# Is there a place to download legal mp3's of songs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 6, 2002, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538 "2002-08-06T03:40:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/1 "2002-08-06T03:40:34Z")
My husband’s old roommate is getting married in a month, and my husband and I got a strange request. They have this list of songs that they would like to burn to a CD for dance music at their wedding. There are about eight songs that they don’t own in CD form. They asked us to go onto “Napster or something” and see if we could find mp3’s of the songs that we could download for them. (I find this a strange request because we’ve never used Napster, Napster is dead anyway, and we have a dial-up connection, so any downloading is going to be sloooow. Hubby said, “Sure, no problem” :rolleyes:.) Anyway, I was planning on telling them where they could download these songs for themselves. I know that Napster is gone, but I had heard that the music industry was going to switch to a “pay-to-download” system where people would either pay a fee per song or a monthly fee in order to download songs so that artists would get paid, etc. This sounds like a perfect solution–it has to be cheaper than buying eight albums just to get the eight songs they want. I can’t seem to find these new-fangled sites, though. Do they even exist? Is there a legal way to search for and download mp3’s of songs? Thanks in advance for any pointers you can give me. ---
**Author:** ![Gopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gopher)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/2 "2002-08-06T06:16:50Z")
[www.mp3.com](http://www.mp3.com) ? I’m not completely sure if it’s legal or not but it’s big enough that maybe if it wasn’t, some companies might sue them. They mostly have songs by lesser known artists trying to get known but also do have some more famous ones. ---
**Author:** ![HalberMensch242](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecb155/32.png) [@HalberMensch242](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HalberMensch242)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/3 "2002-08-06T06:32:15Z")
Try SoulSeek at [www.soulseek.com](http://www.soulseek.com) ---
**Author:** ![riserius1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ab992/32.png) [@riserius1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/riserius1)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/4 "2002-08-06T06:53:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by HalberMensch242 \* > \*\*Try SoulSeek at [www.soulseek.com](http://www.soulseek.com) \*\* Interestingly enough, that link shows that domain name is for sale. The best site for downloading mp3s is [www.kazaa.com](http://www.kazaa.com) ---
**Author:** ![red\_dragon60](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@red\_dragon60](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/red_dragon60)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/5 "2002-08-06T07:11:24Z")
In a word, no, there isn’t any legal site. Unless the bands put it up on their site and legally say you can have it, the music is pretty much off limits. You could go to the dark side with what **riser** posted, but I don’t reccommend that for a dial up and for the various legalities. Ask your friend if he has the CDs. ---
**Author:** ![Spit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@Spit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spit)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/6 "2002-08-06T10:18:27Z")
Yes, there are legal sites. The aforementioned [MP3.com](http://MP3.com), and of course the musician’s sites themselves. There are also pay sites, ( [www.pressplay.com](http://www.pressplay.com) ) but they are expensive, and the selection isn’t all that great from what I gather. ---
**Author:** ![Spit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@Spit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spit)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/7 "2002-08-06T10:24:00Z")
Some interesting reading: [http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/pressplay2.html](http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/pressplay2.html) ---
**Author:** ![pezpunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@pezpunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pezpunk)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/8 "2002-08-06T15:19:22Z")
I’m thinking that linking to kaaza and soulseek is not gonna float with the mods. The only “legal” download site that I can thinkk of offhand is [www.emusic.com](http://www.emusic.com) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/9 "2002-08-06T15:43:30Z")
There are legal sites, but the odds of finding a particular song on them are not good. [MP3.com](http://MP3.com) has nothing but legal MP3s, but their selection is limited to those who gave permission to make copies (as is any legal site). Why not just take a tape? Find the CDs and transfer them. That’s perfectly legal. Or – radical thought – get the original CDs and **play them individually**! This will require the task of pushing a button to select what you want, and taking one CD from the player and putting in another. I would think you’d be able to find someone – a bodybuilder maybe – who would be up to it. ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/10 "2002-08-06T17:14:32Z")
Thanks for your help so far. I had found emusic before, and it only had one of the artists requested, and didn’t have the song they wanted. Pressplay doesn’t look very promising, either. A quick look at [mp3.com](http://mp3.com) indicates that a lot of the songs are meant to be samples, but perhaps I can find a few of them. **RealityChuck** , :rolleyes:. The plan _is_ to take most of the songs off CDs and transfer them. There just happen to be eight songs that they either don’t own or don’t happen to know anybody who owns them. I was wondering if there was a place to purchase the individual songs rather than going to the considerable expense of purchasing eight albums (or hiring a DJ, which seems to be what **RealityChuck** is suggesting.) It seems so far that the music industry has taken away Napster and yet left people with no real alternative. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/11 "2002-08-06T17:25:23Z")
What alternative did you have before Napster? ---
**Author:** ![Lockfist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/838e76/32.png) [@Lockfist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lockfist)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2002, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/12 "2002-08-07T02:54:12Z")
Well there is actually nothing illegal about P2P file sharing if you already own the original recording in some format. I won’t go into great detail here but its amazing how I can buy a tape in 87, the cd in 95 and now the record companies want me to pay _again_ for an MP3 of the same material in 2002… but I digress. There are plenty of websites with _legal_ MP3s. I suggest trying the website of the record label and the artist themselves. A few that I use, but probably won’t help you much: [http://www.spitfirerecords.com/mp3.htm](http://www.spitfirerecords.com/mp3.htm) [http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/music/](http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/music/) [http://www.mp3.com/](http://www.mp3.com/) …and by the way, if you purchase cd’s from [http://cheap-cds.com/surf/home](http://cheap-cds.com/surf/home) they will send the MP3s to a private file on [MP3.com](http://MP3.com) and you can d/l from there. Prices are very reasonable as well. Good luck. ---
**Author:** ![MisterThyristor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecccb3/32.png) [@MisterThyristor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MisterThyristor)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2002, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/13 "2002-08-08T05:36:48Z")
You can borrow the CDs from the library. Most large library systems have extensive CD collections. (You don’t list the songs you want or where you live, so I can’t tell you if you can get them locally.) ---
**Author:** ![WSLer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@WSLer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WSLer)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-place-to-download-legal-mp3s-of-songs/122538/14 "2002-08-09T00:09:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Telemark \* > \*\*What alternative did you have before Napster? \*\* Ohhhhhhhhhh, good one!!! Actually the answer is that people actually had to spend money insetad of breaking the law and stealing . But stealing is just _so_ much cooler.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: