will go the same way. Cheap, yes. Legit, give me a break.

M
If you don't mind me asking where's that quote from? The only place I can find it is as a comment on a blog.
Misanthrope is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 12:57
Inkblot
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: West London
Posts: 24,325
Originally Posted by Misanthrope
If you don't mind me asking where's that quote from? The only place I can find it is as a comment on a blog.
The quote is attributed to the BPI by the person who posted it on the Computeractive blog. The argument appears to be that Russian copyright law allows allofmp3 to sell mp3s etc legally, but only within Russia. Some people have taken this to mean that as you are conducting a transaction within Russia when you buy from allofmp3 then you are effectively in Russia at the time of purchase and so the transaction is legal.
Inkblot is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 13-12-2005, 13:04
Misanthrope
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: In my happy place
Posts: 5,251
Originally Posted by Inkblot
The quote is attributed to the BPI by the person who posted it on the Computeractive blog. The argument appears to be that Russian copyright law allows allofmp3 to sell mp3s etc legally, but only within Russia. Some people have taken this to mean that as you are conducting a transaction within Russia when you buy from allofmp3 then you are effectively in Russia at the time of purchase and so the transaction is legal.
I do wonder why the BPI don't seem to take a position on this though.Having searched their site I can find no reference at all to allofMP3 and only 3 matches for "Russian"..

If it was so legally clear cut as that blog comment would suggest, surely they would be shouting from the rooftops the illegallity of such a popular site.

The cynic in me thinks the BPI have taken legal advice and it wasn't what they wanted to hear.
Misanthrope is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Reply




 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 15:42.