Is It Possible To Download Music Legally Anymore?
faste...@163.com
increased in popularity. At the same time though, it hasbecome illegal
through many companies to download music asmusicians and artists have
been losing money on their CD sales.With many people being sued in the
past couple years fordownloading music, is it really possible to
download musiclegally anymore? If so, at what price will it cost you
todownload music?
As music sites such as Napster and Kazaa and many more haveattempted
to create sites to download music for free, they havejust increased
the problem that much more. Some of the users ofthese programs have
learned the hard way that music does notcome free, as they were sued
for illegally downloading music.
Today there are many sites in which you can download music atwhere
they claim it is 100% legal. The latest music fileformats used are
Windows? Media (WMA), Advanced Acoustic Coding(AAC) and Atrac 3, and
are very popular as it increases thesound quality making it closer to
an actual CD bought in stores.Another great advantage is that many
sites such asSonicSelector Service on MSN allow you to preview the
musicbefore buying it. Many sites today also offer a three-day trialof
their music downloading site, and then after that you willhave to
begin paying a monthly fee. So it is possible todownload music legally
online, but at what cost?
Pressplay.com offers unlimited music for a price of $9.95 permonth and
then you also have to install the software from theirsite. The
downloaded music is non-burnable and once yoursubscription runs out
you no longer have access to any of yoursongs. Rhapsody at listen.com
also charges $9.95 per month fornon-burnable music, but instead of
downloading the music youdownload a music player that gives you access
to the songs.
Now you can download music and you know the basic price permonth for
non-burnable songs. However, most people downloadmusic so that they
can burn their favorite CD with a variety ofsongs. Transferring these
songs onto a CD or a personal MP3player will cost you even
http://www.dontplayplay.com/html/Entertainment/20060925/13994.html
Chris
Seems to me that what the record companies would really like to do is charge you
every time you merely LISTERN to a song.
I bought a song on a 45, so paid the "royalty" to play to it as many times as I
wanted to.
I then bought it again on a LP (the old 45 was worn out), so paid the "royalty"
again for the SAME song.
I then bought a tape to play in my car, so paid the "royalty" for the SAME song yet
again.
I then bought a CD (for the better quality), and of course, I once again paid the
"royalty" for the SAME song.
The CD got lost/damaged, but if I now download the SAME song from the internet, and
I am accused of being a pirate, of defrauding the artist of their royalties and
threatened with prosecution, even though I have paid the royalty for that song FOUR
times.
The song is 40 years old, and the artist dead, so just who am I meant to be paying
anyway? I wish I could still get paid for work that I, or my father, did 40+ years
ago.
Technobarbarian
<faste...@163.com> wrote in message
news:6d00ad9d-fca4-410a...@n20g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> Throughout the past few years downloading music on the internethas
> increased in popularity. At the same time though, it hasbecome illegal
> through many companies to download music asmusicians and artists have
> been losing money on their CD sales.With many people being sued in the
> past couple years fordownloading music, is it really possible to
> download musiclegally anymore? If so, at what price will it cost you
> todownload music?
>
> As music sites such as Napster and Kazaa and many more haveattempted
> to create sites to download music for free, they havejust increased
> the problem that much more. Some of the users ofthese programs have
> learned the hard way that music does notcome free, as they were sued
> for illegally downloading music.
Define "legally"? The people being sued in the United States are being
sued for uploading. The RIAA is suing one usenet provider for uploading. As
far as I know none of the people using the service are being sued for
downloading. In what countries are people being sued for downloading?
You can rent music with DRM and convert it to unprotected formats. The
download was legal. Depending on which country you live in converting it
might not be legal.
And then there's always music files you can buy for a buck a tune and
loads of great music that's available from the artists who made it with
little or no charge.
TB
anthonyberet
BillW50
Chris typed on Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:17 +0000 (GMT Standard Time):
> Seems to me that what the record companies would really like to do is
> charge you every time you merely LISTERN to a song.
>
> I bought a song on a 45, so paid the "royalty" to play to it as many
> times as I wanted to.
>
> I then bought it again on a LP (the old 45 was worn out), so paid the
> "royalty" again for the SAME song.
>
> I then bought a tape to play in my car, so paid the "royalty" for the
> SAME song yet again.
>
> I then bought a CD (for the better quality), and of course, I once
> again paid the "royalty" for the SAME song.
>
> The CD got lost/damaged, but if I now download the SAME song from the
> internet, and I am accused of being a pirate, of defrauding the
> artist of their royalties and threatened with prosecution, even
> though I have paid the royalty for that song FOUR times.
>
> The song is 40 years old, and the artist dead, so just who am I meant
> to be paying anyway? I wish I could still get paid for work that I,
> or my father, did 40+ years ago.
I know, isn't that something? You mentioned tapes, but you didn't say
what kind. I bought the songs on 8-track and then later on cassette (I
wanted to get into reel to reel and later into elcassette, but never
did). Supposedly the music industry has a tax on blank tapes. As every
time you buy blank tapes, they still get a cut of it. At least in the
US.
Now I am *not* a greedy person. So maybe I just don't get it. But why
are we paying over and over again for the same thing? Is this a tax to
make up from lost sales from dishonest people? Is this how greedy people
work?
Now in the software market, it is very common for a loyal customer to
get a discount on the newer version. I have never seen anything like
this yet from the music industry. Is this because the music industry has
this high lifestyle that they need to screw honest people over and over
again?
You know I was shocked to learn that radio stations has to pay the music
industry every time they play their song. I couldn't believe this! As I
would have never bought the song if I never heard it before (most likely
from the radio). So they get money when I hear it on the radio (they
make money from advertising alone - who else gets this deal?) and get
money when I buy it so I can listen to it whenever I want too (until the
media format changes). Something is definitely wrong here! :-(
--
Bill
Technobarbarian
"BillW50" <Bil...@aol.kom> wrote in message
news:47d080a5$0$1341$834e...@reader.greatnowhere.com...
> Now in the software market, it is very common for a loyal customer to get
> a discount on the newer version. I have never seen anything like this yet
> from the music industry. Is this because the music industry has this high
> lifestyle that they need to screw honest people over and over again?
LOL, like just about any other business the price is whatever the
customers are willing to pay.
>
> You know I was shocked to learn that radio stations has to pay the music
> industry every time they play their song. I couldn't believe this! As I
> would have never bought the song if I never heard it before (most likely
> from the radio). So they get money when I hear it on the radio (they make
> money from advertising alone - who else gets this deal?) and get money
> when I buy it so I can listen to it whenever I want too (until the media
> format changes). Something is definitely wrong here! :-(
You have much to learn. It gets a lot more complicated than this. Some
record companies have been paying influential radio stations to play songs
just like any other advertisement
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2006/may/may11a_06.html The record
companies have also been contracting "independent record promoters" to skirt
payola laws. These supposed independent promoters have been providing all
sorts of inducements to get their client's songs played on the air.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola
TB