were can you download mp3s legally

[876543219]

hello i was wondering were you can get mp3 downloads from the internet for the best legal price
i know downloading free music is illegal but i also know there is some music that isn't illegall

what is and isn't illegal the laws are confusing

alot of places have prices they say are legal that seems to good to be true and most probably are
like 15 cents per song and 1.00 for an album

i just want to download music for the best legal prices
what is some good advise to know if it's  legal are not

what do you think of this
http://www.mp3raid.com/mp3general/tos.shtml

[Geek-9pm]

Here is the firsts rule you will see on that site:

[1] You accept that distributing/downloading Music Files is illegal unless you do so for previewing purposes and you intend to delete Music Files after previewing.

Do you agree with that? Do you understand it?
You will buy the song later.
You must destroy the song after you hear it.

Why? Because that is the agreement.

[876543219]

i wasn't talking about those laws a know what those laws mean if they are laws
i was just wondering if  downloading a song there was legal

what do you mean buy the song later here is what number 4 sas
You agree that you will delete Music Files after previewing and buy the song or album if you liked it.

[smeezekitty]

Here is the firsts rule you will see on that site:
Do you agree with that? Do you understand it?
You will buy the song later.
You must destroy the song after you hear it.

Why? Because that is the agreement.

LOL
i a, sure 90% of people dont agree to that (including myself)
i have never download music because its ether illegal or not free
but if i did i would keep the file

[BC_Programmer]

As a sidebar I might add that paying to download MP3's is a practice in laziness. MP3 is simply an awful format that takes a trade-off in quality to reduce size. Far better alternative are ANY lossless format- or hey, buying CDs (nobody does that these days).

The problem is most people play music on their iPod and MP3 players, and haven't got a clue that MP3 is simply an awful format. They accept the terrible treble reproduction at lower bit-rates and still report that one mp3 player has higher quality sound then another. Perhaps, but it's not a function of the devices ability to play the MP3 sound any more then it is how well they are able to artificially enhance the sound to reintegrate the components of the sound stripped out my the MP3 encoding process.


Personally, if I have the choice, I use FLAC to encode my audio- worst case scenario I use high bit-rate MP3 (still crappy, but far better) and my X-Fi (again, artificially, but workably so) can fill in the "blanks" with X-Fi Crystalizer.


All that being said- regardless of the price, I would NEVER pay for a MP3 format of a song. Because your not really paying for the song, your paying for a shoddy reproduction of it... or more precisely, the song with half the components stripped out to save space.

I can't remember if WMA is a lossless format... but then again I wouldn't use WMA simply because it would lock me into using certain applications and player devices.

i was just wondering if downloading a song there was legal

what do you mean buy the song later here is what number 4 sas
You agree that you will delete Music Files after previewing and buy the song or album if you liked it.

it's NOT legal AT ALL.

this is the same as the Rumor that you can download the ROM files for NES and SNES games, as long as you delete them within 24 hours. This is a fabrication made up by one of the many psuedo lawyers who think that C+ in Grade 11 Law makes them some kind of Pro Bono Expert.

In this instance they made up a similar rule involving MP3s.

It doesn't matter How long they are on your PC or wether you plan to buy them later, since it's ALREADY breaking the DMCA (and a few lesser copyright laws in some other countries). there is no clause saying it's legal to download them for "previewing purposes".

On the other hand, it IS legal to accept fragments of the music for a sample, but to say that you can download the entire song as a "preview" is merely a made up rule by the aforementioned self-proclaimed "law experts".

[smeezekitty]

As a sidebar I might add that paying to download MP3's is a practice in laziness. MP3 is simply an awful format that takes a trade-off in quality to reduce size. Far better alternative are ANY lossless format- or hey, buying CDs (nobody does that these days).

The problem is most people play music on their iPod and MP3 players, and haven't got a clue that MP3 is simply an awful format. They accept the terrible treble reproduction at lower bit-rates and still report that one mp3 player has higher quality sound then another. Perhaps, but it's not a function of the devices ability to play the MP3 sound any more then it is how well they are able to artificially enhance the sound to reintegrate the components of the sound stripped out my the MP3 encoding process.


