Recommend LEGAL MP3 download site

[120inna55]

I just checked out Napster. I've previously tried MSN.

Napster requires you download their player, and then the files are WMA. MSN's files are WMA (obviously).

I want to purchase the files, but I want them to be MP3s. I do not want to have to convert them. I do not want the whole albums (so please don't recommend I go out and purchase the CD---I have over 400 CDs and am not averse to purchasing an artists album when they put out more than just 1 or 2 good songs). I do not want to have to download different players.


Does such a site exist?

 

[Purogamer]

I'd like to know too, as this is the #1 reason I don't legally buy individual MP3's, it's too much of a hassle. It's either buy the CD or limewire i'm sad to admit...

A lot of times though I can download an mp3 I want off of a myspace page, look into that...Some of the older classics are hard to find (wilson pickett...c'mon...) but a lot of things are available over there...

 

[Mark_AR]

I buy my music from Walmart.com 88¢ each.

No programs to load. No spyware. No looking over my shoulder or worrying.

: :

 

[120inna55]

I buy my music from Walmart.com 88¢ each.

No programs to load. No spyware. No looking over my shoulder or worrying.

: :

Boooooooo...I just signed-up and tried Walmart.com. It requires a 4MB download manager (which I expected and was OK with). But it's WMA (not MP3 as requested in the OP. And to top it off they only offer 128 kbps.

Wal-Mart.com is no different than the others. My search is ongoing, although I fear Purogamer is correct...

 

[Mark_AR]

I must have misread your original post. Sorry.

You can opt NOT to load the download manager. That is what I did.

128kbps was ok with me. It is 'Near-CD' quality. I can't see the point of 256 or 320kbps for what little you gain in quality. (Space hogs!)

And I'm not particular about the media format. WMA, MP3, CDA... Musicmatch plays/rips/burns everything for me.

Good luck in your quest...

 

[forecheck]

The only site I know of, and it's legality is questionable, is the Russian site, Allofmp3. The site appears to be down tonight, but the songs there cost 2 cents per megabyte downloaded.

http://www.allofmp3.com

Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllOfMP3.com

 

[damaged]

While it does not let you download (i think it links to optional cd purchases though), perhaps some might find the site: http://www.pandora.com/ of interest, you type in a song or artist, and it uses 'music genomes' (see: http://pandora.com/mgp.shtml) to create a station based on any music that fits that criteria 'genetically' (and includes the artist/song you typed in to boot), it's free to listen, no spam from them so far (i use a tagged email address). You don't have to register, but if you do, you can save your custom 'stations' for later use, and the player it uses can be detached from the page. And it is completely legal.

 

[LonghornXP]

AllofMP3 is the only site that offers MP3 files for downloads but I don't know if its legal or not. Now I know this isn't the best advice and I also know its not what your asking for but if you want cheap legal music this would be my opinion on it.

Subscribe to Yahoo Music Unlimited. You will need to download the Yahoo music player which is a small file download on high speed internet and make sure to uncheck the options during the installer to download other Yahoo stuff like the chat client and such. Its very easy to find as you need not do anything special to see the options during installation. The files are WMA DRM files but Yahoo offers the highest encoded files at 192Kbps compared to all other services 128Kbps downloads. You can download as many songs as you want each month as long as you keep paying.

I'm also assuming you don't want to transfer the music to a portable music player.

The service costs on a month to month basic only 6.99/month and if you pre-pay for one years of service its only 59.88 for the year (4.99/month times 12 months).

If you have a portable music player that supports Janus DRM you must pay extra to transfer your music to a portable device.

The To Go plan costs 11.99/month or 119.88 billed yearly which comes out to 9.99/month.

If you do want portable device support you can view the list of supported devices at this link below.

http://music.yahoo.com/ymu/resources/web/togo/devicepopup.asp

I know this isn't what you asked about but I'm listing your best cheapest options for legal downloads in the USA. Beyond this you always have the pay per song model and I'm sure you know all the services that offer this.

 

[120inna55]

Beyond this you always have the pay per song model and I'm sure you know all the services that offer this.

I've got no problem with pay-per-song. I'd love to be able to pay a buck and be able to download a 192Kbps MP3. Then I could burn my legally purchased MP3 to disk, listen to it on my PC, or copy it over to my PDA (LifeDrive). It just doesn't seem to be possible.

 

[LonghornXP]

I've got no problem with pay-per-song. I'd love to be able to pay a buck and be able to download a 192Kbps MP3. Then I could burn my legally purchased MP3 to disk, listen to it on my PC, or copy it over to my PDA (LifeDrive). It just doesn't seem to be possible.

