Anyone use legalsounds dot com?

[zelmo]

What's the catch? Is this legit world-wide or even in Russia [or wherever they are based]? The prices are ridiculous, they have tons of stuff that iTMS doesn't have, the listed bitrates are fine with me. Before I plunk down a pre-payment, I'd feel a lot better if I knew some people were using this site successfully and without complaints.

[thejadedmonkey]

Having never been there, all I can suggest is that if you're unsure about something, get a Visa gift Card, and use that instead.. much safer then giving out your credit card IMO.

[SKOTTIEG23]

I havent heard of this site but after reading your post i did a little research. I used allofmp3.com for a while until it got shut down last year. I did a little research and it seems like this may be related in some way to allofmp3.com. Check this out: http://www.songboom.com/node/114

If you decide to try it out let us know how it works. One thing i will tell you is that it looks like it charges in a foreign currency and sometimes you will be charged a 3% charge on your statement from visa/mastercard. It wouldnt be much but just an fyi.

[CanadaRAM]

There is an easy equation here. If you are paying a very cheap price, then the artists and the publishers are not getting a fair payment.

IIRC the copyright holders (performance and songwriting and publishing) get approx 40 cents per song from iTunes. If you are paying 10 cents or whatever, then that obviously is not happening, and in all probability, the site has not signed legal contracts with the publishers, but are selling the music outside of contract. In any other country in the western world, that would be illegal.

One tip-off is if the site offers Beatles tracks. Since the Beatles music has never been permitted to be sold by digital downloaded, you know that the site is doing it without permission.

It's easy to make up your own rules, and get away with it if there is no legal enforcement in your country. And you can call yourself legalwhatever if you like. Its still theft of the artists and songwriter's intellectual property.

[zelmo]

Don't think I'll be pulling the trigger on this.
While they have lots of old prog rock that iTMS doesn't carry [or carries a partial album:mad:], this is far too shady for me to feel right about it. Don't much care about the RIAA, but I want the artists to benefit from purchases of their works.

What is it Robert Heinlein said? TANSTAAFL

[anazona]

I use services like LegalSounds or Allofmp3 primarily to buy music I once bought on LP or CD. I've paid royalties to the artist in question, so why should I bother that these sites don't pay anything? At the price they are selling which is about 1euro per album, I don't want to do the effort of ripping my cds, or certainely not the time consuming digitalizing of my lps.
Of course the official internet music stores don't like that, I couldn't care less...

[CanadaRAM]

I use services like LegalSounds or Allofmp3 primarily to buy music I once bought on LP or CD. I've paid royalties to the artist in question, so why should I bother that these sites don't pay anything? At the price they are selling which is about 1euro per album, I don't want to do the effort of ripping my cds, or certainely not the time consuming digitalizing of my lps.
Of course the official internet music stores don't like that, I couldn't care less...

I shoplift CDs only of the albums I already have on LP or cassette. I've already paid the royalties to the artist in question, so why should I bother to pay again?

[mannix87]

^ i remember being engaged in a debate with this idiot who believed that musicians/artists shouldn't be compensated for their work. he was basically saying that yes, please provide us with inspiring music but don't expect anything from us in return. what a moron.

[applebum]

Sites like Allofmp3.com have been discussed here many times before. Most on here will chide users of such a site for going into a legally "grey" area that more than likely pays the artists nothing. I was reading an article recently about Radiohead where Thom Yorke mentioned that they had never been paid anything for digital downloads. Here is the specific quote:

Radiohead's Yorke complained in the Wired article that "EMI wasn't giving us any money for digital sales. All the contracts signed in a certain era have none of that stuff."

Isn't it interesting that many (including myself) have used iTunes content in the knowledge that the artists were getting paid with each download - only it turns out that many artists signed contracts prior to digital sales and so were not getting anything from digital downloads. Radiohead really rails against signing away digital rights in this article:

Radiohead article (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080102-radiohead-artists-often-screwed-by-digital-downloads.html)

With no way of knowing which artists are truly getting paid from digital downloads, is using a legally grey site like legalsounds.com really such a bad thing? Does Apple even have any way of knowing which artists will get money from digital sales? Or....does the Apple agreement with the labels ensure that artists get money even if it isn't written in their contract? Anyone have any answers?

[donmei]

If you want to get a deal AND make sure the bands get the money they deserve then you should do as follows.

(Keeping in mind that the goal is to screw the record companies)

1) Steal the music whether via letalmusic.com or some other site or kazaa or whatever.
2) Go onto the bands web site and buy some "merch".

The bands dont have to pay a Vig to the record companies on merch. So the money is theirs.

Get over your delusions. The record companies arent doing most of the bands any favors. As technology decreases the cost of music distribution, we will see record companies become less and less relevant.

We've seen bands publish their music on the web. independently.

But imagine if the bands went to amazon.com or apple directly and offered downloads with the assistance and huge marketing might of amazon or Apple.

So why am I so bitter. Well. It started in 84. I was 16 with a record collection of about 200 records. A record cost $7. CDs came out and they were $14, the record companies said manufacturing costs were higher and that costs would come down. They also did not pay the artists any more for a $14 CD sale than they did for a $7 record sale.

Well, the prices never came down, even though we know it costs pennies to print a CD. Which leads me to my next question. If it is intellectual property, then why wont they replace damaged media for a couple of dollars? Hmm? I've already purchased the "license".

So, in summary. Support the people who actually make music. Buy their stuff. Go to their concerts, and steal their music. Dont worry, the record companies dont pay them much anyway.

And if you want to be 100% legit, do what I've been doing lately. Buy used CDs on Amazon.com's marketplace. Many good CDs are offered shipped to your house for 5 or 6 dollars.

Don