Karaoke Forums

Where is a good place to download music? (legally) please no BS here

I have tried theses .com's

Musicmatch
Walmart

The problem is with musicmatch, I can't play them on winamp. only media player and MM JUkebox work

The problem with Walmart is the license comes up sometimes in the middle of a gig and if not on the internet you can't play the file.

I mean what is going on I did pay for the music.

ok, burn the file to a CD as audio, then run your cd ripping program and re-rip it into the PC as an MP3

that is how i have been using WalMart and ITunes

THAT WORKS? nice.

THX

eMusic.com - this is a smaller site with mostly independent labels. Half of all revenue goes straight to the artist/label. Don't expect lots of 'mainstream' music, but LOTS of great jazz and early stuff from well known artist. Occasionally you'll find current less kown artist (Laura Love, etc). I've been subscribed to eMusic for almost 5 years and have nearly 70GB (yes, GB) of music from them in that time.

There are two russian sites that I know of that are working with a 'loophole' in the licensing to allow downloading albums for about $1 each. They charge based on filesize and require payment of $20 up front that you purchase against. If you don't mind giving your credit card number to the russian mafia, er, foriegn websites and the lack of proper payment to licensing groups feel free to search and find them. I wouldn't consider these technically legal here in the US but if you happen to live in Russia it's legal - for now.

iTunes offers MP3 downloads that don't require licensing seperately. IIRC they are charge for differently. I can't remark too much on this since I don't use them.

RealAudio has a download mechanism for MP3's or realaudio files (read about this when they started a couple years ago). They don't require seperate licensing or reconnection to the internet once they're downloaded and payed for.

Of course you can always rip the CD's after purchase which is sometimes cheaper if you normally get the entire album online anyway.