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Chameleon
Posting Mania
1396 Posts |
 Posted - 06/22/2004 : 9:51:07 PM
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Of the nearly 1 GB I have downloaded so far, I did get a song with an encoding error.
I reported it through the offered method and got this reply:
quote:
TechSupport: Bad album removed from site. We reimburse for the song. Accept our applogizes
I have yet to get a refund, but I'm not too worried about it.
The album is already removed from the site, but the song is on another album, so I could get it if I want... I probably will.
-- 'I switched to Vorbis and saved a bunch on my hard-disk space!' |
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Derek
Moderator
500 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2004 : 3:07:30 PM
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Just tried this site...14 cents for a 320 kbps song.... awesome... eat your heart out itunes and walmart.com who needs 88 cents a song with no quality choices...
great find guys. |
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alecm
Posting Profoundly
117 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2004 : 3:47:55 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by pedersdd(at)alfred
Just tried this site...14 cents for a 320 kbps song.... awesome... eat your heart out itunes and walmart.com who needs 88 cents a song with no quality choices...
great find guys.
Unfortunately, it's probably not actually legal (at least not right now because the entity that they claim allows them to distribute music has revoked their license):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/05/russian_mp3_site/
Either way the artists never get paid (though the song publishers may get a few cents from each download due to compulsory licensing), and there's some likelihood that that your money ends up with the Russian mafia. From an ethical standpoint you are probably better off using P2P as it's probably better to get the tracks for free illegally than to pay someone for illegally delivering tracks to you (especially if that money is potentially used to fund criminal activity). Even better is to give a real middle finger to the RIAA and stop supporting their inferior product, buy music from independent labels and use a service like emusic.com (my neuros' best friend). |
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brewer13210
Posting is for Closers
67 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2004 : 5:15:19 PM
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quote:
Unfortunately, it's probably not actually legal (at least not right now because the entity that they claim allows them to distribute music has revoked their license):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/05/russian_mp3_site/
Either way the artists never get paid (though the song publishers may get a few cents from each download due to compulsory licensing), and there's some likelihood that that your money ends up with the Russian mafia. From an ethical standpoint you are probably better off using P2P as it's probably better to get the tracks for free illegally than to pay someone for illegally delivering tracks to you (especially if that money is potentially used to fund criminal activity). Even better is to give a real middle finger to the RIAA and stop supporting their inferior product, buy music from independent labels and use a service like emusic.com (my neuros' best friend).
From reading the article, there is no doubt that it's a legal morass, however I didn't see anything in the article to suggest that there is any connection to the Russian mafia or any related criminal activity.
As for risk, I think the risk of getting sued by the RIAA for sharing music via P2P is more than deterent enough from using such a service, of which there is nothing legal about.
I've checked out eMusic before; their selection is pretty poor and they only offer mp3s.
Even if the American based music download sites can't legally provide the same breadth of music as allofmp3s.com, why can't they at least provide features like on the fly encoding or ogg vorbis support? |
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alecm
Posting Profoundly
117 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2004 : 8:47:26 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by brewer13210
From reading the article, there is no doubt that it's a legal morass, however I didn't see anything in the article to suggest that there is any connection to the Russian mafia or any related criminal activity.
According to this (admittedly out of date) BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/03/98/russian_mafia/70095.stm, 40% of private and 60% of state-owned companies in Russia are controlled by the mafia (and perhaps 80% of Russian banks). That combined with the very sketchy, somewhat exploitative, and possibly criminal nature of the business itself would indicate a reasonably large probability that allofmp3.com is in fact mafia involved.
Even if you want to take the see no evil position and assume that the business has no other criminal dealings, using the service still presents an ethical dilemma. You are essentially paying someone to commit a criminal act for you, in order to shield yourself from liability. Unless you believe that all music should be freely available (therefore that musicians need to find some other means of generating income), and that the law you are violating (copyright generally) is an unjust one, the use of the service is ethically at least as bad using P2P. Paying money to intermediaries, thereby creating a profitable market for selling a particular criminal service makes it even less ethically tenable than P2P (never mind that a real possibility exists that your money is going to fund less ambiguous criminality of the sort that you certainly would not knowingly support).
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As for risk, I think the risk of getting sued by the RIAA for sharing music via P2P is more than deterrent enough from using such a service, of which there is nothing legal about.
Of course it puts you at less risk from RIAA lawsuits, but that in no way make it legal or ethical. My comment had nothing to do with risk, if that is your only concern than have at it, because you probably won't get caught! But you probably won't get caught using P2P either (especially if you stay off the big crappy networks), and that's at least as ethical, free, and guarantees that you don't accidentally support terrorism/forced prostitution/child pornography or whatever other vice the Russian Mafia may put its dollars into. Of course you could support independent music and do away with all the ethical and legal problems.
