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How to get free music

Posted on 13 Aug 2008 at 15:56

As the music industry drops DRM on downloads, there are other ways emerging to get music gratis without relying on illegal file sharing. Take We7 (www.we7.com), for example. This new service streams tracks, playlists or whole albums to your desktop for free, with the only downside being six to 12 seconds of advertising before the track starts. After a month, you can download a certain amount of those tracks with the ads removed. We7 has support from Sony, but the problem thus far is that much of the content, particularly that of major artists including Dylan, Springsteen or the Foo Fighters, is unavailable to download - even if you're prepared to pay.

A rival service, Qtrax (www.qtrax.com), is also advertising-funded. "We want to bring free music into a legal environment," chief executive Allan Klepfisz has argued, claiming that the key is to fight piracy with convenience. All the same, of the four major labels Qtrax claimed to have signed up for launch in January, only Universal has actually delivered. And only in the US and Canada. Qtrax is one to watch, but not a serious proposition quite yet.

Aside from straight downloads, there are Web 2.0 streaming radio stations, such as Pandora (www.pandora.com) and Last.FM (www.last.fm), which offer a listening experience customised to your personal tastes. Unfortunately, Pandora was forced to quit the UK due to licensing restrictions, while Last.FM's on-demand service is limited to three plays per track, per user without subscription. This is good for the artists, but not so good for misers.

The final option is morally dubious, but will net you plenty of free music. Internet radio-ripping programs, the most famous being StationRipper (www.stationripper.com), record tracks from online radio stations as MP3 files. The results can be patchy, as voices or adverts stray over the recording, but it's certainly much easier than taping the Hit Parade was in the 1970s.

A Scandinavian company is marketing a device, PopCatcher (www.popcatcher.com), that does a similar thing with FM radio, saving tracks as MP3s and fading out the chatter. StationRipper isn't actually illegal, but PopCatcher risks falling foul of the same technicalities that have affected advert-skipping technologies in the past. The Intempo Rebel Radio, which incorporates the technology, is available for around £70.

The online music rip-off

Author: Stuart Andrews