Never downloaded music - where to go?

[Wombat]

Thanks everyone.

I was at HDTracks. I was surprised how expensive albums to download were over there. Especially for the CD quality ones. They are much more expensive than CDs! I would think that a CD would cost more because you are actually purchasing a physical product with artwork, versus just electrons.

I posted my same question on another website. They also linked to the TT DR Database page (http://dr.loudness-war.info). Seems like a pretty good resource, but could be time consuming (and probably worth it) and I saw some mistakes (I saw a rating for a "CD" medium that came out in 1977 - maybe an earlier beta CD?)

Do you guys download music, or stream? I don't feel comfortable paying for music files I don't actually own. I feel so old asking these questions. Feels like when I was in the late 90's to early 2000's, wondering why older people are still buying vinyl and don't own a single CD.

I buy CDs. I check the used/old ones against Discogs listings for issue date, mastering and other details..

I have generally found the item condition description on Ebay to be fair or conservative.

 

[Helicopter]

If you listen to classical music, the reason for streaming is to have access to tens or hundreds of performances of the same compositions and find those that you like the most. That's why I subscribe to Amazon HD Music Unlimited - for their huge library of recordings. It's true that their metadata is poor, but I have the Internet for that.

Same here. I don't browse for much in the app.

 

[Mariner9]

The sites I use are:
Bandcamp
Juno Download
Beatport
Traxsource

Their relevance will depend on your musical tastes. Soundcloud can also be useful as artists occasionally provide free downloads (usually bootleg remixes/edits) there.

I don't use any streaming sites - they might be great for consumers but not for artists (the topic of an investigation by the UK Parliament). I'd also guess their coverage is poor for more esoteric releases (e.g. white labels).

 

[Fred H]

The Internet Archive had downloadable (mostly music) at https://archive.org/details/unlockedrecordings. Currently, they show 26,635 recordings available for download. These are mostly classical, but include all genres.

They say: "Recordings made available under the Music Modernization Act. A reasonable search has been conducted to determine that these items are not commercially available. Please be aware that subsequent uses may not be permitted under US copyright such as reproduction, distribution, display or public performance."

Most of what I've downloaded is sides of LP's digitized at 24/96. I use Audacity (free) to separate them into songs, movements, etc. I've downloaded a few very high quality recoveries of 78s from (https://archive.org/details/georgeblood).

 

[JSmith]

The Internet Archive had downloadable (mostly music)

Found this;

Sound Effects In Stereo : No Artist : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Tracklist: 1. Ocean Liner Whistle Blasts 2. Jet Taking Off 3. Jet Taking Off 4. Viscount Landing 5. DC7 Taking Off 6. 707 Jet Taking Off 7. DC8 Jet...

archive.org

JSmith

 

[TheBatsEar]

If you look long enough, you can find the entire catalog of many artists for a fair price. I bought the entirety of Dr. Coconut in one go from his page, felt nice to know that most of the € paid went to his pocket

Fiesta Songs

Señor Coconut · Album · 2003 · 23 songs.

open.spotify.com

BTW, was worth it, highly enjoyable music

Rutracker.org is the Russian equivalent of Pirate Bay. It is a torrent site.

The difference to TPB is the curation of the "catalog", there are no dead links.

I avoid torrents likes the plague. You never know what your gonna get

I find that the quality usually is better or the same than streaming services, you even get a log about read errors and proof that it was the original CD indeed, usually.

and downloading music via peer-to-peer networks is theft.

Theft is if you have a CD and i take the CD and you now have no CD, it's a crime.
In contrast, using torrents to copy music without authorization is a copyright violation, which is a civil matter.
The penalty for copyright violation is based on how much "potential" sales are lost and is usually a lot higher and more complex to establish, it's a civil issue (in most jurisdictions). For example:
"A federal jury found Wednesday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, of Brainerd, must pay $62,500 per song — for a total of $1.5 million — for illegally violating copyrights on 24 songs. This was the third jury to consider damages in her case, and each has found that she must pay — though different amounts."
"In another high-profile case in Boston, a federal judge this summer reduced from $675,000 to $67,500 the amount of damages a Boston University graduate student was ordered to pay."

Single mom can't pay $1.5M song-sharing fine

A Minnesota woman ordered to pay a recording industry trade group $1.5 million for illegally sharing music online doesn't plan to pay those damages as her attorneys continue to argue the amount is unconstitutional, she said Thursday.

www.nbcnews.com

Anyway, it's a very good idea to stay away if you don't live in a jurisdiction where this is not a crime or copyright violation.