Help!!!!!!! Downloading music "that isnt on itunes and may not cost anything" if you get my drift

ToneControl

hey Jim

what are the best ways to get money to the artist?

I always thought buying CDs in person, or from their website was the best idea

Is there any guide to ethical music consumption?

digitalscream

For what it's worth, I managed to find a way to download any album from Amazon MP3 for free quite by accident. It's an astonishingly gaping hole that I'm amazed they haven't plugged yet.

koneguitarist

I use spotify all the time, so does my band, we all pay for it, as opposed to illegal download. Bands have been ripped off for years, it's up to bands to work out a deal that benefits them more than record company. And yes it has a cross fade option , Jonny

ICBM

I'm the opposite - I won't use Spotify for the reasons given by David Bryne, which I knew the outline of although I was unaware just how much of a rip-off it is.

I do illegally download* music. If I like it, I will eventually buy the CD, go and see the band, buy more of their music direct from their website, recommend them to friends etc. I know it's not honest in the strictest sense but I'm sure it benefits the artists more on average than Spotify does.

I also spend more on legal music than almost anyone I know.

*For what it's worth I only download music from free publicly available sources - I don't use peer-to-peer or upload anything, and I don't pay for premium downloads or faster access... because that's paying someone other than the artist for content they don't own, and hence in my book truly is theft - in a way that getting a free copy of something you either wouldn't have bought anyway or will probably buy later is not.

I don't expect everyone to agree with this.

Danny1969

There's so many ways to get music without paying for it, you can use youtube to find the songs it and use Firefoxs download helper to store the FLV's for playback at a party .... or record the line out back into your line in to permanently rip songs from Spotify so you can  play them anywhere in  Wav's or mp3's

Is the above anymore more morally legal than Bit torrent and Pirate Bay, probably not but neither was a taping off the radio back in the day and we all did that

Myranda

I think the spotify

ICBM said:

I'm the opposite - I won't use Spotify for the reasons given by David Bryne, which I knew the outline of although I was unaware just how much of a rip-off it is.

I do illegally download* music. If I like it, I will eventually buy the CD, go and see the band, buy more of their music direct from their website, recommend them to friends etc. I know it's not honest in the strictest sense but I'm sure it benefits the artists more on average than Spotify does.

I also spend more on legal music than almost anyone I know.

*For what it's worth I only download music from free publicly available sources - I don't use peer-to-peer or upload anything, and I don't pay for premium downloads or faster access... because that's paying someone other than the artist for content they don't own, and hence in my book truly is theft - in a way that getting a free copy of something you either wouldn't have bought anyway or will probably buy later is not.

I don't expect everyone to agree with this.

I prefer the mystery of the album with the pretty cover technique rather than try it first

ICBM

Myranda said:

I prefer the mystery of the album with the pretty cover technique rather than try it first

I buy quite a lot like that from charity shops - and I have a generally good success rate - but I won't pay the thick end of a tenner just to find out I don't like something, or that the single is the only decent track and the rest of the album is completely different... I was burnt enough like that in the days before the internet.