Is there any kind of website out there that will let you download songs for free on your mp3 player? I am looking for a good website either for cheap or free or the best one to listen too.
Thanks
There aren’t too many legal websites that let you download free mp3 music without violating all kinds of copyrights, so TPTB might not be too comfortable with allowing this subject. As for me, I got nothin’, I copy my music from CD’s which I have purchased. I’m sure most members will direct you to a purchase site such as Napster or iTunes.
I’ll put in that emusic.com is good and cheap, if you like the kind of music that they offer. (No major label stuff, because the labels insist on DRM and emusic insists on using just ordinary MP3s)
Depending on the volume, you can get songs for as low as around 25 cents per track - but you have to sign up for a monthly plan that gives you X many downloads per month
uglyduckling, you’re fairly new here, so I’m not gonna be “official” about this, but please refrain from asking how-to questions about illegal activities.
I’m informed that I was too quick and hasty, that there are legal and cheap download sites. I confess to massive ignorance here, I just buy the CDs and don’t get involved with downloads.
So long as the discussion is limited to LEGAL download sites, I’m re-opening… and my apologies, uglyduckling, for leaping too quickly towards what I thought was the obvious conclusion.
An excellent way to sample various bands, and indeed genres, is to use Last.Fm. It’s better to sign up (free) to gain access to the very cool streaming radio stations, and all the other stuff, but if you don’t want to, go to this page to see what free downloads are available this week. You can sort the list easily by a large number of genres.
The downloads typically skew towards indie labels, but the big labels put up free stuff for promotional purposes all the time. The list changes on a weekly basis.
You can download mp3s for free from thousands of artists’ websites, from their myspace pages and from their purevolume pages. In each case the artists directly uploaded the songs themselves, so there are no legality issues.
The catch here of course is that if you’re good enough to have a record contract, you’re able to charge for your work, and won’t give much away. In fact, your record company probably has contractually prohibited you from giving almost anything away for free, as it dilutes their market.
You can find free downloadable mp3s at the Internet Archive (in particular, the Audio archive and/or the Live Music archive).
I wasn’t looking for anything illegal at all, that is not how I deal with things. I was just basically looking for cheap websites where I could listen to music and download my songs, and just wondering if there was free ones, I am new to downloading songs so I didn’t know there was so many legal things to go with it. I heard Napster is a good one for like 20.00 a month anyone know about this? I didn’t mean to start a fight about this.
Amazon.com has a new MP3 download service where songs are around 89 cents and albums seem to be about $8.
MySpace.com is a great place for bands both local and international. Bands often link to each other so if you like the songs from one you’ll find out what their favorite bands are.
Pandora.com and last.fm are both good for listening to music.
Oh, and AFAIK Napster.com is subscription based, once you quit paying them your music goes away. Most sites other than Amazon.com and eMusic.com do not sell plain MP3 files.
No, Napster sells individual tracks for .99 each that you own forever. And most of the services sell MP3s.
The subscription based services are Rhapsody and Yahoo Unlimited. The advantage of the subscription-based services is the you can download (almost)* anything and listen to it, if you own a compatible MP3 player and are paying a little more (about $15 a month), you can even take it with you. The disadvantage is that when you stop paying, the music goes away. But if you really want to keep the music, you can still pay the per-track price and get a version that you can keep forever. Some of them are even cheaper than iTunes, right now Yahoo Music Unlimited charges .79 for MP3s.
- of course, everyone will come out of the woodwork to tell you that the services they looked at/used didn’t have the music they wanted. But they have over 2 million tracks, including most of the popular stuff. If you want something specific, make sure you find out before you’re out any money.
There are a bunch at the now defunct Audiofile blog:
Publicdomain4u.com has some excellent old blues MP3 in the public domain.
Spiralfrog.com has a lot of free music for download. It has a pretty good selection of pop and contemporary music. And it’s legal. Something about paying the artists through ad revenue.
I have a subscription to yahoo unlimited for 8.99 a month, and I have a compatible mp3 player according to their standards, but I don’t understand how it works? Do I have to pay a bit more or do I just pay per song. Or do I pay 15. 99 and get so many a month. This is all very confusing.
Thanks
From the FAQ:
Yahoo! Music Unlimited is a subscription music service with over 2 million songs you can enjoy at a very low price. Subscription music is like cable TV: as long as you maintain your subscription, your songs are playable; if you end your subscription, the songs are no longer available. You can play and save over 2 million songs to your PC, make playlists, share music with friends using Messenger1, and more.
Yahoo! Music Unlimited is available monthly or yearly. For a full year, the cost is just $5.99/month2 (did we mention that’s for more than 2 million songs?)
- Do I have to pay for subscription songs?
Nope! You get access to all of the 2 million-plus songs in our library included in your subscription fee: add them to your music collection, make playlists, and share with friends using Messenger1. If you want to keep songs or burn to CD aside from your subscription, you can purchase individual, burnable tracks at a 20% discount (79 cents per song), which are yours to keep regardless of subscription status.
- Is there a limit to the number of songs I can get if I subscribe to Yahoo! Music Unlimited?
Nope. Your paid subscription allows you to play and save an unlimited number of songs from our library - over 2 million to choose from. So go crazy!
- What happens to subscription songs if I end my subscription?
If your subscription ends, the subscription tracks saved on your PC become non-playable. As long as your subscription is up to date, the songs are yours to use and enjoy.
Check out largehearted boy if you’re into indie stuff.
Magnatune is a cool label. They let you pay whatever you think it’s worth (as little as $5 for an album), and they give a full 50% of that to the artist. Their selection is pretty limited, though, since it’s only their own artists.
Not free, but good services featuring non-mainstream artists, mostly electronica: