Obtaining Legal MP3s Outside of the U.S.? 623
frankkubiak asks: "I recently bought the new iPod with 40GB. I understand the arguments of the record industry, that I should buy the music I want to hear. Alright. So I don't want to get MP3 files by file-sharing. But here is my problem: I live outside the U.S., in Germany to be exact. iTunes only offers service to those inside the U.S. (see this related Slashdot article). I don't want a CD, vinyl record, tape or minidisc. I simply want to listen to the music. Even if I decide to buy a legacy audio CD, it is often copy-protected and won't load in my PC. So, strictly speaking, it is not even an audio-CD. Heise keeps a database of those un-CDs (German language. English speakers can use this fish-translated page). It sounds incredible, but even after hours of research on the web, I don't see a legal way to use this device with new songs. The only way I see to use this device is to buy a CD, and if I can't rip it, I'll have to [break the law and] download the MP3-file via file-sharing. I believe there are more people like me out there who want to listen to their music, without feeling guilty. Why is there no one meeting this demand? How does Slashdot feel about this?" Before you mention Napster, let's note that it has similar restrictions (see the "International Considerations" section). So where can non-U.S. internet users go to download the legal MP3s that they want?
Re:Is it illegal? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:5, Informative)
Can't? (Score:2, Informative)
Did they create a WORKING copy protection scheme yet? i.e. one you can't circumvent by shift key or just by using the CD under Linux???
Opsound (Score:3, Informative)
Licenced under Creative Commons licence...
www.allofmp3.com (Score:5, Informative)
Good place (Score:3, Informative)
I use the following.... (Score:5, Informative)
Easy: CD-Audio (Score:1, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why is there no one meeting this demand? (Score:5, Informative)
Audio Luncbox also allows you to have unrestricted mp3 or aac. Enjoy!
Read c't (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Copy protection non-issue? (Score:1, Informative)
bleep.com (Score:2, Informative)
Good quality VBR, and whole-song preview too.
y
Wrong! RIAA already got someone for doing this. (Score:0, Informative)
Re:Is it illegal? (Score:5, Informative)
Kinda sucks, really - I guess that 260GBP iRiver I bought is just a nice USB hard-drive with built-in mic and FM tuner, as I certainly can't buy electronic versions of the music I like (ebm, goth, etc). Hell, some of the stuff I like is hard enough to get on CD...
On the plus side, the law is effectively unenforceable - I don't know a single person who doesn't have some sort of audio device, be it cassette, mp3 player, minidisc, or whatever. I suspect that the vast majority of people in the UK have broken this particular law at some point, most likely right now.
On the minus side, that really means that, should they want to investigate you for some reason, that's another line of attack they can take. Remember, they *wanted* Al Capone because he was a gangster. They *got* him for tax evasion...
Paranoia aside, it damages the Law as a whole to have unenforced/unenforceable laws on the books. I don't see it changing any time soon, though - in fact, in light of recent events (the EU "super-DMCA"), I can only see it getting worse.
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.atomintersoft.com/products/alive-pro
allofmp3.com (Score:3, Informative)
Simple - allofmp3.com [allofmp3.com] - they're located in Russia, where the royalty laws for downloading music work similarly to those for radio airplay in North America. Because of this, they are able to offer a HUGE selection of music without having to hammer out deals with the major labels.
How much does all this cost? How about $0.01 US/megabyte downloaded? What if I told you that the vast majority of their catalogue was available in high quality formats, that you can encode to your file format of choice (including LAME with --alt-presets, or OGG)? Would that sweeten the deal?
Frankly, I don't know why these guys havn't taken off in North America, aside from a lack of publicity. I suppose there is some fear of giving your credit card to a Russian company, but their processor is highly reputable, and they now also accept PayPal.
Here's some reviews and FAQs about their setup and its legitimacy:
http://www.techimo.com/newsapp/i9599.html [techimo.com]
http://www.techimo.com/newsapp/i9599.html [techimo.com]
CD... Baby, ermm. (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like Apple's itunes won't be available in Europe anytime soon [macworld.co.uk] (apparently Napster seems to want to come back in Europe [macworld.com] though).
Re:Legal Issues (Score:3, Informative)
I agree wholeheartedly that I should be allowed to rip any CD, cassette, LP, etc that I have bought to whatever format I like, in order to be able to listen to it more conveniently. Eg, I should be legally allowed to convert my entire CD collection to oggs to play on my nice, shiny new iRiver HP-120.
