Anyone else have random Problems with Legally Downloaded Music?

[fanforever1986]

So I've taken it upon myself the past few months to purchase (at least a small portion of) songs legally over the internet from places such as iTunes, Napster, and the futureshop music site. I have to say it's probably the worst decision I've ever made. The songs are not as good of quality as what you can find in torrents, and the licence which is digitally attached to the song always tells me I am not allowed to play a given song on the computer because it is not an "authorized machine". This is my only PC. It's crap. If they think Im going to pay money for songs that don't work when I can get better sounding ones that do for free, they need to look in the mirror.

[photon]

I agree, the process is too difficult and their restrictions too tight.

Use allofmp3 if you want to pay, then you can get unDRMed files in the quality you want.

Some thoughts on how DRM might fall this year:

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/1,72412-0.html

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by photon

I agree, the process is too difficult and their restrictions too tight.

Use allofmp3 if you want to pay, then you can get unDRMed files in the quality you want.

Some thoughts on how DRM might fall this year:

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/1,72412-0.html

Interesting, but I'm highly sceptical that music labels are just going to roll over and allow non-DRMed music (watermarked or not).

Personally I think it is going to take more artists to take control and start marketing their own DRM-free offerings (like the BareNaked Ladies do). If a few artists can prove that the labels are no longer needed for distribution then the big labels may be forced to start accepting alternative marketing streams. Otherwise they will continue pushing for more restrictive controls (like the DMCA in the US) and lawsuits.

Getting back to the OP, I'm just surprised I haven't heard more from people who have similar issues with music purchased from iTunes et al. I figured that at least a few people who purchased hundreds of songs would have suffered a disk crash or accidental erasure and be totally POed that their music was gone.

[photon]

Yeah, more hopeful thinking that DRM might decrease I guess. But you never know, stranger things have happened.

I've read quite a few stories about how people have lost all their music from iTunes and such.. sometimes they are allowed to redownload after a fight. Why would you not allow unlimited downloads is beyond me.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Interesting, but I'm highly sceptical that music labels are just going to roll over and allow non-DRMed music (watermarked or not).

They already sell non-DRM music ... CDs! Why drm only downloadable music. It is just as easy to share the music that is on CDs.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

They already sell non-DRM music ... CDs! Why drm only downloadable music. It is just as easy to share the music that is on CDs.

LOL, yeah. The you get into the whole Sony rootkit debacle...

Personally, to rip CDs I use EAC with Lame --alt-preset standard in 192vbr

I've started leaving the resulting .wav and then running .flac against it, but I really need to get a good backup drive to store all those .flac files on before I go too much further.

[Flash Walken]

'Legally' downloaded music...?

[CubicleGeek]

Originally Posted by fanforever1986

So I've taken it upon myself the past few months to purchase (at least a small portion of) songs legally over the internet from places such as iTunes, Napster, and the futureshop music site. I have to say it's probably the worst decision I've ever made. The songs are not as good of quality as what you can find in torrents, and the licence which is digitally attached to the song always tells me I am not allowed to play a given song on the computer because it is not an "authorized machine". This is my only PC. It's crap. If they think Im going to pay money for songs that don't work when I can get better sounding ones that do for free, they need to look in the mirror.

I actually find iTunes offerings at least as good or better than anything available from other legitimate or illegitimate sources. The biggest gripe I have about iTunes music is the inability to play it off any non-iPod device or non-iTunes supporting computer. AAC is just a better compression algorithm than MP3, so from the same source and both compressed to the same size, the AAC one will have less loss.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by photon

I agree, the process is too difficult and their restrictions too tight.

Use allofmp3 if you want to pay, then you can get unDRMed files in the quality you want.

Some thoughts on how DRM might fall this year:

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/1,72412-0.html

if you really want to pay for music and have peace of mind for "not stealing" then allofmp3 is not the way to go. they don't pay any royalty fees to the artists (which is why it's so cheap) and the only reason they're still around is because they're located in Russia and the law there is very lax as far as copryright infringement goes. as far as the RIAA is concerned anything you download from there is the same as downloading from a torrent site or newsgroup

it's still a very good site though as you get songs in whatever format and bitrate you want, and they have a lot of stuff that is just impossible to find elsewhere. i mainly use it for albums that aren't available on any torrent or newsgroup

[photon]

True, though we already pay the artists through media levies in Canada and downloading is legal, so going through allofmp3 is just paying for a consistant quality rather than the hit and miss quality of p2p stuff.

