Hopping, skipping and skimming through the hundreds of thousands of music available on the net can get very tedious. It sometimes feels like they are all the same. The noise can be bewildering and at times, really annoying. Finding anything worth downloading can be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

If you want to hear music that is light and easy, soulful yet fun, a little bit of country mixed with a feel of British pop, then you will enjoy listening to the music of Geoff Byrd. His lyrics can be sarcastic yet so real. There is always a good beat and rhythm to it. Some can get your feet tapping while others are just food for your soul.

Geoff’s music is well known in Portland Oregon but thankfully it has travelled far with the help of the internet. His signing up with Garageband.com has broadcast his music all over the world, with the help of MSN and Live 365. He is now being tagged as the World’s first web-born pop star. His songs “Candy Shell” and “Elusive Butterfly” are great songs to listen to so that you can get a feel of this great artist.

If you want to catch him live, he is currently performing as the opening act for Hall and Oates. The tour is currently in London but will be moving to Canada then to the United States. Don’t worry if you’re too far away to catch the show. You can download his music from here.

Technorati Tags: music, download, geoff byrd, hall and oates, garageband.com

Tags: artists, Downloading Legally, Music

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music

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Everybody, no exception, loves to get things for free. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to just look good. We all love a good bargain and something good for nothing is a really great deal.

When it comes to music or videos unless you get it directly from the owners hand free and clear, you need to pay for it or it is considered stealing. It isn’t that these artists don’t want to have their music in the hands of millions of people, it is that they have a whole bunch of people to pay.

Just think about all the work that they put in to give you songs and clips that you love to listen to. The studios charge them. Their publicists charge them, the recording companies charge them for creating every disc. Plus if they make a video, there’s the whole cast and crew to pay. Everyone from the guests, extras, director, producers, make up artists, etc, etc. Music is a multimillion currency business.

So who is giving away free music and videos? Usually independent artists who don’t have such a big production team. Those who are starting out are usually more inclined to share their work without charging since they need your support to get their music more popular. Anyone else be very careful.

Usually most people get hold of their free music by having their search engine simply look up “free music” or “free mp3″ . This will bring a great variety of sites up. Legal download sites will tell you that they get their material directly from the recording companies. They will give you previews but will charge for downloading.

If you end up on a site that allows you to download everything for free, especially tunes that you would normally have to pay a lot for, be wary. You are likely dealing with a pirate or you may have joined their band of scallywags.

Technorati Tags: download, free, music, video, piracy, copyright

Tags: downloading, Free-music, Piracy

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Videos

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This site is interesting because it says that it has a mission to spread happiness by connecting you to artists who deserve to get heard. It seems to be a much talked about site as it has already been featured on BoingBoing, New York Times and also Info World.

Upon clicking the “Great Tunes” link, you will be brought to a page with different categories like Originals, Old Recordings, Vinyl Sharity, among many others. There are different links to all kinds of music from Oddio. They have what they call the supersites set of links. The music comes from different artists from different countries. They are legal and free music shared online. Currently, this is their latest set of links. If you feel like checking out a few of them, what genre would those artists be into? The Ophir Prison Marching Kazoo Band actually has an interesting rendition of Livin’ La Vida Loca. There are also some jazz songs on the Denmark´s Electronic Research Library. Jazz classics including “In the Mood” is there for you to download and listen to on your computer.

Finding the kind of free and legal music that you like is not very easy on Oddio as the listing is not really tagged or classified according to genre. Categories — that is definitely something they could add to this site. It would be essential so that downloading tracks would be easier. In any case, the brief descriptions shown on each of the links would be helpful enough for you to decide whether or not to download the tracks from the sites. If you are expecting that you will get directed to the download section immediately, you will probably be disappointed as you are directed to the main page so you could read more about the songs and the artists behind each song.

This site is an awesome resource of music which is legal and free for the taking. You could save anything in your computer and you will even be amazed at the kinds of music that artists all over the world are creating. Aside from downloading these songs, you could even share them with others by spreading the word to your friends via your blog or email.

Tags: downloading, Oddio Overplay

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music

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Everybody wants to get a good bargain. As far as the general public is concerned, money for nothing is the best deal in town. Now don’t you go thinking it’s the neighbor living in the tiny one bedroom unit who wants things for free. Quite a number of celebrities and your multi millionaires go around snapping up all possible freebies they can. That’s one of the ways they stay rich after all.