Unfortunately, I live in the UK, where doing so without explicit permission is copyright infringement. Oh sure, no-one is ever going to get sued for it, much less lose a court case over it, but that's not the point. I do not have explicit permission from the copyright holders to do what I have done, so I have broken the law.
Just ending up in a non-US court would guarantee nothing. Each country has its own version of the RIAA, and its own copyright laws, not all of which have any concept of fair use.
Re:www.allofmp3.com (Score:5, Informative)
This is all my opinion, and based on my own shoddy research, take it with a grain of salt, on the rocks, shaken and mashed...
Some legal sites (some french, sorry) (Score:3, Informative)
ecompil [e-compil.fr] : universal (wma)
a cool label [magnatune.com]
epitonic [epitonic.com] : good independent site (mp3)
This is just a selection from google [google.com]
Re:Why not just record it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wrong! RIAA already got someone for doing this. (Score:5, Informative)
That sounds bogus, if ship ripped MP3's you can't check checksums. MP3 is a lossy format.
Doesn't mean they can't figure out in some manner, not via checksums.
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:5, Informative)
Here in The Netherlands, anything you download as a private person is legal; how about that for fair use? (Putting stuff up to be downloaded is a different game; that's where the dues should be paid (and they make it hard enough))
OD2 biggest in europe (Score:4, Informative)
They're primarily a WMP9 shop, but I believe at least some of the resellers use mp3's, which should work on your ipod.
iTunes itself is coming to europe, in theory the first half of this year; but it's anyone's guess as to when they'll actually launch.
Personally speaking, I prefer to still buy CD's, as I get to choose the rip quality (high quality ogg's for my PC, 128vbr mp3 for my flash mp3 player).
I just refuse to buy the corrupt disks, and stick to the smaller labels, especially the indie's. If you do want to import (cheap) CD's, I can personally recommend CDBaby [cdbaby.com] for non-label music, and cd-wow [cd-wow.com] are insanely cheap for more well known artists.
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:5, Informative)
This is why the law is so stupid.
But believe me, I have downloaded many things I own in one format or another, and feel no guilt.
Re:Wrong! RIAA already got someone for doing this. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:3, Informative)
Bleep! (Score:4, Informative)
Studio K7 [k7.com] has some limited offerings in MP3 as well.
I think both sell internationally - Warp is in the UK and K7 is in Germany.
Support non-RIAA music (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I gave up and ripped my CDs (Score:2, Informative)
Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads (Score:5, Informative)
From the introduction:
In particular, you should be listening to iRATE radio [sourceforge.net]. It downloads and plays those legal MP3s that the artists have on their websites, so you don't have to go hunting for them. If you've already tried out iRATE, note that version 0.3 was just released, so get the update if you don't already have it.EU Parliament proposal: make P2P legal (Score:2, Informative)
As on La Repubblica.it [repubblica.it] (use the fish [altavista.com] if necessary) today, the EU Parliament approved a proposal for regulating P2P stating that acts committed in good faith by consumers - such as downloading music from Internet for personal use - won't be prosecuted. It still has to go through the EU Council, but it's a good start...
Re:Is it illegal? (Score:2, Informative)
So I support the bands by visiting their gigs, and buying merchandise there. I'll never see the CDs in the shops for these bands anywhere near where I live either. So
Ripping services... (Score:5, Informative)
etree.org (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:5, Informative)
This came up during the one of the DMCA cases - the court asked about what happens when the protected content enters the public domain if it's illegal to distribute a mechanism to circumvent the protection. Under the current law, even if you have every right to the content, it's apparently illegal to take the necessary steps to get access to it.
This effectively gives the publisher an infinitely long copyright.
Re:I gave up and ripped my CDs (Score:3, Informative)
magnatune & epitonic (Score:3, Informative)
What do you want to hear? (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.warprecords.com/bleep/
http://www.d
http://www.freeplaymusic.com/
http://
http://www.metropolis-records.com/
http://www.ninjatune.net/home/
The big "list", though, is at:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/9/5/05113
There's also an insane amount of free stuff in other formats (usually MOD-like, but you can usually convert to WAV and then compress to whatever format you need) at
http://www.scene.org/ and http://www.hornet.org/ plus one of the more involved scene artists, Bjorn Lynne, has lots of his stuff available for download, too: http://www.artistlaunch.com/artist4.asp?artistid=
So, if you want to listen to mostly electronic music, the internet is your playground. If you want to hear the "pop" stuff that plays on the radio, well, listen to the radio! (I'll trade you a radio walkman for that iPod of yours)
Re:I gave up and ripped my CDs (Score:3, Informative)
Ratboy
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:3, Informative)
Congress explicitely spelled out fair use, and I believe that the wording does not really support the INTENT of fair use provisions.
