Skip to main content

More Free Music Thanks to Songbeat and Freemusiczilla

By
download music with Songbeat

Faster and easier than Napster ever was


The ethical debate surrounding free music rages. Yet in the background, behind all the posturing and arguing, little companies around the world are creating products that make downloading and sharing increasingly easy. Whether they are creating more havoc or pushing the limits of an industry in flux is a touchy issue. But the fact is they're there, and they are winning.


I remember when Napster was in the midst of their legal wrangling. I commented to a friend that we were living in the golden age of the internet, that soon everything was going to be regulated. Well, I was right and wrong. The RIAA has proved that it loves to alienate its audience by suing them. And certainly there are many more (and bigger) pay-per-download sites than there used to be, but for every iTunes there are two Songbeats.


If you used and loved SeeqPod (we used, we liked, but we did not love), then you are going to wet yourself when you try Songbeat, which is a little like SeeqPod for your desktop (with the added feature of downloading any song you find). The program works by trawling the internet for streaming files or hosted files of the song you type in (like SeeqPod). You can then listen to or download the song you've found. So how does Songbeat get around the legal tar pit they've waded into? They have a disclaimer on their website:

If you use the Songbeat download function, Songbeat assumes no responsibility for any copyright infringements or legal issues. Please make sure that you have the right to download the music you have chosen. Songbeat is only programmed to deliver the results of your search, not to check for copyright infringements. Please review our Terms Of Service for more details.

Not ironclad, but not a bad sidestep.


Freemusiczilla, on the other hand, is a little more crass. They provide you with a tool to download any track you can find streaming on the net. Like what you hear on MOG? You can download it. Heard some sweet tunes on Last.fm? Yep. You can download those too. It's blunt and straightforward and may make you feel a bit dirty afterwards, but you're probably used to that by now, so just give it a whirl.


We at Duck & Cover love music, and we love the artists who make it, therefore we love to see the artists making the money they deserve. The issue is a little like talking sex to teenagers: they're going to do it anyway, therefore they may as well know the facts. So just think about the artists when you're downloading their music. If you like the track, maybe you should see them when they tour near your home town. And if they don't tour, try buying their album. Unless it's Metallica, in which case download 'til your heart's content.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The only good thing about this tool is that it is easy to use, but besides that it has no other function. Now I use Videoraptor which I can say that has the functions you need: http://audials.com/en/audials_one/download_music/index.html
13 March, 2008
Anonymous said…
Hey dude,
This Videoraptor converts files with good quality? I checked on this site and I saw that it has some interesting features, but I'd like to know how is the quality after conversion
26 March, 2008
Anonymous said…
No, it doesn't lose in quality during conversion, it has good quality. I have this tool for about 9 months and I can say that I've made a good choice when I took it.
27 March, 2008
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Racoon Wedding :: Gather Gather Bones/Rattle Rattle Truth

By
Download The Paper Boy from The Racoon Wedding's album, Gather Gather Bones/Rattle Rattle Truth Sounds Like : they're gonna rip your ribcage out and find your heart RIYL : White Rabbits, Portugal. The Man, Fanfarlo, Rolling Stones ala Beggar's Banquet From the Press Release : Forming from the ashes of Vermicious Knid, and authoring songs in the basement of the all ages not-for-profit art space they own in a nook of the city’s forgotten downtown, frontman Tim Ford and company boast a sense of loyalty to their community that few other bands share. On their debut LP, Gather Gather Bones/Rattle Rattle Truth , issued this October via their own Ford Plant Recordings Co., the band enlisted the help of engineer Leon Taheny (of the Final Fantasy recording credit) and hammered out a record that teems with the spirit of long-forgotten roots music. It’s indebted to the history of mighty back porch music: unbridled, unedited, beautifully intense.
Post a Comment
Read more

Flight of the Conchords Are Tha Muthaflippin'

By
If you go to the official Flight of the Conchords website , you will see that it was about the time they started work on their HBO special that they stopped updating. However, you will also read that they don’t mind too much. In fact, they are very quick to point to other fan sites that are doing a much better job. This self deprecating humour is part of what makes the duo so endearing. For those who have not yet seen the programme, Bret McKenzie ( formerly of Wellington dub band The Black Seeds) plays the naïve Bret, who is a vertible emotional rollercoaster when compared to the dour-faced Jermaine (Jermaine Clement. See him in Eagle vs. Shark ). Together they look for gigs and . . . well that’s pretty much it: they look for gigs. But it’s enough. Just because the show’s premise isn’t robust, doesn’t mean the show falls flat. Hell, remember Seinfeld? That was a show supposedly about ‘nothing,’ and look how well it did. FOTC is at least about one thing, so it’s got that much more ...
3 comments
Read more

Daft Punk :: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

By
Somehow winter still has her claws in the Pacific Northwest. It's almost May, and we're forecast snow this coming weekend. Snow! (I'll spare you my usual tirade about what physically impossible acts may be performed on this particular part of the country, my own little corner of hell.) In any event, we were teased by 80 degrees over the past weekend, only to be thrust back into the 50s and below (with rain!) immediately after. Needless to say, it has not been happy times. I am on day three of a nonstop Neko Case marathon, and, while it is indeed comforting, Neko tends to be a little, dare we say, dark ? Sometimes you just need to take pause and make your own sunshine, or perhaps be steered to some on YouTube , as is certainly the case here. (Even though I firmly believe that YouTube is leading to the complete downfall of Western Civilization, and exposing the ugly underbelly of the American experience, I can sometimes forgive it. Times like this.) Back story? Dunno. Two fre...
4 comments
Read more