Anyone know of a good website for downloading free music

[RagingInMiami]

I've tried www.winmx.com, but for some reason, I can't get that to work for me.

[Longgrain]

1. No.

:hi:

[MrModerate]

3. Do I detect a certain crankiness . . .

at the notion of "free" (i.e., "unpaid-for") music?

[Longgrain]

5. I just spent three days

whipping a bunch of ad ware off of my computer...I'm not cranky, just tierd...

[MrModerate]

7. Well, I have an opinion on that too!

Ad-Aware SE is highly rated, free for non-business use, effective, and won't take three days to clean your system.

[Longgrain]

10. Thanks

I have both Ad-aware and Spybot and well as a firewall and new virus scan...and I still feel vulnerable...

And I still have to reinstall my camera and my scanner too...whew!

[progmom]

2. Oh, do you mean a good website for pirating music?

Sorry, sore point for me.

iTunes is good. 99 cents and artists get royalties.

[MrModerate]

6. Actually, anything with DRM . . .

kinda sucks.

Or to put it another way, just like copy protection on software, all of the DRM schemes I've ever run across are massively inconvenient if you want to play music both on an MP3 player (non-Apple) and yer computer. eMusic is pretty good (non-DRM mp3s), but their selection is a little lame.

Frankly I just buy CDs and rip 'em

[Nye Bevan]

18. DRM DOES suck....

... but iTunes is great. Well worth the 99 cents to get a quick, reliable, legal download.

The solution: buy the tracks you want from iTunes. Then use iTunes to burn them to a CD. Then use the free MusicMatch jukebox to rip them back to MP3's which you can play freely, on any computer, and any device with NO ridiculous petty restrictions.

I have a CD-RW that I keep handy solely for this purpose. And since I'm paying for everything I download there is no guilt.

[bif]

4. Limewire.com

[fnottr]

8. I use

www.allofmp3.com they're based in Russia, and claim that they are perfectly legal. They aren't free, but songs run about $.10 and you get to choose how you want them encoded, plus no DRM.

[maxpower]

9. Archive.org

Lot's of good legal downloads there.

[bloodyjack]

11. slsknet.org

Past its heyday, but hey, there's still a good classical selection and a lot of hard-to-find rock music

About as user-friendly as those touch-screen ATMs too

[deek]

12. According to Salon...

Best source of free, legal mp3s: Better Propaganda

http://www.betterpropaganda.com/


You might want to check out www.mp3.com also.

[NeoTraitors]

13. The poster who mentioned

archive.org is correct. Tons of live music available legally and for free.

[mrfrapp]

14. Legal Bittorrent sites

Freely distributable music and other things:

http://www.legaltorrents.com/


Freely distributable live recordings:

http://bt.etree.org/

Some well-known groups here. Must have for Grateful Dead and Phish fans

[Nomad559]

15. Comfort Stand

http://www.comfortstand.com/catalog/044/index.html

:)

http://www.enorgis.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php

http://www.mpeg-search.com/Site/Index

http://mp3.nite.lv

http://www.mp3collection.ru/zvuki

[asthmaticeog]

16. epitonic.com

LEGAL downloads of MP3s, authorized by the record labels and/or artists. Awesome site, too.

[mcscajun]

17. TuneTree -- hosts trading friendly bands in lossless SHN and FLAC format.

http://www.ibiblio.org/infoport/tunetree/

I'm all in favor of sites where the bands allow/support downloads, but not the others.