I'm hoping that one day that could be done but until that time comes we are kinda stuck with what we have today. Maybe a company could invent sometype of DRM that requires a program you must run to unlock the file on each computer but once its unlocked on that computer it can be used however you please as long as the playback and copying "from" device is that computer. Also if you must use this software why not also allow the customer via their account to see a list of computers they can remove at will. The key for this to work is to have the MP3 file in a DRM wrapper of sorts so that it even if its traded online only 10 computers max can unlock it at any given time and computers can only be removed by the original user that bought that track. The key is that even if you copy the file from an unlocked computer to an external drive and copy the file from the external drive onto another different computer as long as that new computers hardware ID isn't present within the DRM wrapper it won't play until that specific computer is unlocked. But the great thing about this is that whatever device you copy the file to as long as that device is connected to an unlocked computer the file will play. It can use playback software like Itunes so that the copy software can know if the device is directly connected to the unlocked computer.

I know I went on and on and I know my example isn't perfect but I think its better to work on a wrapper for the music file that only cares that the computer is unlocked but doesn't care what devices the computer can copy to. So if a portable music player can play the file its under the assumption that for the file to get onto this device it had to be copied to it from an authorized computer. I hope you all can see what I'm trying to say.

 

[Purogamer]

That's why this sucks, because they (RIAA) believes that EVERYONE who's downloading music is doing it for the sole purpose of giving it away for free. 1 person pays and then uploads it to 1,000...Well, that's not really accurate. Sure, some will do that but how about the rest of us who just want to buy 1 old song that we like and can't f**king do it?

The sole reason people sit around TRYING to crack DRM is because it exists. Get rid of it and your CD sales will not go down. They sat on their hands while the internet ran wild and now they think it'll always be that way and they're punishing us. I don't see how it's stopped anyone anyways, You can still illegally download anything you want without fear of ANYONE.

I'm so sick of executives who don't understand this, same with the MPAA, they just don't get what we are trying to do...I want to buy a metallica song, and I want to listen to it at home, on my xbox, and at my job. Instead of carrying a CD around and HOPING this ancient form of media doesn't get scuffed or scratched (yeah right) I want to rip it to mp3 and store it on my computer. Then I can burn 3 copies and use them where I want to. I'm not trying to give people free metallica cd's, i'm not selling them on ebay, I just want to listen to the music I f**king paid for, and be able to do it wherever I want.

 

[LonghornXP]

That's why this sucks, because they (RIAA) believes that EVERYONE who's downloading music is doing it for the sole purpose of giving it away for free. 1 person pays and then uploads it to 1,000...Well, that's not really accurate. Sure, some will do that but how about the rest of us who just want to buy 1 old song that we like and can't f**king do it?

The sole reason people sit around TRYING to crack DRM is because it exists. Get rid of it and your CD sales will not go down. They sat on their hands while the internet ran wild and now they think it'll always be that way and they're punishing us. I don't see how it's stopped anyone anyways, You can still illegally download anything you want without fear of ANYONE.

I'm so sick of executives who don't understand this, same with the MPAA, they just don't get what we are trying to do...I want to buy a metallica song, and I want to listen to it at home, on my xbox, and at my job. Instead of carrying a CD around and HOPING this ancient form of media doesn't get scuffed or scratched (yeah right) I want to rip it to mp3 and store it on my computer. Then I can burn 3 copies and use them where I want to. I'm not trying to give people free metallica cd's, i'm not selling them on ebay, I just want to listen to the music I f**king paid for, and be able to do it wherever I want.

Very well said and very much the truth. Also for real pirates do they think DRM is going to stop them. So a pirate pays 5 bucks a month and pirates a program such as tunebite and boom you have an MP3 copy of that song instead of downloading it and just like that they will never be caught because the program is legal and you didn't download the song from P2P sites. So as long as you don't upload that song they will never ever catch you because they have no means todo so. I'm not saying anyone should do this but if they think DRM will stop pirates they won't. Heck people even have those free trials too. It only takes time for this to be done but from the tunebite website they have something called a batch process so this can all be done while you sleep.

So RIAA I just told everything how to get around DRM as if they didn't know by now but how about you make things much much easier for us legal users like myself who do buy from iTunes, Yahoo subscription and BMG music club. I use Yahoo for impulse type uses until I decide to buy the album if enough songs exist on the CD for it to be worth that five bucks. I do like BMG as I was able to use one of their buy one get four free offers and this is what I got.

I paid upfront for the Elton John Good-Bye Yellow Brook Road SACD set which cost me 29.99 plus shipping. The same set at best buy cost ten bucks more. So once I bought this I was able to get 8 free CDs because any multi CD set (besides box sets) priced at or over 24.99 counts as double the offer. So if the offer is buy one get four free it becomes now buy one get eight free.

So I got these other 8 CDs listed below and please not I have varied tastes as you will see.

Heart: Alive In Seattle SACD Hybrid 2 CD set.
Carpenters: Singles 1969-1981 SACD Hybrid 1 CD.
Keane: Hopes & Fears DualDisc 1 CD.
Wallflowers: Rebel, Sweetheart DualDisc 1 CD.
Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral DualDisc 1 CD.
Bruce Springsteen: Devils & Dust DualDisc 1 CD.
Marvin Gaye: Marvin Gaye Collection SACD 1 CD.
Nine Inch Nails: With Teeth DualDisc 1 CD.

So I got everything listed right above along with the Elton John set for a total price with shipping and tax of just under 60 bucks. It was 58 and some change and as you might notice these are all multichannel music disks except the Wallflowers. The Wallflowers even though it says 5.1 doesn't use that much surround but it does use some. Its mostly the fronts, center and subs doing the work but its a very good disc with great sound.

 

[ChrisK114]

What's wrong with Itunes? It is mp3 and it has no monthly fees. It is 99 cent a song, but the quality is awesome. Maybe some people have a problem with it, but to me it is the best out there although some artists aren't on there.

 

[LonghornXP]

What's wrong with Itunes? It is mp3 and it has no monthly fees. It is 99 cent a song, but the quality is awesome. Maybe some people have a problem with it, but to me it is the best out there although some artists aren't on there.

Sorry bud but iTunes isn't mp3. itunes uses the AAC codec with a file extension of .mp4 I believe and they also use a DRM wrapper called FairPlay. This is why no other portable player can playback itunes music store songs because apple will not provide the FairPlay DRM information their store uses to allow the transfer to devices that of course cannot support Fairplay DRM. Next time you post try and at least verify the information before telling the whole world something that isn't true.

 

[ChrisK114]

Geez sorry I was wrong. No need to get nasty about it. I guess only some people can give wrong info and not others. I was trying to help not cause a big uproar. i burn CD's from there all the time.

 

[LonghornXP]

Geez sorry I was wrong. No need to get nasty about it. I guess only some people can give wrong info and not others. I was trying to help not cause a big uproar. i burn CD's from there all the time.

Sorry if I upset you but your not helping anyone unless the information is true and a simple google search doesn't hurt to make sure your correct. Much of what I post I check to make sure I'm correct if the information is available to the public. Also I'm the first one to say I messed up if someone points out that "I" was wrong so in time once you have been here longer you will find out I'm easy going. Sorry but I had no way to say what needed to be said without it sounding mean but just know when I say something its not personal at all and more advice related.

Again sorry if you felt I was attacking you as I wasn't. Please enjoy this site and if you have any concerns about me please feel free to PM me and I will read any concerns and try and fix them. Sometimes we have to answer the same questions so many times we staff members tend to get a little pissy so we rely on our fellow members to PM us and set us straight but that doesn't happen that often.

We all have bad days too.

 

[ChrisK114]

Thats okay Longhorn, i apologize for my reply. It just hit me wrong. I in no way meant to give wrong information. I thought Itunes was mp3 and I was wrong. I guess I should have made sure before I spoke.
I have always respected all your posts Longhorn. I am new and don't have the knowledge that you all have. I have learned a lot from you. I definitely don't want hard feelings. So accept my apology for snapping back at you.

 

[LonghornXP]

Thats okay Longhorn, i apologize for my reply. It just hit me wrong. I in no way meant to give wrong information. I thought Itunes was mp3 and I was wrong. I guess I should have made sure before I spoke.
I have always respected all your posts Longhorn. I am new and don't have the knowledge that you all have. I have learned a lot from you. I definitely don't want hard feelings. So accept my apology for snapping back at you.

I'm just glad your not ticked at me still. Again I'm sorry and I have no hard feelings at all. I really am a nice guy....no really I am.

 

[Rlanham]

standard-alt-preset is the best bang for the buck encoding.

most mp3's will encode around 190-200k. It detects the soft and loud parts of a song and adjusts to give you the best quality at the lowest size.

If you want to play your mp3's thru your stereo, you will notice the difference between 128k and a higher encoding.

I will leave it up to everyone regarding allofmp3.com, but they offer just about every type of encoding imagineable. When itunes or anyone else offers that, I would be willing to pay $0.99 instead of $0.15

 

[Purogamer]

I just used allofmp3.com this morning and the particular rare album I wanted was only available in 192kbps...