Your example of a somebody making copies on my behalf is wrong, and misses the point entirely. I'd change it to be something like: "We have BS's new CD and ripped it to mp3s. Some guy in Topeka also purchased it, so it should be OK for him to have a copy of our mp3s as a matter of convenience."
In the case of mp3.com, the person had to put the audio CD in the drive so that the software could verify possession of the CD before "unlocking" those mp3s for that user. So the end result is the same... the person purchased the content from the content provider. Why should it be illegal for him to have that content in other formats? It's not! It's only illegal when someone else makes it available to HIM in those formats.
Can you tell me, if this person is allowed to download the mp3s of music from a CD he is in possession of, how the copyright holder is hurt any more so than if that person ripped his own mp3s (which is perfectly legal)?
I generally make it a rule not to reply to anonymous trolls, but it simply sounds like you didn't understand the argument.
Re:I gave up and ripped my CDs (Score:3, Informative)
No, you can't legally download mp3's. In Canada, you can ONLY make a copy of an original, not of a copy. mp3's are copies of the original and therefore its illegal to download them.
Of course its very unlikely you'll get caught, however, it is still illegal.
Audio Lunchbox - No DRM and Global (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I gave up and ripped my CDs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:2, Informative)
I meant sound fidelity. I.E. an actual recording of the music rather than a 16-bit interpretation of one;-)
This is obviouly why when digital recording is used in most studios (Home or professional) 24bit/96kHz is now used.
Also the quality of the machine you're using to play the music on is a factor.
$50 CD player Vs $500 turntable and vice-versa. Who wins?
You get what you pay for.
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:3, Informative)
People who say they can hear the difference are primarily speaking about analog music, like classical. I personally have heard the difference between a perfect quality vinyl and a cd in some classical music. With music thats digitally created and never really becomes analog you most likely won't be able to hear any difference at all.
This difference in quality also was much more apparent when cd's first came out since AD/DA converters were not the quality they are now. If you can find a perfect vinyl record of classical music, a high end turntable, high quality amp and speakers and compare it to one of the first cd players that ever came out playing the same music, you could hear the difference quite easily.
Performance comes into play when you start talking about scratched records and cd's. Cd's hold on to their quality much better than vinyl.
When the cd format was first being worked on, one of the rules was that Beethoven's 9th had to fit on a single disc since it was 74 minutes long. The engineers found that for a disc to hold beethoven's 9th and have the quality of vinyl, it had to be sampled at 16 bit and was 12cm in diameter. This was too big to make portable cd players realistic so its size and sampling rate were decreased, resulting in lesser quality than vinyl. (http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/cd/cd_length_sk
Copy protection does not apply to iTunes (Score:2, Informative)
All of the "copy protected" CDs that I ever bought were perfectly readable by iTunes, and are now nicely stored in MP3 format on my iPod.
Oh, maybe this is because I have a Mac :-)
Re:This may sound stupid but.... (Score:5, Informative)
Once again: it isn't a 16-bit interpretation. Sampling does not involve taking "pieces" of music and then throwing them back, hoping it's going by too fast for you to hear. Sampling involves getting a collection of samples that, when converted back into analogue, represents the input waveform (up 'til the threshold your current sampling specification allows) almost exactly.
As for digital recording, 24bit is used precisely because DSP is so popular. 24bit does give you a greater dynamic range (although popular music doesn't tend to use it), but it also removes the amount of dithering you have to do on a signal, as you have many extra bits being used for various digital process computations.
Sampling rate is another story entirely. Nyquist states that 44.1kHz should be adequate, but I understand the idea of leaving room for error; consequently, 96kHz is certainly appropriate. Anything higher than that, though, and studies show you're probably actually degrading the signal.
Re:Wrong! RIAA already got someone for doing this. (Score:2, Informative)
Scratch repair employed by CDex/cdparanoia and suchlike tends to mangle small differences before you even get round to encoding anything.
Re:Wrong! RIAA already got someone for doing this. (Score:1, Informative)
Rip from a CD with the same ripper, with the same encoder settings, you get the same checksum.
Warp Records (Score:1, Informative)
You might also try Epitonic [epitonic.com]. Hasn't been updated for a while but they have lots o'stuff, catgeorised, reviewed legal and free to download.
Warp Records (Score:3, Informative)