legal mp3 downloading program

iceman7311

OSNN Senior Addict
Joined
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I am looking for a good legal mp3 downloading program. There are so many to chose from i am becoming a little bit overwhelmed. its need to have good sound quality (above 192kbs would be nice), download in mp3 (i am so sick of the drm crap), and to have something like a monthly fee for unlimited downloading(i can't afford to per a dollar per song).
 
Napster might be a route to go I think.

Never personally used it but they give you dl's for x amount of money per month or something.
 
Napster is WMA, Itunes is AAC. eMusic is MP3 I believe but they limit how many you can get per month.
 
is SounDTaxi illegal to use to take off drm's. and if so is there a way the man could track and find you if you have been using it?
 
is SounDTaxi illegal to use to take off drm's. and if so is there a way the man could track and find you if you have been using it?

You can always be tracked, will they come after you. I would say you have about a 0% chance of ever getting in trouble. If someone was ever going to look it would be for people sharing/hosting gigs of files.
 
does everyone else agree about the chances of getting caught? o and i am assuming that means it is illegal.
 
circumvention of copy control is illegal in the USA, UK and possibly elsewhere. As long as you don't distribute "cleaned" files you are unlikely to land yourself in trouble.
 
its legal in almost any circumstance to go around DRM as long as your sole reason is to make a backup ... which is really the reason i do not understand why Vista does not allow a setting to make backups.

In reality .... if you could prove you purchased software, a movie, or a music album ...you could contact the manufacturer and tell them to send you another if yours was scratched ..or if you wanted a backup ..and you could do it a million times.

If everyone did that ..you would see a quick end to DRM.
 
Napster I think is the only one which lets you listen to as much as you want for a monthly fee. Although you can't transfer any of the tracks unless you buy them.

Altough I believe for a little bit more per month you can transfer tracks to compatible MP3 players.
 
circumvention of copy control is illegal in the USA, UK and possibly elsewhere. As long as you don't distribute "cleaned" files you are unlikely to land yourself in trouble.

Here are a list of the successful MPAA & RIAA lawsuits to date:
Removing copy protection is not illegal in the USA as long as it is for personal use on materials you have paid for. Backup copies are legal and prudent.

Distributing digital copyrighted materials w/ or wo/ DRM removed is illegal. This has been questionable extended to analog copies by the courts and congress. Penalty is $180k per song, movie, or ebook.

Reverse engineering copy protection schemes is illegal. Even in an academic environment for study and development.

Manufacturing/sale of equipment that circumvents copy protection mechanisms is illegal. This has been extended to the Macrovision analog protections even though they do not fall under the DCMA laws.

is SounDTaxi illegal to use to take off drm's. and if so is there a way the man could track and find you if you have been using it?

Getting Caught
Over 5k people in the US had been hit with $3-5K fines by Aug 2004 (2.5 years ago) just for having music on a shared web accessible network. Assume it has doubled to 10k by now and that there are 1 million active file shares open.

That means you have a 1% chance of being caught. BUT, 2 friends of mine were caught but not fined. Their ISP protected them and just sent cease and desist orders to them (they did) refusing to disclose their identities. The each only had one movie shared at the time they were caught.

So the policy of your ISP affects your percentage. If half the ISPs are buckling then your odds are up to 2%.

The RIAA and MPAA have been hiring professional hackers to track and ID file shares for 1-2 years now. These guys are good at what they do.

The European and US government have been using their counter espionage organizations to track and capture "paid" file sharing services that do not have valid liscences. When these places are raided the servers which contain the ID of all their members are seized and the membership is ID'd as illegal file shares.

"Do you really need to share files that badly?"

DRM ripping tools
There have been cases where companies selling product that circumvents DRM have been found guilty of violation of the DCMA. These companies have had their servers seized and all customers ID'd and gone after for prosecution. I don't know the outcome of going after the customers. It is probably still in the courts. Be aware anything you buy will have tracks back to you unless you pay cash at a flea market or it's on the shelf at a Best Buy and you pay cash.

Right ways to do it
Get a group of friends together and buy music legally. Strip the DRM for making back up copies. Pass the songs back and forth on media (CD, thumb, etc). This is what we did when we kids, before the music Nazi's. Since you are passing physical media the legality gets very gray. Be aware that if one of your buddies is stupid and shares the common songs on the web he will get caught and narc on you for a reduced fine.

Join apple music store. They have now started offering songs unencoded for slightly more ($1.10 vs $1.00) than a DRM track. I think they were going to be MP3 but can't swear to that. In any event they will be protection free and can be re-encoded to MP3 easily. MS music store has announced a similar impending deal. One of the big 4 (EMC) has folded on the DRM.

Rip the songs off the radio. It worked for me 30 years ago and radio sound quality is pretty damn good now. Time shifting is legal by and act of congress!

Rip the songs off the web radio streaming audio output from your computer and encode to MP3. Time shifting is legal by and act of congress!

Anyone who file shares is a lazy idiot looking to get fined for 100x what they saved by doing things illegaly. $5k is 5000 songs, the payoff is not worth the risk.

PS The solution to this problem is to B O Y C O T T music and video until the RIAA and MPAA decide to stop persecuting their customers.
-Watch TV, listen to the radio.
-Buy used media
-Swap CD's with friends
You do not need an MP3 player with 5000 songs glued in your ear to listen to music. You can only enjoy one song at a time.
 
thanks lee, i need to make more clear what i wanted to do, i have this program called ruckus that allows you to download all of the music that you want but it is drm protected. i would want to be able to put it on my phone and ipod. i would not be doing any file sharing or any thing of that sort, just taking drm's off for personal use. is doing that illegal if i have no intent to disturbed? if so does the man go after those who are not file sharing?
 
If you are not sharing you can not get caught.

That is assuming ruckus is liscenced (by the music nazi's) to sell the music with DRM. An email to RIAA may answer that for you. If they are not liscenced NARC on them to RIAA to protect yourself when they seize the servers and get all the users names becasue they have essentially been selling you stolen goods. The "download all you want" sounds suscpicious to me, even with DRM.

Do not mention any intent on your part to crack the DRM!!!!!!!!!!

Removing DRM for personnel use, as far as I have heard, has not yet been litigated or legislated against. Doing the reverse engineering to develop a crack is illegal under DMCA.

Just don't share and you are pretty safe. Also do not keep the cracked versions on your PC. Use a CD kept stashed away from your computer somewhere. This prevents sharing or any impression of sharing from being proven. It also falls under prudent software protection by having a backup.

PS When you get this all sorted can I have a copy of your music? (JK)

Follow UP-
Neotrace puts their web page server in Boston which is relatively encouraging. Run neotrace on the link to their fileserver when downloading. If it is outside the US or western europe that spells illegal downlaod service. Reading their web page I am highly suscpicious unless they are just a streaming radio station but then they wouldn't allow copying. Non pay per song services all over the world are having their doors kicked in and servers confiscated. Be wary.
 
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i am pretty sure it is legal because it is extremely popular among collage students. everyone i have talked to that is in college has it and it seems like the man would have picked up on it by now. anyway thanks for all the help. reps all around:)
 

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