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I've checked out eMusic before; their selection is pretty poor and they only offer mp3s.
Their selection is actually quite massive, however it is very likely that they have little you've ever heard of. I personally think of that as its greatest selling point: a truly enormous selection of interesting and unfamiliar music which I can purchase at reasonable prices knowing that the artists and labels are compensated, without any involvement from the RIAA and its members. If your only interest is in corporate music then you have to deal with the monopolistic pricing and strongarm legal tactics. Fortunately, IMHO, the vast majority of good music produced here and abroad is not shackled by the RIAA.
Emusic does only offer MP3s, but they are very high quality mp3s (LAME APS 192 kbs VBR mp3s to be precise). I would certainly prefer if they offered Ogg Vorbis, but it doesn't really make much sense from a business point of view to do so (especially since the quality of MP3 they offer is more than adequate for the vast majority of their potential audience, and a very very small percentage of potential users cares specifically about file format as long as they can play it/burn it/put it on their neuros, etc.) MP3 is by far the most ubiquitous and well supported format so it makes sense to offer it exclusively, and the big plus is it's DRM free which is pretty hard to come by these days. The only legal site that I know of that does multiple formats is audiolunchbox.com, but they charge four times the highest emusic price for a small sub-section of the same music catalog (though they have a couple of non-emusic labels thrown in). I love Ogg Vorbis, but I'm not paying four times the price to get it, and I doubt anyone who is aware of the significant overlap of their catalogs is either.
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Even if the American based music download sites can't legally provide the same breadth of music as allofmp3s.com, why can't they at least provide features like on the fly encoding or ogg vorbis support?
On the fly encoding is likely a pretty expensive proposition, though not so hard for a business like allofmp3.com which doesn't need to pay any royalties. The same goes for offering multiple formats (audiolunchbox makes users pay 4 times the emusic cost for that privilege). An online music seller makes money off of selling music, neither of those features are likely to broaden their audience or increase sales, but they do cost money.
In terms of breadth, allofmp3.com has a very poor selection of the music that I like (which is fortunately well represented on emusic, of course much of it I would have never even learned about had I not joined emusic), but that is because allofmp3.com is pretty much limited in the same way as the iTMS or Rhapsody. Are you saying that you don't use those legal services because they don't have the 'breadth' of music you require? My guess is that they have most everything you'd want, but you don't like their prices, especially considering that they offer a DRM crippled inferior product (i.e. if songs were a quarter and didn't have DRM, you'd probably be using those sites regularly). Those things aren't going to change if you keep supporting their product (even if you don't pay for it, you are supporting it by furthering its ubiquity, just like using OpenOffice hurts MS a lot more than pirating MS Office).
Chances are emusic's catalog is too 'limited' for you because you don't accept anything other than Major Label RIAA product as 'breadth'. That's true of most consumers, and the refusal of most consumers to even bother listening to anything that ClearChannel hasn't deigned to put on the radio is exactly why the RIAA can force $1 a song pricing and DRM crippled music on everyone. I'm pretty sure that emusic has a wider variety of available styles/genres than any of the the mainstream online music providers, and though it lacks some depth in a couple of important genres (notably Hip-Hop and current R&B; (though I'm not sure modern indie R&B; really exists)) most of the styles have incomparable depth and there are many great albums to be found in all of them. All you need is some willingness to try something new, and to take a few recommendations from the messageboards/lists and you'll be well on your way to divesting yourself of all the overproduced monopolistic RIAA garbage and the absurd prices and legal mess that goes with it.
Now it's time to get off my high horse, knowing full well that I probably haven't convinced anyone of anything. Why do I waste my time like this? |
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Derek
Moderator
500 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2004 : 12:33:01 PM
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When i first started using allofmp3.com i thought it was legal and then i looked into it a little more and it is very fishy. although it is one of the only places you can download non-DRM music. if i pay for the song i want to be able to use it. I no longer use this service but just for the record i found it very appealing. although it was probobly not legal.
on the issue of ethical...
this site is more of an outlet for non-ethical people. they can be shielded from prosecution by playing stupid and can pay a very small amount for garenteed good quality music. you may be able to get it for free somewhere else but will it be good quality? Kazaa is slowly being destroyed the same way... too much trash not enough goods. When you can steal goods from Russia for really cheap and not worry about being caught.... since half the country is supposed mafia i have heard, it is no wonder that it is being used by so many. i am neither agreeing or disagreeing with the use of this service that is your choice to make. but it seems to be the only real outlet for people seeking music without DRM and with multiple quality choices.
just thought i would contribute a few words,
Derek |
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