Personally, if I have the choice, I use FLAC to encode my audio- worst case scenario I use high bit-rate MP3 (still crappy, but far better) and my X-Fi (again, artificially, but workably so) can fill in the "blanks" with X-Fi Crystalizer.


All that being said- regardless of the price, I would NEVER pay for a MP3 format of a song. Because your not really paying for the song, your paying for a shoddy reproduction of it... or more precisely, the song with half the components stripped out to save space.

I can't remember if WMA is a lossless format... but then again I wouldn't use WMA simply because it would lock me into using certain applications and player devices.




it's NOT legal AT ALL.

this is the same as the Rumor that you can download the ROM files for NES and SNES games, as long as you delete them within 24 hours. This is a fabrication made up by one of the many psuedo lawyers who think that C+ in Grade 11 Law makes them some kind of Pro Bono Expert.

In this instance they made up a similar rule involving MP3s.

It doesn't matter How long they are on your PC or wether you plan to buy them later, since it's ALREADY breaking the DMCA (and a few lesser copyright laws in some other countries). there is no clause saying it's legal to download them for "previewing purposes".

On the other hand, it IS legal to accept fragments of the music for a sample, but to say that you can download the entire song as a "preview" is merely a made up rule by the aforementioned self-proclaimed "law experts".

Mp3 is awfull but one think worse i can think of is wav at 8000hz 8bit per sample
this is why i dont download music
alothough to be honest i have downloaded a few NES games
actually i didnt know they were illegal because i assumed the copyright was released
simple fact is do not download music

[Geek-9pm]

BC, you need to study audio formats some more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file_format
128kbps MP3 is very close in quality to raw PCM of the same sample rate.But much lower bandwidth and file space.

The fact that a file in in MP3 format does not mean it is unlawful. Nor does it mean it is of poor quality. Some people like the way MP3 sounds. If MP3 bothers you, then never listen to music with any echo or "presence" it it. The inmate distortion of MP3 tends to make the sound seem like it has more pretense with  some echo. Those are the artifacts of audio compression.

MP3 does not serve the interests of those who want to copy protect their music and their secret encoders. Vendors want a format that prevents you from transporting music to another device. MP3 does not provide copy protection.
So from that, we get the story that MP3 is against the law. Not so.
http://www.mp3-converter.com/faq/is_mp3_legal.htm

Some artists want anybody to download and copy their music and do whatever with it. There are a number of sites that have no legal mumble or jumble stuff. It relay is free. http://www.mp3fusion.net/

The real issue here is the RIAA. See http://www.riaa.com/ for an explanation.
They hate MP3 and want to vilify it. BC, are you  on their payroll?

Just Google Free Legal MP3 Music.

[876543219]

do not download music

i would like to download music there are legal ways itunes walmart for 94 cents which i know is legal but itunes charges 99 and even more for some songs i would like to know were the cheapest place would be

i got an mp3 that will record radio i record songs right off the radio then i use my computer  to rename the recordings it takes some time  but it saves me alot of money

[smeezekitty]

i would like to download music there are legal ways itunes walmart for 94 cents which i know is legal but itunes charges 99 and even more for some songs i would like to know were the cheapest place would be

i got an mp3 that will record radio i record songs right off the radio i have to rename them but it saves me alot of money

its really a better idea to get a phisicall copy
besides theres always viruses
what about ogg compression?

[BC_Programmer]

BC, you need to study audio formats some more.

your kidding right? I guess I didn't learn enough about the internal data structures or the compression/decompression algorithms when I wrote a (slow but usable) MP3 decoder/encoder? Of course not. I must instead trust wikipedia, which in general is good, but in this case it appears the article was written by a number of psuedo-audiophiles who thing they are connoisseurs of sound when they listen to their 128kbps MP3 files on the tinny earbuds commonly used with MP3 players.

 


MP3 is a lossy format.

this concept, and how it affects the sound reproduced from it, is fairly simple.


http://www.lincomatic.com/mp3/mp3quality.html

The real issue here is the RIAA. See http://www.riaa.com/ for an explanation.
They hate MP3 and want to vilify it. BC, are you  on their payroll?

