Illegal downloading of anything which is considered an intellectual property is said to be a non-traditional form of stealing.  This is most often done with music and movies, albeit unknowingly by many consumers.  You can help create awareness for the important issue and promote your blog as well.

Downloading copyrighted materials is against the law.  It has serious economic effects due to uncollected tax and decreased job opportunities for those directly involved in the production of the downloaded materials.  Rules of ethics dictate that it is wrong to deprive people of the rightful fruits of their labor.  This means paying for the enjoyment of the music,movie or book  that we choose.

Websites can only distribute materials in which they hold distribution rights to.  In the absence of such rights, they and their customers can be liable to possible consequences including payment of fine, arrest, and suspension of Internet service.  The concerned industries have been trying to prevent illegal downloads through certain blocking technologies and reporting the download to the consumer’s Internet service provider but illegal downloading still remains a big issue among concerned industries.

Legal downloading websites can make their presence known through a blog review.  For a standard fee of $ 14.99, a blog is reviewed and then published  with backlinks to the blog itself.  The membership package brings with it additional traffic, feedbacks, and links, which are all-important factors for blog success.  The sign-up process simply requires blog details and the payment of the fee.  Confirmation is given through email.  All members can avail of advanced membership packages to take advantage of more exposure and support.

Tags: downloading, promote your blog

Categories: Downloading Legally

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This thought had not occurred to me before I read Ken Gallinger’s column answering a question from a reader. The question is basically the same as the title of this blog post. The reader says that he has a collection of tapes (who doesn’t?) and that he does not have the means to convert them to mp3 at the moment. Does this justify him downloading the songs off of the Internet? I assume that when he wrote downloading, he meant peer-to-peer, free, and illegal downloading.

So it is justifiable in a case like this?

According to Gallinger, the question is not of legality but of ethics. He writes:

What follows is a comment on the ethics of what you propose to do – not the legality. Canadian copyright laws are under review and the legality of particular P2P (peer-to-peer) operations depends on whom you talk to. Read Michael Geist’s article at thestar.com/ sciencetech/article/647038.

But, ethically, after much debate with people who know more about this than me, I’m prepared to render a verdict on your case.
So there’s nothing wrong (ethically, not technically) with P2P per se, unless it’s used for a nefarious activity. And you can’t steal what you already own.

It would be less controversial to buy the software, plug the old turntable into your computer and do the digital conversion yourself. But if you can’t, my opinion is that it’s okay to use P2P, so long as you just download songs you already own and don’t pass on the copies to anyone else.

I totally understand his “verdict,” and I do agree that it would be much less controversial and much less of a hassle to find some means to convert the tapes and LPs. What do you think?

Tags: cassettes, downloading, vinyl

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Random Thoughts

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Wait – isn’t that all wrong? Isn’t downloading the greener option? After all, when we download music, we cut back on CDs and other material things that put a strain on the environment, right?

As a matter of fact, this is what Jonathan G. Koomey, Christopher L. Weber, and H. Scott Matthews shared in a study they released some time ago. Their conclusion was this:

“…despite the increased energy and emissions associated with Internet data flows, purchasing music digitally reduces the energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with delivering music to customers by between 40 and 80 percent from the best-case physical CD delivery, depending on whether a customer then burns the files to CD or not. This reduction is due to the elimination of CDs, CD packaging, and the physical delivery of CDs to the household. Based on our assumptions, online delivery is clearly superior from an energy and CO2 perspective when compared to traditional CD distribution.”

And just like that, we have proven the title of this post to be incorrect. Or have we, really?

The authors were quick to point out that this entire scenario is not always applicable. They made assumptions; assumptions that are not always true. We have to take into consideration other factors such as end-user behavior (yes that’s us!).

What if you walk to the music store to buy CDs instead of driving? What if you had to buy blank CDs or DVDs to burn your downloaded files? What if you printed CD/DVD covers to print your downloaded album art? Taking these factors into consideration, you might not be helping the environment all that much if you downloaded music rather than bought them at the store.

Bottom line: you have to consider ALL players of the game before you go around declaring that by downloading, you are helping the earth. Oh, and there is that issue of where and how you download you content. That’s another story altogether, isn’t it?

Tags: downloading, environment, Music

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Random Thoughts

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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 blog is mainly about legal downloads. Even so, it is important that the reasons why people go through illegal means in acquiring software, music, movies and other kinds of media. Why take the risk after all?

1. It is easy to download them from the Internet.
   Yes, the Internet has made it convenient for everyone to gather all kinds of information and media. That includes movies, music and even software. It is easy especially if it is already on P2P. Movies in particular.
2. It is cheap.
   Aside from the convenience of downloading them, it is considerably cheaper to download an album or an entire movie for an several minutes to an hour, depending on your Internet connection and the size of your download. Imagine how much a cd would cost, right? It is cheaper to download the songs and the movies.
3. People are sharing their files, why shouldn’t I?
   There is something social about it. Sharing files is a common phenomenon. With sharing of files everyone gets to have the latest stuff. It is not really peer pressure. It is more of the neighborly intent of sharing more than anything else.

There is something more than the consideration for costs when it comes to downloading files. After all, there are still those people who prefer having original copies especially when it comes to movies and music. Maybe there are more social factors to consider but downloading illegally is more often than not linked to economic factors. Each country would have a different culture and hence downloading thru P2P would be viewed differently. Hopefully there would be more studies on the matter.

Tags: downloading, P2P

Categories: Downloading Legally

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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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