Okay, so you probably go hunting for a good bargain site online as well. You might have stumbled on to a site that says they have the biggest music and video collection – over a million tracks. They will claim that you don’t need to pay anything; all items are free once you sign up. Hope your alarms are ringing at this point. When you try to check out the site, it keeps trying to get you to register, yet there are no free samples – not one. The scary part is they look absolutely legitimate.

These are almost definitely scam sites. They are very likely P2P sites, which turns you into a pirate (can you say RIAA?) and can get you sued. Second, it can be a site that tries to get your credit card details. Some sites will even have so called ratings from reputable sites such as cnet and CNN.

Before you give out any details, make sure to check out the site thoroughly. If you see the words P2P anywhere on their site, forget it. If they say that everything is free but ask you for a credit card or any other payment methods, dump the site!

Call their bluff. Visit the sites that they claim endorses them and look for the actual endorsement from these companies. You can rest assured that if they are for real, the article about them will be available and easily accessed at these sites.

Don’t be fooled. Take the time to investigate. Better yet, find a legal download source that is truly safe.

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Videos

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There are millions of music lovers out there. Millions of people who believe that music is a necessity of life. Much like food and shelter it is a vital part of our existence and we will search for ways to obtain it.

This is the problem of the major labels in the music industry. They love the fact that people seek out their product. They are annoyed, however, that people are distributing their songs for free. Simply put, they make no money from their work when people do that so of course they are angry; angry enough to bring lawsuits to companies and individuals who download their music illegally.

If you are thinking that you are safe, check again. The RIAA leaves no individual out irregardless if you are an adult, child or as in some cases even deceased. So, how to be sure that you are safe and legally downloading music?

• Download only from reputable online stores. These stores will only put up 30 second or 60 second samples of the actual song. They will then ask you to purchase the album or piece as you prefer.
• Their terms of agreement will have no disclaimers on the legality of your ownership. If the company asks you to pay a premium for membership and then indicates in their contract that they only provide you with music sources but will not vouch for your ownership, you are dealing with a pirate.
• Be wary the minute you see the sign P2P. P2P or peer to peer is your doorway to getting in trouble. If someone is allowing you to copy their music collection but is not the person performing in it or the company that produced it, you are downloading illegal stuff. Again, check for any disclaimers on the copyright. There is no such thing (at this time) as a 100% legal P2P.

Technorati Tags: music, download, P2P, RIAA, piracy

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music

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There is music everywhere. You have it blaring from cars, radios, ipods, phones and various gadgets all over the world. The internet contributes to the spread of music.

The annoying part is, they need you to sign up first or download a program before you can actually listen to the music. That’s all well and good if the service is indeed good and you want to use the service for a long time. There are quite a few people who just want to check out what’s new, what’s popular and listen a bit before they decide to buy. Exactly as they would in a music shop.

That’s exactly what Artist Direct is. It simply is a music store. They have an extensive collection of music available for sale. They have music clips that you can listen to via streaming if you want to make sure you have the right piece. Everytime you choose to listen to an artist, the album it came from is listed as well as how much it costs. You can even check for the list of songs included in the album to make it even easier for you to make up your mind to download the CD.

Yes, they sell by the CD not by song. The artists worked hard to put together their albums so why not give the rest of the music in it a try even if they aren’t in the top 100. You may discover a new favorite.

While you’re visiting their site, check out the What’s Hot section and read some of the interviews they did. They have some cool contests there as well. Anyone want the latest ipod?

You may also want to check out their billboard to see which artists truly are the top sellers and you can keep up to date on the latest news about your favorite artists and happenings in the music industry via their news section.

Tags: artists, contests, download, iPod, Music, news

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music

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What’s the best way to put a full stop to music piracy? To be honest, I have no answer to that. I think that no matter what we do, there will always be people driven by one reason or another to download music (and other media) by illegal means. I guess it is human nature. And, yes, call me pessimistic but that’s the way I see it.

Still, we cannot stop trying, can we? And I think that this is what the brains behind Music Matters are thinking. Music Matters is a new web site that aims to make people more aware of music piracy, and to stop us from engaging in this activity. More from their web site:

We believe it is important to support the artists and all those involved in making incredible music by choosing to consume music in an ethical way, and that’s why we’ve set up Music Matters.

