Your Legal Music Download Options
By Tembi Renca
A lot of people like the sound of downloading decent quality but are concerned about doing it illegally. There are a variety of reasons why downloading is a good idea - you could do it in order to listen to one or two album tracks to see if it is worth buying the whole album. Downloading is also great because it is convenient - all you have to do is to wait to download the file. In some cases listening to the track stream is an option and this is instantaneous.
So what is the deal with the law? Many people will remember Napster being taken to court for encouraging file-sharing for free among peers. This court case judged that people sharing files in this way are breaking the law - the fact that money isn't changing hands and no- one is profiting from it does not matter. Of course file sharing still goes on over peer to peer (P2P) networks (though not via Napster). Interestingly, recent research has shown that P2P is increasingly being used for legitimate file sharing - photos, files and so on - and not just for swapping copyrighted material.
If you want to stay the right side of the law, you should not download copyrighted material from the Internet. But the fact that this practice continues shows how many people think downloading their tunes is the best way to go. So if you want the convenience and ease without transgressing, how do you do it?
Here are some of the ways. Anyone with a fast connection will be able to catch quality broadcasts from web radio stations, or they can listen to the streaming of new albums on some web pages. This practice of broadcasting entire new works is legal - it is encouraged by the record companies as exposure for the artist. They are streamed to you, which means you do not ever get the files on your computer, but can listen as it is broadcast. The same sort of thing you would get in-store if you were to listen to the featured albums played through the headphone stations. Google will point you to Internet Radio and there are loads of sites such as Yahoo's Launch.com, MP3.com, or http://www.ytube.com. These web portals also offer new videos.
But the reason many people download is because they want it for their MP3 players - they need
New CD - The London Piano Quartet - Alan Bush Chamber Music
The Trust are delighted to announce the release of a new CD of four chamber works by Alan Bush, representing the early and late phases of the composer's career. All the works are unpublished and none of them have been recorded previously. Two of the early works on the CD - Phantasy for Violin and Piano and Quartet for Strings and Piano (two movements only) - had their first public performances in December 1924 in Hampstead Town Hall, London, with Bush playing the piano parts. The Sonata for Cello and Pianoforte, written about 60 years after the other works, is along with Bush's Sonata for Organ Op.122 (1987), thought to be his last work.
The music is performed on the CD by the London Piano Quartet, formed in 2000 by Norma Liddell, Elizabeth Turnbull, David Kennedy and Philip Fowke, all distinguished performers in their own fields. The Quartet has quickly made a name for itself through the players' relaxed style and informative presentation. It has premièred and recorded works by other British composers in addition to a concert repertoire of piano quartets by many major composers.
The CD is accompanied by an excellent, very informative sleeve-note by Timothy Bowers, who studied composition with Bush at the Royal Academy of Music and is now himself a well-known composer and professor at the RAM. The Trust owe him another debt of gratitude in that Dr. Bowers prepared the manuscript edition of the Sonata for Cello and Pianoforte, used by the artists on this CD.
The works featured on the CD are:
The artists:
Norma Liddell (violin)
Elizabeth Turnbull (viola)
David Kennedy (cello)
Philip Fowke (piano)
The CD is available from:
PO Box 609
Watford
Herts
WD18 7YA
Tel 01923 803001
Price:£9.99 plus £1.25 p&p
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the download. Some good pay sites are available that allow you to do this such as Macintosh's itunes at www.itunes.com. This is the leading site and it is compatible with any player, not just iPods. Each track will cost you 99 cents but it is great quality and the track is then your own.
Other sites are always fighting for this lucrative market, each offering similar but slightly different services. There are many that work on a monthly-fee basis rather than billing by track. And a new and slightly different concept is mercora (www.mercora.com). Here you pay a small monthly fee and share tracks - you broadcast your tracks (you can make like a DJ if you want) whilst you record the tracks broadcast by others. Mercora pays a fee for broadcast rights which makes it within the law.
The majority of these sites are offering trial periods for nothing. Sign up for the trial, grab some tunes, and then go with the site that works for you.
Copyright 2006 Tembi Renca. All rights reserved.
Tembi Renca"s website FRWE Music Download helps you to easily locate music download related topics on the Internet. For the latest downloads, and guidance visit her archive of articles: www.frwemusicdownload.com/article/
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