Torrents

[(naw)mcx]

I have begun to try out rapidshare thanks to the help of naw mcx and the excellent links he has provided. I must say, this is a bajillion times better than torrents once you get the right links to help you off the ground. I also like that the wait time is so much less than with a torrent. I may even buy a premium account.

No more torrents!

Brand me as the pirate, eh?

I'M CLEAN, I TELL YAAAARRRR

 

[j.pickens]

If you were that bothered about downloading illegally, you'd find one of the many internet radio sites that will play stuff to you legally.

If you want to record those streams then that is illegal and your choice, but the downloading and listening of them is licenced and legal.


It is completely legal to capture legally-streamed internet radio channels in the USofA.
The Sony Betamax case put that one to rest.
Fair use includes making a copy of content which legally enters your home, over the airwaves or internet.
This is the "analog hole" which the HDMI HDTV people are trying to plug, unsuccessfully, to date.

I remember recording FM radio and TV to tapes when I was a kid. I don't think this was considered illegal. So let us say I listen to shoutcast internetradio and want to record the stream, is it OK?

Yes, this is legal. Though the quality might not be great.

 

[hessiess]

I have a serious question. I was recently linked so some new shitty plan that our wonderful president passed a few days ago. It dealt with making it a felony for those who download music, etc. Obviously, I was scared.

My knowledge about torrents is extremely elementary, but for the record, I don't download [hollywood] movies. Let's just say for the sake of argument someone downloads 5GB or less of music per month, on average. That's not a lot of music. Are the odds of getting caught high? I want to say no, as tens of millions of people use torrents and a very large percent of our population downloads music illegally; but as my knowledge of this sort of thing is very basic, I don't really know for sure.

Everyone with a brain knows that the use of torrents is ALWAYS risky, but how big a risk is it? Could a person be looking at a C&D well before they're fined huge amounts and end up with a felony charge? What happens if a person is caught? Does the door to your house get broken down while you are swarmed by a swat team? If you manage to connect to a wireless connection that is not your own (your poor neighbor's, maybe), would you be relatively safe?

As I've already said, I'm scared shitless. I love music, and I'm a poor college student. I'm also very picky with stuff that I listen to. Buying albums is out of the question, as it would run me thousands of dollars. I cannot justify wasting 99 cents per song on a service such as itunes. There must be a better way. I am waiting with bated breath for a service that charges a fixed rate per month for as much as you can possibly download, because of course, that would be perfect.

Any suggestions? Share your music-gaining methods in this thread and help ease my troubled mind.

As a note, I tried to make this thread as acceptable as possible. If there is anything against rules, please notify me so sections can be removed. Don't close this thread, I'm really paranoid about this and I've actually be losing sleep


5Gb is 5*1024Mb which is 5*1024/3 songs which is equal to 1706 songs and 2 thirds of a song. This is a huge amount of songs. You refer to "wasting" money on songs? Would you consider it a waste for people to buy things that your place of work sells? If not then I suggest you re-evaluate your method of rationalising your huge amount (from what i've seen in this topic thus far) of illegal downloading activities.

You say you aren't downloading movies but isn't it the music industry that is far more pro-active at tracking down pirates?

If i want to listen to an individual song i look for it on youtube (pretty much everything seems to be up there nowadays) maybe you should try that?

With decent quality music, i.e. FLAC, 5 gig *isn't* very much, and 'songs' is not an accurate measurement, as there is no standard that states a song has to be exactly x minutes long, this also varies greatly depending on the compression level. the higher the compression, the smaller the file, and the more $%^& the music sounds.

 

[Mr.Gonzo]

Alright alright.
I am a huge lover of music , and a musician.
And there's a growing number of musicians and writers ( one of those group of people is called COPYLEFT ( who are writers, and my uncle is part of it ) )
that are FOR downloading , claiming that the download thing is a GREAT tool of promotion.

Artists barely make a penny for a CD. The real money is made during live performances or MERCH.
And i dont know how you could pirate showing up at a show or buying a t-shirt!
I do pirate Music ( and give the stuff that i do freely online ).
But i do have a collection of 400 Cd-rom albums ( non pirated )
And 300 Vinyls. ( buying Vinyls is one of the best thing you could do because it counts as MERCH , its an album , the sound is great , so , direct money to the band, both sides are happy ).
i know bands and musicians made a whole lot more profit through the merch that i bought and the shows i showed up than lost money by not buying their cd and giving most of the money to multinationals.

And i really do like the notion of TRY BEFORE YOU BUY.

If i hear about some bands , or hear a song of them somewhere then decide to download it to see if the whole thing is good. i can choose whether or not if i will support them. ( if i like it or not )