Illegal Music Downloading

[Hepcat]

Hep,,,you should get a TV, and a blue ray player, then hook up your stereo and watch some of your favorite live concerts, you don't Have to subscribe to cable or satellite.

Yes, that is the ultimate plan. First though I need to buy at least a half dozen more strong bookcases. You see the rec room in which the TV would go is filled with about thirty boxes of books and things.

I would also need to buy a multi-channel amp which I'll probably set up for use with four speakers - quadrophonic! But I'll need to buy these speakers as well since my stereo is in the living room where it will stay.

First though I'll be buying a vintage tape deck or two and turntable for a second stereo set up in my massive master bedroom.

It'll take me another two years or so to sort through all that.

 

[AboutAGirl]

If downloading things illegally was as easy and reliable as downloading them legally, I might bother. Back in the days of heavy drm, I never would have touched a legal download with a zombie's hand. But now that I can go on Amazon and with one click of a button get songs, movies, even TV shows, that's all I've been doing lately. The only thing that bothers me is the amount of material that is still hard or impossible to find, legal or otherwise. You would think in the internet age, people would have their shit together with this stuff, because it's not bloody hard to set up a website with some songs on it. I mean, even if a band isn't popular, you'd expect the artists themselves to want people to get their music, if not by hosting their stuff on a paysite then even just to spread it around for free publicity.

 

[LG]

^^I can get better quality for downloads than either Amazon or i-tunes offer AAG....and that mystifies me. They are shysters for doing business in that manner and are part of the problem besetting the recording industry.

When I bought two albums on i-tunes years ago, they were in the process of offering their + catalog, due to so many complaints from people who Can tell the difference between a 128kbs/192kbs file and a better quality one. So they upgraded to 256kbs AAC, and then added a $2.00 increase to the albums they upgraded as opposed to the regular ones. So you spend $11.99 for a + download of an album instead of $9.99. That is an improvement, but it is not good enough.

When you download an album from i-tunes you are allowed to burn a CD copy, the software is built in to the application to do so. This is to make a back up copy of the file you downloaded, in case of HD failure or i-pod theft etc. But when you burn the CD you are Transcoding from AAC to WAV... Transcodes are never a good idea, you lose quality when you do that. I burned a CD of both the albums I downloaded before I knew about all the technical details. So you have a company distributing Lossy format music, that allows you to burn a back up CD that is not high quality. My question for them is to get their heads out of their asses and sell me an Original FLAC or Apple Lossless format CD, then I would consider buying from them again. Oh and CD's are cheaper on average than the price i-tunes is selling their damnable downloads for, figure that one out.

 

[AboutAGirl]

I'd never trust I-tunes. They're among the pioneers of ****ing people over in the digital world. A few years ago I bought some Mr. Bungle albums off of some random paysite and they didn't tell me until AFTER I bought it the whole album that one like 15 minute track was not available for purchase at all! That pissed me off. I've never had any problems with Amazon, though. If there's a sound quality problem it's certainly beyond my pallet as a music fan because the stuff I get from their sounds great. And the videos look great, too. For example I was buying some Daria episodes off of Amazon this morning and right in the middle, my torrent that I had started like a week ago finished! Whole series of Daria. So I'm like "well... I guess I'd be a fool to buy the episodes, now." So I watch some of the torrent episodes but damn, the quality was crap so I went right back to Amazon.

 

[LG]

I will sample videos online, but the quality is usually not the best so I use them to decide if I want to buy the DVD. I don't watch movies on the PC, and I don't play music except to listen to youtube's posted in the forum.

As for downloads...companies of the stature of Amazon and i-tunes have no excuse for not offering the format I want. A FLAC while about 700-800 kbs as opposed to a WAV 1411 kbs is bigger than the MP3's/AAC's they sell but for me when I burn the CD I get the quality I am looking for. If they tried to tell me it's because of server issues I would laugh, good gawd many bands homepages offer downloads in FLAC, with High res scans of the cover art, if they can do that then there is no excuse for the giants to not do the same.

I will never pay for a lossy anything in this world, not when I can get the original HQ files myself using whatever means necessary.

 

[gguerra]

Speaking of iTunes and anything else that begins with "i", I wont touch it with a ten foot pole. Apple and Steve Jobs although they put out some "trendy" products, when you get down to it they have always been full of it with all their proprietary BS. I do like the iPhone but wouldn't buy one for this reason. You are forced to go though them for everything including having to go with AT&T as provider. I like to have a choice.

 

[annie]

Speaking of iTunes and anything else that begins with "i", I wont touch it with a ten foot pole. Apple and Steve Jobs although they put out some "trendy" products, when you get down to it they have always been full of it with all their proprietary BS. I do like the iPhone but wouldn't buy one for this reason. You are forced to go though them for everything including having to go with AT&T as provider. I like to have a choice.

They have weaseled their way into amazon as well. I have download only three albums but when I go to play them, and iTune page pops up even though I don't have iTunes on my computer. AAARRRRGGGHHHH

 

[AboutAGirl]

They have weaseled their way into amazon as well. I have download only three albums but when I go to play them, and iTune page pops up even though I don't have iTunes on my computer. AAARRRRGGGHHHH

I don't know if that's amazon or what, because that's never happened to me once. Amazon has their own music player and they ask me if I want to listen on there or if I want to use windows media player. Never had itunes either...

 

[LG]

^^I only use Foobar to play my music on the PC, it is loaded with all the necessary codecs to play anything I load into it.

 

[Mr. Shadow]

^^That's an improvement Shadow, but I prefer other options to any Limewire sites now.

Hep,,,you should get a TV, and a blue ray player, then hook up your stereo and watch some of your favorite live concerts, you don't Have to subscribe to cable or satellite.

From Limewire I am usually snagging Albumwrap music from the sixties/seventies, or the occasional movie. Otherwise I'll look for the same item in a used bin and pay a few dollars for it. Screw the music executives.