Legal music download services

[Yippee38]

A buddy of mine has two daughters who have been using Limewire to illegally download music. He wants to legalize them (and get all the virii/backdoors/trojans off his computers). He is looking for recommendations on download services. Since I don't download, I was wondering if any of you who do would be willing to share your experiences with the legal download services you use. What's the cost? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it? etc.

Thanks

 

[Diamond45]

SkiBumMSP and I have used eMusic for quite a while.. You get a set number of downloads per month depending on which plan you subscribe to.

http://www.emusic.com

Which reminds me... I've tagged several albums for download and my subscription renewed.. time to get more metal!

 

[Wishmaster]

I haven't tried using it, yet, but a friend has been recommending spiralfrog.com as a good place.

--Mike

 

[shreddy]

I dont think you can buy songs from this but they have quite a few great prog bands on it and it seems like its free unless you want to get a standalone unit for your house.

Check out the Andromeda station it has a, Vanden Plas on it and lots of other great bands.


www.pandora.com

 

[sh0kr0k]

I believe you can upgrade to a paid service status on Limewire, but I'm really not sure what that would entail. iTunes is my favorite.

 

[shreddy]

Um I really forgot how awesome Pandora was go on there and sign up its free but the way it works is advertising you create a station based on an artist say Dream Theater and it will generate a play list of all these songs by DT and similar artists its a good way to waste time at work. The only thing is you can only skip so many songs in an hour, and what you can do is create a personal playlist and start adding songs from other playists to it and share it with friends not to bad for free.

It does provide links to a couple sites to purchase the songs too.

 

[BlackRoseMetalHeart]

Um I really forgot how awesome Pandora was go on there and sign up its free but the way it works is advertising you create a station based on an artist say Dream Theater and it will generate a play list of all these songs by DT and similar artists its a good way to waste time at work. The only thing is you can only skip so many songs in an hour, and what you can do is create a personal playlist and start adding songs from other playists to it and share it with friends not to bad for free.

It does provide links to a couple sites to purchase the songs too.

Sounds similar to Last.fm, which I like a lot, but don't use nearly as often as I wish I could. (Damn work computer, not letting me download the player application.)

 

[Wholesome Annie]

I use itunes. $.99 a song or a music video for $1.99. Even as a poor college student I don't mind paying for it. And I can honestly say I've never had a problem with any of the music i've downloaded, nor do I think i've gotten any viruses from it....although my comp was acting funny the other day...hmmm.....:Smug:

 

[sh0kr0k]

Um I really forgot how awesome Pandora was go on there and sign up its free but the way it works is advertising you create a station based on an artist say Dream Theater and it will generate a play list of all these songs by DT and similar artists its a good way to waste time at work. The only thing is you can only skip so many songs in an hour, and what you can do is create a personal playlist and start adding songs from other playists to it and share it with friends not to bad for free.

It does provide links to a couple sites to purchase the songs too.

Sounds closer to Yahoo!Music/LAUNCHcast, which I also enjoy. Only took, oh, two years to get to ratings master on my station It's a great way to find many new bands, and dig up stuff from your old favorites. I can't listen to it anymore because it's not supported for Mac OS, but at least I don't have to worry about viruses

 

[MetalRose]

I use itunes. $.99 a song or a music video for $1.99. Even as a poor college student I don't mind paying for it. And I can honestly say I've never had a problem with any of the music i've downloaded, nor do I think i've gotten any viruses from it....although my comp was acting funny the other day...hmmm.....:Smug:

True, they also have some albums for less than you would pay to pick one up at the store. I bought HIM's Razorblade Kiss for around $6 for the full album. To me, that was the right price. I didn't know if I liked them enough to pick up the full album at the store for $13-18, but didn't want to get just one or two songs, I really wanted to give them a fair chance. So for the price of about 50 cents per song, I just got the whole album.

-Metal

 

[edgeofthorns]

True, they also have some albums for less than you would pay to pick one up at the store. I bought HIM's Razorblade Kiss for around $6 for the full album. To me, that was the right price. I didn't know if I liked them enough to pick up the full album at the store for $13-18, but didn't want to get just one or two songs, I really wanted to give them a fair chance. So for the price of about 50 cents per song, I just got the whole album.

-Metal

HIM is a band that I'm just not getting. I honestly don't hear anything special about them. I dig the 69 Eyes pretty well though.

~Brian~

 

[Kimavir]

I believe you can upgrade to a paid service status on Limewire, but I'm really not sure what that would entail. iTunes is my favorite.

I think paying Limewire just makes it faster, while the things you download remain illegal.

iTunes is definitely the way to go. Almost everything those girls could want will be on there, and it's dirt cheap. I've found some great older metal albums for $7 and $8 dollars. If they're like my little sister and into rap/pop, then the $.99 songs are really cool. Just pick up the single and ignore the forgettable album tracks.

 

[edgeofthorns]

Amazon has gotten in on the downloading act, but I've never tried their service. You might want to give them a shot.

~Brian~

 

[KingsGene]

This also just recently started up, from the guy that runs the www.melodicrock.com website:
"As the world slowly turns digital, I get a lot of e-mails looking for a place to purchase digital downloads of Melodic releases featured here. Frontiers Records, Metal Heaven and some other companies have representation in iTunes and elsewhere, but many don't and not all titles are available.
I have some good news for those looking for a one-stop place for melodic downloads and that is - MelodicDownloads.com.
This is not something of my doing, I simply do not have the time to even think about this at this time, but Hans who has run AOR Dream Zones for a number of years has branched out with this new service. Frontiers, Z Records and now Escape Music have joined MelodicDownloads to offer their releases, as well as a number of independent artists."
http://www.melodicdownloads.com/

 

[ProgMetal_Lover]

I'd just like a site that has just about every metal/progmetal band there is to buy downloads from,seems like alot don't have much to offer.

 

[Kenso]

if you are going to download it i dont see why you wouldnt just get the cd, it ends up being around a similar price anyways doesnt it?

 

[Kimavir]

if you are going to download it i dont see why you wouldnt just get the cd, it ends up being around a similar price anyways doesnt it?

Nope. I've paided either $7.99 or $9.99 for every album I've gotten off of iTunes. Those same CDs are $13 + shipping from The End (where I still buy ALL of my stuff that's not on iTunes). So, iTunes is much cheaper for me than my previous favorites spot, and with high speed internet I get instant gratification.