MP3 complants

[Derek]

I like to download MP3s where ever i can find them. but there should be a few strict rules:
1) please download the entire song and just the song. I don't want just a few seconds then STOP or some kind of "tag ending" to the song.
2) The Bitrate should always be 192 or higher
3) Do NOT copy a record LP as an MP3. I do not want to heard "Rice Krispies" on one of my favorite songs. If i wanted to hear a record. i will play a record on a turntable. Please use a a CD or even a high quality cassette.
If people would just follow these 3 simple rules, everything would be peachy.

[Kylenz]

I like to download MP2s where ever i can find them. but there should be a few strict rules:
1) please download the entire song and just the song. I don't want just a few seconds then STOP or some kind of "tag ending" to the song.
2) The Bitrate should always be 192 or higher
3) Do NOT copy a record LP as an MP3. I do not want to heard "Rice Krispies" on one of my favorite songs. If i wanted to hear a record. i will play a record on a turntable. Please use a a CD or even a high quality cassette.
If people would just follow these 3 simple rules, everything would be peachy.

Regarding the vinyl, sometimes the album is so rare and has never been released on CD, so I'm thankful some people have ripped their vinyl. Also, sometimes the vinyl has a completely different sound - I have the remastered edition of Laura Nyro's 'Eli & the 13th Confession' on cd, but I came across someone's original 1968 vinyl copy ripped to mp3, and it sounded completely different. It really had that feel of sitting beside the record player and listening to it for the first time when it came out. It was quite a thrilling experience, listening to it as others would've first heard it!

What I don't like about mp3s is how people don't know how to tag the files properly. They go to all the trouble of ripping them, but instead of getting the track number, title, artist, album, genre, year, and the album art etc.. sometimes they aren't even tagged at all! They show up in Windows Media Player as 'Track 01'. People should try and put as much information into the mp3 as possible, especially considering they are basically archiving music history - well that's how I see it. Once I was on a Macca forum that dealt with bootlegs only, and someone put up a wonderful collection of multiple volumes of Macca/Wings rarities - but the track names  were all messed up - you had no idea what the name of the song was unless you Googled the name of the bootleg album and read it off that page as the track numbers came up! The files were just called 01.mp3, 02.mp3, 03.mp3 etc.. it was terrible! So I (nicely) asked the person uploading them if they could tag the files properly so we can know which song we're listening to and I got my head bitten off! I was told to be grateful they've been uploaded at all and wanting something for nothing etc.. made to feel like I owed them.. I thought 'man what a bunch of a-holes on this website'.. (don't seem to have much luck fitting in with people on Macca boards, sigh..) I even gave them tips and instructions on how to properly name and tag the files and even how to add the cover art and the software to do it. I was told to get stuffed.

The website (Maccaspan I think it was called) disappeared not long afterwards anyway.

[2 of 3]

I didn't know Maccaspan was gone. There was a lot of boots there for a while....but I gave up on the place when my log-in never worked...I got tired of registering. 

I made a mixed cd yesterday, and the quality between tracks is brutal. I wish my cd player in the van would play Flac files. Oh well..can complain too much with bootlegs I guess.

[Kylenz]

If Ipods could play flac, that would be awesome. Will probably never happen though.

Maybe Maccaspan is still around, I don't know. My login no longer worked, and I re-registered but still no go.

One of my pet peeves with mp3 is still the lack of legal options. Amazon sell whole albums in 256k mp3 format, but we can't buy them if outside of America! That's crazy! Do they realise how much revenue they are missing from people like myself only too willing to buy!

Itunes doesn't allow you to download mp3s, it's their horrible AAC format. To me, this is stupid. Why set up a worldwide music store and not use the most popular music file format? Why not offer the albums in 320k, flac, or wav!

Oh but that would be too sensible wouldn't it. Same goes with movies and tv shows online. Outside of America, there's nothing like Netflix. No wonder there are still so many still circumventing copyright law, especially when we are often several seasons behind when it comes to watching tv. In a world where information is instantaneous and with no real need to wait months before release, the entertainment industry will continue to shoot themselves in the foot. It's not 1999 anymore.

[Derek]

there are still some people that believe that this would be a form of "stealing music", if you are able to download a free 192bitrate or greater copy of a favorite song then it's stealing. That's why it's so hard to find a decent copy. I use "MP3Raid", "MP3Eye", "MP3Lemon" or "MP3Skull" because i don't have to register or sign in. 50% of the time do i get lucky. I do settle for a 128bitrate but i would rather have a 192. You take what you can get.
To everyone who thinks this is stealing. Remember when you had blank cassettes and you would record from the radio? I used to love doing that, not only with songs but with the radio shows. was that stealing? Sometimes (and this happened alot in the late 80s and early 90s, but it started dying down in 1995) the DJs would play "album cuts" (songs that weren't nesseraly "hits"). I know of an album where i heard ALL the songs played on the radio on differant stations (I think it was "Led Zeppelin 4: Zoso"). Now i used to have tons of cassettes recorded from the radio, and loved it. However it seemed that cassettes in the 90s were not being manufactured as good as they were back in the older days. (It seemed i was the only one who noticed that. i had cassettes that were 20 years old and still played great while my newer ones would just warp and snag after only 2 plays, hmmmm )
Anyrate, was i stealing then?

[oldasSoul]

Along the lines of taping from the radio, there are applications available, like Audacity, that will allow you to record streaming audio. It's in real time, so if you want a 4 minute song, it takes 4 minutes to record it. You can save this file as almost any format (WAV, MP3, Flac, etc.). And you can set the bitrate at 192, 320, or whatever. As well, there are filters you can download and apply - things like making the file sound like an LP from different eras, including warps and scratches, and a cool reverse playback so that you can check into all the backwards masking. I used this on ELO's Fire on High and it works great!

Of course you can use Audacity to record your albums, cassettes, wax cylinders, so that you have digital versions of your recordings.

Whether this constitutes theft or not is open to debate.

"The music is reversible but time is not. Turn back, turn back, turn back...." 

[2 of 3]

Kyle, you might try downloading from amazon using a US proxy server. Not sure if it will work for you, But I use SPOTIFY using a UK proxy...and that works for me.

[Kylenz]

Kyle, you might try downloading from amazon using a US proxy server. Not sure if it will work for you, But I use SPOTIFY using a UK proxy...and that works for me.

I actually tried that a couple of weeks ago. The problem is, my shipping address for my Amazon account (yep sometimes I buy cds, books etc from them.. but wait months for them to arrive!) is set for New Zealand and so when I go through the steps to buy the mp3 album it discovers I'm actually in NZ and won't go any further with the transaction. Bummer.

[2 of 3]

I don't know....if I lived in NZ, I'm not sure I'd care about anything. That place is magical.

[chris]

I don't know....if I lived in NZ, I'm not sure I'd care about anything. That place is magical.

that would explain the hobbits and elves.