The Music Matters trust mark will act as a guide for music fans and help differentiate legal music services from illegal ones. Click here for a list of all supporting sites and look for the Music Matters trust mark when choosing new music.

When you choose sites carrying the trustmark you can be sure the site is legal and the copyright holders are paid for their creative work.

Watch this video for more information.

Music Matters, The Story (18-3-10) from Music Matters on Vimeo.

First thought: it tries to make people guilty about piracy. Second thought: it just might work for some people! However, I am quite the realist, and I know that it will just NOT work for those who have suppressed their conscience over the years. Still, I think that it is worth a try!

Tags: anti-piracy, Music Matters, music piracy

Categories: Music, Resources

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More and more music services are opening up all over the world to cater to legal downloads. This could be partly due to the (major!) efforts of the recording industry to curb illegal downloading but it could also be due to more people seeing the benefits of legal downloading. Of course, we cannot discount the possibility of companies trying to gain some benefit (monetary and otherwise) from opening legal paid download services.

In any case, there is another service that’s opening in Europe. Bigwig Hewlett-Packard is joining the fray and is opening up a music service in some European countries. Dubbed the MusicStation, this will be preloaded on some of HP’s personal computers. They will be released in the following countries:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Britain
• Italy
• France
• Germany
• The Netherlands
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland

More from Reuters:

The service has been developed and is managed by British digital music firm Omnifone. HP runs a similar service in United States with RealNetworks’ Rhapsody.

Such new subscription services helped to lift sales of digital music 12 percent last year to $4.2 billion, industry trade body IFPI said last week.

“As the world’s biggest PC vendor, HP has huge opportunity to create a viable competitor to iTunes due to its scale,” said Rob Lewis, chief executive of Omnifone. Apple’s iTunes — with a pay-per-download business model — is the leading digital music distributor.

How much is this going to cost? 10 euros for a month for unlimited access. Not too bad.

Tags: Europe, HP, music service, Paid Service

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Paid Service

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Everyone knows what happened in Haiti recently. The earthquake that hit them ruined the country and has brought so much suffering to the people. Even today as I write this post, countless Haitians are on the streets and still suffering.

The international community has been quick to do what it could to help out but it seems that there can never be enough help doled out. The infrastructure of the capital was torn down by the strong quake and a lot of Haitians are not being reached quick enough. Worse, there is a lack of medicine, water, food, and other basic necessities.

While many have already given what they can, we can still help in other ways. One of these ways is by downloading the music from the recently concluded production Hope For Haiti Now. I don’t know if you got to watch the telethon but I did and it was very touching how it was all put together.

I have to admit, the musical performances were one of the main reasons I watched it and they were all great! The songs were perfect for the theme and the artists gave their best when performing. It really is worth getting that music. Even better, when you buy the album, you will be giving directly to Haiti.

Hope For Haiti Now can be downloaded from Amazon at 0.99 cents per song. You may opt to get music song by song or download the whole album. The latter option will save you a bit of money.

Tags: Amazon, charity, Haiti, MP3, Music

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Paid Service

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In the past year, downloading music off of the Internet illegally has continued to be at the forefront of technology-related issues. It is not a bit surprising as songs and albums continue to abound online, and a lot of people will not stop downloading as long as there is something to get. It seems to me that the music execs and government watchdogs have been running around in circles trying to solve this problem.

Jamie Cullum, a jazz-pop sensation from the UK shares the same sentiments. In a recent interview, he admitted to downloading music illegally. He said that he would oftentimes use P2P sharing when he cannot immediately get his hands on an album. He added, though, that he would still buy the album when it came out, or when he found it.

While the idea of illegal downloading doesn’t sit well with me, I understand his point of view. There are times when you just want to listen to the music and release dates and other matters like that make it impossible to do so immediately. That’s when P2P comes in handy. And it’s not like you are taking revenue away from the musicians and the record labels – not if you buy the album anyway, right?

The problem is that not everyone will do this. Many people would probably stop at downloading illegally and not obtain the album legally afterwards. Jamie Cullum thinks that the solution is to come up with services “so sophisticated and so comprehensive that people don’t need to download stuff¬ for free.”

I agree. Now how do we do that?

Tags: illegal downloading, Jamie Cullum, P2P

Categories: Music, Random Thoughts

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