Downloading music

[gazzawazza]

I've never downloaded music from the web, so for a beginner, which is the best/easiest site to use?

[Buenchico]

Assuming that you want to stay within the law (which means paying to receive copyright tracks), here's a list of the top six UK sites, as reviewed by the Daily Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3358823/ The-six-best-digital-music-download-sites.html

If you're thinking of getting hold of copyright material for free, you won't find any actual websites offering the tracks. (If they existed they'd immediately be sued, for massive amounts of money, by the copyright owners). All that you'll find are P2P (peer-to-peer) networks and the software that you need to access them. Limewire is by far the most popular software in that category. It's fairly easy to get to grips with but, like all P2P software, it links your computer directly to that of a stranger, increasing the risks of viruses and malware finding their way onto your PC. Additionally, the unauthorised downloading of copyright files is a civil offence, for which you can be sued. Further, P2P networks require you to make tracks on your PC available to others. That counts as unauthorised 'distribution' of copyright materials, which is both a civil offence and a criminal one (which can lead to fines or even imprisonment).

The choice is yours. Stay legal, and use the sites in the link above, or use P2P networks and risk a very big penalty:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/n ewsid_8108000/8108589.stm

Chris

[Jan1957]

As I'm a beginner Chris, can you tell me is Spotify ok to use? I now you can't download them on to CD's and have to put up with the ads, but is it legal?

[gazzawazza]

Thanks very much Chris, I should have specified "legal" in my question!

[Buenchico]

Hi Jan:

I have to admit that I know next to nothing about Spotify but I've been reading up on it on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify

As I read it, all of the tracks which are available have been licensed by the copyright holders. In particular I note that the wishes of some copyright holders (including those with the rights to the work of AC/DC, The Beatles and Pink Floyd), to be omitted from the list of available tracks, have been respected.

Based upon that information, using Spotify appears to be perfectly legal as long as you don't use additional software to record (and hence retain) the streamed data.

Chris

[Buenchico]

Gazzawazza:
I was researching my last post , and typing it out, while you were posting, so I apologise for apparently ignoring your post.

Thanks for your reply. I hope that my link, to the Daily Telegraph website, will prove useful to you.

Chris

[Jan1957]

Thanks a lot Chris. It's actually not bad cos if you want to use what you've downloaded for a party one night you can pay a one off charge of 99p to skip the ads for 24 hours which I think is quite good. I've been caught out before though paying for things which weren't legal so just wanted to check.

[gazzawazza]

It certainly has Chris, once again thanks very much, I'll soon be downloading like an old hand.