Completely OT: How to choose a music download service

If it can play mp3 the majority of p5 users use www.soundclick.com, that is where the majority of our mp3's are stored. Some are free, some are for sale.

Choose based on sound quality. I remember when I signed up Musicmatch was 160kbps and Napster was only 120kbps, so I chose Musicmatch. You could hear the difference. I didn't look at iTunes because I find Apple's whole business philosophy insulting to the consumer (or maybe it's because my father worked for IBM .) Yahoo and Rhapsody weren't up and running yet.

ORIGINAL: Rick McNab

Thanks for the info. I'm looking for a place to purchase commercial tunes, like ITunes, Rhapsody, or Yahoo! Music. Not a place to post my own stuff. Just wondered if anyone is using these services and has any comments in light of the criteria I mentioned.

Soundclick does sell tunes, so it depends how you define commercial tunes.

I had Rhapsody on my system twice and found it to be annoying and insulting the way it insist on taking over the computer and media files.

have a good one
3Eo

ORIGINAL: Rick McNab

BTW I am defining commercial music as "chart toppers" (not necessarily what I would choose to listen to, but what I need to check out for a project I have coming up)

Then I would imagine that you would have copyright problems when it comes to the usage of the product. However if this is for academic usage then you may be able to download any mp3 from anywhere and use it, for example, for a university project, this is covered under the fair usage policy of the copyright law of many countries.

fair use

As I'm understanding it, the unlimited downloading thing comes with severe restrictions. For example, you can only play them on your PC, or on a device that the service specifies as being qualified to accept their file. So you would not be able to open it in an audio editor and extract just a swatch to play for someone. However, as you mention, Rhapsody, Yahoo!, and Napster (I forgot that Napster offers this option), do allow you to purchase. It is this option that I am interested in. I just want to know that after I purchase, that I own the MP3, and that I can thus open it in an audio editor and cut out a portion to play for someone.

Syrath - No I am not trying to get around copyright restrictions. If I want to play a portion of a song for a client, such as a chorus of a pop tune, I want to open the file and hit play. Thus I would want to edit the MP3 prior to the client's arrival so that hitting play would start the tune at the chorus. This is not distribution in any way. In other words I want to pay my money and own the audio file outright. And BTW, copying files is okay (in the U.S.) as I understand it, for your own use. This would definitely be for my own use.

This is an interesting discussion. I am finding, as I suspected, that there are a lot of complications surrounding this issue.

ORIGINAL: SuperGreenX

As for Yahoo Music at least, its all unlimited downloading. You can upgrade your plan and pay more and you can put all those tracks on a device. Otherwise they are stuck in your PC. And these tracks are all DRMed (protected). The songs connect to the web and check to see if they are legit every once in a while. You also have to let your device with the songs on it hook up and check in every so often (It does it automatically when you connect it to your computer I think). I believe if you cancel your service, these tracks will all lock up and not play. It's basically rental really. Most of the services besides iTunes operate like this.

EVERY download service has some sort of DRM. And none use mp3. Basically if its not whatever that Real service is, its going to be wma format, or iTunes AAC. I don't think grabbing the sound file and sampling it will be as easy as loading it into an audio editor like you would an unprotected mp3.

This is going to sound dumb: but... maybe go out and buy the single? It's a bit more money but comes without most of the restrictions you are talking about.

Not as easy as downloading either :-(

Oh I know. I was explaining because Rick said he wanted to edit the stuff he downloded:

ORIGINAL: Rick McNab

Thanks, Dave. Mainly I want to make sure I can ultimately end up with an MP3 file that I can open and edit in Sound Forge, for example if I want to edit down a swatch of a tune to play for someone that doesn't have a whole lot of time. I didn't realize how confusing this whole business is. Seems like with most of these deals you don't actually own the tune, or you are restricted in how you can use the file.

I can recommended www.wippit.com
Only £50 a year for subscripition
60000 tracks available for your subscripition
Loads of INDIE labels

The reason they don't use mp3's is because 1)You can't put DRM's on them and have them protected and 2) I think technically you are supposed to pay royalties to the motion picture experts group for using their format commercially. I big service like that wouldn't be able to get away with not paying.

Subscription services are slick, in my opinion. You can get SO MUCH music on your HD for not a whole lot of money.

That service actually looks pretty slick. Mp3's are good because I have a Creative Zen Micro and I was thinking about getting an iPod also (I'm getting a new car and it will have a stereo in it with an iPod hookup). I'd like to be able to still use both. thanks!