File sharing

[cookie_monster]

Was thinking about using Limewire to get some music i'm looking for, anyone have a better suggestion that they use?

[Michael]

In my experience Limewire is a good way of getting countless amounts of spyware. I've seen it many times on many machines. There is also a big question mark on the legality of some of the downloads published.

[cookie_monster]

Yeh i'll prob stick it in a VM.

[Haptic]

Mabye a visit to Itunes would be the best way and the legal one!

[originofsymmetry]

Seeing as you don't mind infringing on copyright:p then why not torrent? Much better imo.

[powdarrmonkey]

Was thinking about using Limewire to get some music i'm looking for, anyone have a better suggestion that they use?

 

Errr...somewhere legal?

 

Seriously, IMO this topic has no place here if we're going to discuss illegitimate ways of getting hold of stuff, and mods have made that perfectly clear before.

[cookie_monster]

I wasn't aware that 'ALL' content available on Limewire was illegal. Anyway I have hundreds of CD's at home all legaly purchaced I just wanted to listen to a few tracks before buying.

 

Maybe this thread should be deleted before it gets out of hand.

[sted]

if you just want to try before you buy try Spotify

[powdarrmonkey]

I wasn't aware that 'ALL' content available on Limewire was illegal. Anyway I have hundreds of CD's at home all legaly purchaced I just wanted to listen to a few tracks before buying.

 

Certainly not all, but it's a pretty slim probability. And unfortunately, buying 100 CDs doesn't excuse the theft of #101 in the eyes of the law, nor the theft of two tracks off it.

 

Maybe this thread should be deleted before it gets out of hand.

 

I concur. In the interests of answering the original question, I use 7Digital for most of my music now; they have a mix of DRM-WMAs (eugh) and DRM-free MP3s, which play happily on my box at home, they have a pretty good preview system, and a failed download doesn't mean putting in a support call to get another. Can't comment on any other services though.

[powdarrmonkey]

if you just want to try before you buy try Spotify

 

Sadly not on Debian (well, not without Wine, which is an ugly solution).

[cookie_monster]

Nice one sted

 

 

@ powdarrmonkey, your opinion is noted however as stated piracy was not my intention.

Edited April 14, 2009 by cookie_monster

[witch]

Limewire itself is not illegal - it is used to illegally download stuff and so is perhaps not the best option.

Cookie Monster wasn't after illegalling downloading so I don't think this thread needs to be deleted - in fact he was after other ways of downloading stuff that is going to avoid the possibility of illegality.

So...as long as other solutions are legal, discuss on..!!!!

[ICT_GUY]

Rapid share, you are not uploading and all traffic is port 80 so no throttling or threatening letters from your isp. £5 per month but worth every penny. Legit files only though please.

[Ric_]

To further press home the fact that EduGeek does not condone illegal file sharing, please feel free to discuss sites that allow legal ways to sample music... for instance Amazon (as an example) allows you to preview music before you buy. For films, Apple has a good selection of trailers.

[cookie_monster]

Does Amazon now let you listen to the entire track? (I'll take a look). What I'd like is somewhere that you can listen to the entire album once before you buy e.g you could download some DRM (i'm not much of a DRM fan though) tracks that expired after a short time.

[jamesb]

While you probably won't find the latest pop tracks on it, I always use www.jamendo.com for music these days. Free and legal, and some very good stuff as well.

[john]

Last.fm is also a good site for allowing you to listen before purchasing music tracks and if you had Audacity open

[fafster]

Does Amazon now let you listen to the entire track? (I'll take a look). What I'd like is somewhere that you can listen to the entire album once before you buy e.g you could download some DRM (i'm not much of a DRM fan though) tracks that expired after a short time.

 

You can do exaclty this with Amazon. They have a flash interface on the website that plays a low-quality version of the song.

[cookie_monster]

Unfortunatly it only lets you play about 20 seconds. The Amazon MP3 downloader looks interesting I might take a look at that.

[SC-UK]

What about last.fm?

 

Brilliant site that lets you listen to full tracks and it's all legal (I Hope!)

 

Tom

[K.C.Leblanc]

Does Amazon now let you listen to the entire track? (I'll take a look). What I'd like is somewhere that you can listen to the entire album once before you buy e.g you could download some DRM (i'm not much of a DRM fan though) tracks that expired after a short time.

 

Find a good specialist music shop.

[cookie_monster]

Unfortunately the local music shop has closed despite my support and the closest actual music shop is now quite a distance away

[StewartKnight]

Most of the people here are spouting the lies that the MPAA etc want you to think is true, but isn't. Allow me to explain.

 

Downloading is NOT illegal.

'Cracking' the drm on a music track or film, or whatever is Copyright Infringement. This again is not "illegal" in the sense that most people understand the concept.

Uploading something you do not own the rights too is also covered under the Copyright Infringement.

 

Downloading files is NOT illegal, despite the pressure groups disseminating the lie that it is.

However, illegal it may not be, you have to make a personal decision on the morallity of it.

 

I like to download TV series from America that are not available in the UK yet. Such as House and Chuck. Is that immoral? Is anyone losing money from my downloading it?

 

I'd say no, others may disagree. However downloading music is depriving people (very rich people non-the-less) of money.