And the RIAA can burn in a fire.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by photon

True, though we already pay the artists through media levies in Canada and downloading is legal, so going through allofmp3 is just paying for a consistant quality rather than the hit and miss quality of p2p stuff.

And the RIAA can burn in a fire.

if you download from a private torrent site, you're likely going to get an even better rip quality than allofmp3, especially ones that have strict rules on what is required for new uploads. i'd name a few, but that's probably a big no-no

oh and eventually those private releases do filter down to the big public sites, so as long as you know what you're looking for you can always find high quality rips no matter what

[photon]

Actually you can specifiy exactly what rip quality you want (56kb, 192kb VBR, even FLAC I think) as well (of course since they charge by kb it'll cost more for bigger files), but in general yeah I'd agree with you.

EDIT: Just checked, they don't offer FLAC but you can download in full CD quality as well (not on all tracks though).

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by photon

Actually you can specifiy exactly what rip quality you want (56kb, 192kb VBR, even FLAC I think) as well (of course since they charge by kb it'll cost more for bigger files), but in general yeah I'd agree with you.

well i know allofmp3 lets you choose whatever format and bitrate you want, but i have my doubts on if it actually does much. i rip all my cd's in OGG format 256bit, and anytime i've tried downloading music from there in that format it is never the same quality as my rips. so lately i've been downloading in 192bit OGG and they sound the exact same as the 256bit files i've gotten from there. and who knows, with that kind of site with no one regulating how they do business, all the different formats and bitrates may come from the same source and are just marked up to try and get more money from people

and on the one big private music torrent site i visited, virtually every release was in both a FLAC format and a regular 256 bit mp3 format. those sites tend to cater to the hardcore music geeks so it's always the place to go to get the best

[photon]

Very true, I've never used any of the high quality formats. The fact they only offer CD quality downloads for some items suggests the source might be inconsistent (heck, maybe they use p2p to get the albums! )

[Flames09]

Naah my biggest problem with "legally" downloaded music is the cost, I'd rather have it for free. Also in Canada it is legal to download music for free, no?

[jar_e]

Originally Posted by Flames09

Naah my biggest problem with "legally" downloaded music is the cost, I'd rather have it for free. Also in Canada it is legal to download music for free, no?

It's not illegal to download, but it is, to my knowledge, illegal to upload.

[troutman]

I remember taping songs off CKXL with a crappy cassette player in the 1970s.

[Hanna Sniper]

I still don't understand why people pay good money to download a lower quality version of a song. It's sad that a lot of great recordings are going to be ruined by poor compression. I'm not all against mp3's they can be used as a great tool, mp3 players are amazing but as a paid for form of sharing is a wrong.

Thankfully there is communities being set up now where if a mp3 is found within your collection you're banned. (but I also don't download official recordings so maybe my view would change)

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Hanna Sniper

I still don't understand why people pay good money to download a lower quality version of a song. It's sad that a lot of great recordings are going to be ruined by poor compression. I'm not all against mp3's they can be used as a great tool, mp3 players are amazing but as a paid for form of sharing is a wrong.

Thankfully there is communities being set up now where if a mp3 is found within your collection you're banned. (but I also don't download official recordings so maybe my view would change)

I'm not sure what you are arguing against here? It sounds like you start of talking about overly compressed MP3s, but what is "a paid for form of sharing"? Where does that come from?

And the thing about communities that ban people with MP3s is off the wall. What communities are these? Why would they ban me if I have ripped my CDs to MP3?

[fanforever1986]

Originally Posted by Hanna Sniper

I still don't understand why people pay good money to download a lower quality version of a song. It's sad that a lot of great recordings are going to be ruined by poor compression. I'm not all against mp3's they can be used as a great tool, mp3 players are amazing but as a paid for form of sharing is a wrong.

Thankfully there is communities being set up now where if a mp3 is found within your collection you're banned. (but I also don't download official recordings so maybe my view would change)

Communities? Likeeee....Rocky Ridge?