Sure, anyone with a computer can get online with Napster or Scour and download free music. However, the quasi-illegality of this practice makes the future of such online music somewhat doubtful.
You probably won’t get in trouble for using Napster, but what happens if it dries up or you somehow develop a conscience and decide that stealing Metallica’s songs is wrong?
There is free, legal MP3 music out there, but knowing where it is, or how to get it, sometimes seems like a lot of work. Just in case the need arises, here is a quick guide to online music services that don’t skirt stringent copyright laws.
A word of warning: As a rule, these Web sites don’t offer the instant gratification of Napster and the majority of the music available there is from unknown and unsigned bands. But take a chance and give it a try; you might find a diamond in the rough.
Mp3.com
This is the granddaddy of online music Web sites, and it is MAMMOTH! This site has every genre you can think of, from spoken word to Celtic music.
Mp3.com doesn’t just have songs, but also lets you download MP3 players and other software necessary for listening to your newfound audio treasures. Mp3.com also lets you play any song through streaming audio before you download it, a useful feature that may help weed out some of the undesirables.
The site also features my.mp3.com, a service that lets you upload MP3 and CD tracks to an account for storage and retrieval. This may not be available for long, as it has come under vigorous attack from the recording industry.
Because the site is so huge, however, it can be confusing for new users to skip the ads and promotions and get straight to the music. Confronted with so many options, some may just give up and move on somewhere else.
Mp3.com also requires users’ e-mail addresses so they can “receive notification of special events at mp3.com,” but then informs them that advertisers’ and Web sites’ use of this information is not covered in their privacy policy.
Listen.com
Listen.com is more like a music magazine than a straightforward MP3 site. With its clean design, quick-study reviews and “guest editors” such as Lucy Pearl and Spinal Tap, listen.com makes it simple to get online music of every variety.
It acts as a gateway to other sites as well, so when the user searches for an artist, it pulls results from other Web sites. But listen.com suffers from the same malaise that afflicts all sites like these: Search for an Eminem track, and get maybe three songs maximum, which don’t even include the one you were looking for. That’s the record industry for you.
However, lesser bands that don’t have top-40 hits are better represented. A search for Face To Face, a California skate-punk band, turned up 41 songs. A lot of them were free, which is not too shabby for a band that’s almost famous.
Mp3yes.com
Mp3yes.com bills itself as the “No. 1 source for MP3s on the Internet!” That may be true, but the awful design might leave users blind before they can get past the first screen. Put on a pair of sunglasses and squint hard, and you’ll find a rather modest site that offers a wide yet shallow selection of music and plug-ins such as MP3 players and screensavers. All this clutter makes it hard to get to actual files, which requires clicking on multiple links.
Instead of an intuitive interface, the user is confronted with a perplexing variety of searches and links that resemble a hall of mirrors. The searches aren’t even on the site itself; it uses altavista.com to search the entire Web, which is something you could do without visiting this site.
There are a few useful things here: a guide on how to convert MP3s to CDs and vice versa; useful utilities such as CD rippers, which allow you to turn CD tracks into MP3s; links on how to download and install Napster. But these little treats don’t compensate for the myriad problems that hurt mp3yes.com.
Mp3now.com
Here’s another comprehensive site that has links to music, MP3 players and useful online music news.
If you are one of the unlucky few who has been blocked from using Napster, find out how to circumvent that here.
As for the music, mp3now.com doesn’t actually have much music on its site, but instead acts as a gateway to other sites that do. Mp3now.com is a good place to start if you want to learn more about the technology and history of MP3s, instead of ignorantly and indiscriminately downloading songs off of Napster.
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Using these sites to get music may be a bit difficult, but the stuff you learn on the way could be useful and valuable. Time is a precious commodity to students with full schedules, but if you’ve got a few spare minutes, these sites might be worth a look.
