Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Downloading Music

The Canadian courts just came out with a ruling that says that the sharing of music over the internet is not illegal.

Now, I'm not a really big music fan and have never downloaded music. But now that this issue has come up, and a court is telling me it's not illegal, I'm curious about the whole process. Where does one go to share music? Or is it just a bunch of friends sending songs back and forth across the internet to each other? Do you need special softwear? What's it all about?

ML (who is regularly clueless)

I'm not an techie expert - far from it - but I've been downloading music for a long time (my playlist with downloaded songs is about 21 hours long) and I can give you some info on it.

You download a program like Kazaa or WinMX. Then, when you install it, you set a folder (let's name it 'Shared') in your hard drive that you can use for your downloads. When you type a keyword in the 'search' screen of the program, the program searches the 'Shared' folders of every user of the program that is connected to the Internet at that moment, and presents them to you. (Same happens with your own 'Shared' folder when another user is doing a search on their own) Then, you download the song you chose from a user that has it, so that you both have it after the downloading is finished.

This is it, more or less. For more info, try someone else
AnnaBtG.

What Anna said is true, that's how it basically works. I only use Kazaalite, because it's saver than Kazaa and I find it easier to use.

The only problem with Shared folders is that if you allow others to download from you, they have access to your computer. So it's best to disable that function. I haven't had any problems with it so far. Usually, they say you have to share in order to get files from others, but that's more often not true than it is.

The only problem I've ever had with Kazaalite are corrupted files. I still don't have Westlive's Obvious. But in such cases, I ask my friends for files. You can also send via chat programs as IRC, MSN and AIM. Though downloading with programmes is mostly ten times faster.

If you want to give it a try - the programmes are easy to use and download - look at Kazaalite or WinMX .

Good luck!

Saskia

So, if I'm understanding correctly, if you use this program, people are actually searching your computer to get music off of it.

Wow! That is fascinating. Thanks.

EDIT: Saskia, I was posting at the same time you were. Okay, then it seems I did understand. Again, wow. That is really interesting.

ML

In the US, you technically are supposed to get to make one backup per CD, tape, software program or whatever, but they're coming out with copy-protected CDs now so you don't get your free backup. Also, some of those CDs will not play in car stereos, which is about the only place I often listen to my music.

I read of a study recently (done by Harvard and UNC) that showed that, on the whole, music-sharing was *good* for the record companies, as people get a chance to discover artists they'd otherwise not have known about. For instance, there are some albums I've got my eye on (as soon as I get my birthday money)... and without file-sharing I very much doubt I'd have even thought about buying them. I use WinMX, but I think I'll check out Kazaalite, too...

PJ

Ditto that, Pam. Some of my most favorite artists, I discovered accidentally while searching for other songs.

AnnaBtG.

I am going to echo what Pam said, I've been using WinMX and find it generally reliable.

I also have ITunes, BuyMusic.com and AOLMusicNet which allows me to download music legally. Most song are 99 cents (except on AOL where I pay a flat charge of 10 dollars a month to download unlimited songs and burn ten of them). So far they're really great but certain artists (like Janet Jackson, Garbage) have yet to give these groups the rights to release their songs so if you want some songs you have to go the illegal route.

I definitely don't advocate any one doing this! People who don't share are known as leechers, I automatically put these ppl on my ignore list. If u are downloading from other ppl, it's only fair u allow others to d/l from u. Sorry Saskia, but thats how I feel.

ML, you can also d/l music using windows media. However I don't know how good wm is, I just know a friend of mine uses it.

That's so true! And that's why I get so angry when I hear music producers claim that MP3 sharing is killing the music business! Thanks to MP3s, I got to know many artists I'd never heard of otherwise. Saskia promotes Dutch music outside the Netherlands, El sent me loads of great songs in Italian, and I send out plenty of French songs as well. We should probably ask for royalties when we make people from other countries buy stuff that never makes it out of our borders! Instead, we can be sued. How nice. :p

Kaethel

I'm very much aware of this. But the reason my old laptop crashed at least once a day was because of programmes like Kazaa and WinMX. So I'm very cautious with sharing. And I just checked, I do share, there's just nothing in my shared folder. Another safety measure I took. If people want stuff from me, they can email me and they'll get it.

And I totally agree with Kaethel! If it hadn't been for her, Elena and Cristina, I would have missed out on a lot of great music! Just because I don't understand the lyrics doesn't mean I can't love the song. If I listen long enough to those songs, I might even pick up a bit of French, Italian and Spanish.

Saskia

Other p2p programs, like the emule/edonkey, use points for people that share. The more you share (with a limit or you crash the client!! ), or even if there are few sources for that file gives you points in the download queues...

Jose

here comes the techie newbie.

I'm curious on how you can exchange .mp3 files other than by sending a burned CD abroad that is ?

Does it have to transit via Kazaa or winMX ? <---- newbie's the keyword. And not 'rookie' like some might think!

Carole

hmmm, let me see... Basically they're progams that allow connections between two computers without a server or something similar. Therefore we have Peer to Peer programs.

The programs usually have a shared directory where you have files you want to upload. Then people conect to your computer to get that files. You can do the same. The programs feature a search option where you can ask for your petition and it would find files that match your query.

About sharing... what can be shared?... Well, everything!

The very first sharing program was Napster (RIP), and only allowed to share music. But its clones, instead of being identical copies, evolved, and added the posibility of sharing any kind of file, videos, music, documents, zip files... Apart from that, several networks withtout a central server for cordinating the net appeared or the possibility of using various sources of a file to increase the download speed.

There are several programs for this:

Kazaa and WinMx are the bests for music... only for Windows...

Edonkey/emule... is IMO better for video. It uses several servers and it's multiplatform.

There are more like Limewire or Bearshare, but the ones above are the most important ones.

It's legal all of this? Well, it's in the line between yes and no... a bit sided to the no.

Jose (did I leave something?)

No, that pretty much covers it. Thanks Jose

I like the concept though I'm having a hard time with the fact that people could rummage my comp for music files. or maybe I didn't quite understand.

Thanks for enlightening me, anyway.

Carole

They can't go through your whole computer, just the file you specify for sharing.

Knew my neuronne wasn't quite connected today. Thanks for the info Iapetus.

Carole