*censored* does my post have to do with the legal "issues" of MP3?

it didn't. I was merely stating that the format, as it is now (using a lossy compression method) blows when compared... especially when compared ... to CD-audio. I made no claims regarding the legality of MP3 as a format. I was again- just pointing out that it blows. FLAC or OGG are both lossless formats (AND, at least for OGG, they don't have any DRM public/private key crap like WMA or AAC)

Now if they had used a LOSSLESS compression method in MP3, such as LZW, rather then the lossy compression implemented by MP3 (which is only made worse by the auditory masking that is usually performed).


Auditory masking is the big one- while under most circumstances, removing sounds you cannot hear won't affect what you hear, it actually isn't that simple, since in some situations frequencies outside our hearing ranges can be heard in a subtle way by either their cacophonic or euphonic composition with the more audible frequencies, namely when the sounds waves converge at the same time (thus causing the audible wavelength to be amplified by the inaudible wavelength).

The inmate distortion of MP3 tends to make the sound seem like it has more pretense with  some echo. Those are the artifacts of audio compression.

No, that is the same artifact resulting from a lower bit-rate, not from the compression itself. By the same token reducing the bit width would cause it to sound "muffled" (usually caused by excessive interpolation applied to prevent Sound aliasing (consider it a form of sound anti-aliasing to prevent "stair-stepped" wavelength changes).

[smeezekitty]

Auditory masking is the big one- while under most circumstances, removing sounds you cannot hear won't affect what you hear, it actually isn't that simple, since in some situations frequencies outside our hearing ranges can be heard in a subtle way by either their cacophonic or euphonic composition with the more audible frequencies, namely when the sounds waves converge at the same time (thus causing the audible wavelength to be amplified by the inaudible wavelength).

they do that?
Mp3 sucks
you could always usse good old trusty wav
32000 sample rate 16bps sounds pretty good
and is very small when ziped or gziped

[BC_Programmer]

they do that?
Mp3 sucks
you could always usse good old trusty wav
32000 sample rate 16bps sounds pretty good
and is very small when ziped or gziped

theoretically, it would explain how you can hear subtle differences after stripping out what you would otherwise not be able to hear.

OGG Vorbis is a good lossless format.

[rthompson80819]

There is no question that any kind of lossy format will reduce quality.  The key factor is how you listen to music.  If you listen off your computer, and have plenty of HD space a lossless format will deliver better quality.  Frankly, Cd's are already a lossy format, just with a higher sampling rate than MP3's.  There are some people that thing Cd's suck and the only way to really hear music is off vinyl with a real high quality sound system.

Most people however, listen to music off a portable music player that all have limited storage space.  Like many things in life you have to make tradeoffs.  Do you want the best quality or do you want more songs on your player?

With the majority of ear buds you could have the best quality songs on your player but after going through the ear buds any quality improvement will be lost.  One answer would be to spend more on quality headphones than most people spend on their music players.

[Geek-9pm]

Disclaimer: this post has some fine print

your kidding right? I guess I didn't learn enough about the internal data structures or the compression/decompression algorithms when I wrote a (slow but usable) MP3 decoder/encoder? Of course not. I must instead trust wikipedia, which in general is good, but in this case it appears the article was written by a number of psuedo-audiophiles ..

Wow, Great Rant BC! 
I will flick you a thank for that. Made my day! 
Here are some more things you can rant about and snow everybody here:
Psychoacoustics
Psychoacoustic distance (Not about physical distance)
Discrete Fourier transform
Fast Fourier Transforms
Sample rate
 Oversampling
 Undersampling
Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem

So, then. As to the original post questioning MP3 and the law.
May I put thees words in your mouth?

"MP3 encoding  is so bad that If MP3 is not against the law, it sure should be." -pseudo quote from BC programmer without permission

[Helpmeh]

Nice pseudo-quote. But all of you are seriously off topic. The OP asked where to download music. He didn't specify what format it should be in. A one-word answer to the OP's question is "iTunes".