A great online music site with no piracy problems

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I ran across a site called Magnatune when using Rhythmbox, the default music player in Gnome. They have several hundred artists there and a few thousand albums.

You can listen to the music for free, with some commercial interruptions for Magnatune commercials, buy a membership for $9 a month to stream music with no commercials, buy a download membership for $18 a month that allows you download and burn as many albums as you want to in a variety of formats ranging from WAV to mp3 to ogg. You can also just purchase music from there for anywhere from around $5 -$18 an album when you download the music(your choice as to what you pay and 50% of the money for membership or direct purchase goes directly to the artist/artists). You can also buy CD's they burnt too for a little more.

You can also embed albums directly into your own website so other people can listen to them for free too. Magnatune is a pretty cool site and almost all content there is licensed under the Creative Commons license. I greatly recommend it. No DRM and music marketed the right way for the consumer rather than for the greed of the corporate copyright holder!!!!!!!

I found an artist on there named Ehren Starks that is a fantastic piano player. He published his first album at age 18 or 19 and his second about 3 years later. His first one sounds as if it would be really odd, but it's a great background music or something just to close your eyes and let yourself be carried away by, because it's nothing but a piano and cello together. I couldn't believe how good it sounded. His second album is almost an hour and half long and from what I've heard of it so far is strictly piano.

Interestingly enough he plays classical music but his inspirations are rock and roll groups such as Radiohead and Interpol. Take a step out of your comfort zone and give him a listen. I think you'll like his music if you give it a chance.

http://www.magnatune.com/artists/albums/ehren-lines/

 

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If only there were artists I recognized. Although I don't plan on subscribing, I do see the benefit of something like this, both for the independent artist and the consumer who wants to look for new and interesting music.

 

its interesting to see music can now be download in ogg format.. i remember the first time many years ago i found a while in ogg format.. i couldnt find a player!! freddy what are your thoughts on that format.. think it has the potential to replace .mp3?

 

I wish the entire music system make a vast shift
I think ALL monies should go to the artist, the artists manager is responsible for paying for a publisher, marketing, and other such things that a big publisher normally does in return for eating 80%+ of the revenue!
atleast then I know all my money goes to the artist, and its his/her problem if they squander it all lol

 

I don't have anything against ogg, I just don't use it very much. I rip all my cd's to flac as it's a lossless format, and disk space is pretty cheap.

 

LOL. I didn't recognize a single artist on there when I first went there, but I just started listening and I've found some really good music there.

You just have to get past thinking that the only good music is what you find in a record store or through the big labels. Since you can stream it for free, what do you have to lose by checking out the artists that play the types of music you like? A few minutes that you would spend on the computer anyway?

 

This is about the best deal for artists that I've found. Magnatune puts the music up and provides the ifrastructure for them to put their music before the public so they should get a share of it. A 50/50 split is a much better deal than the major labels give the artists.

I''ll pay almost the going rate for cd's from these guys as I know the artist will get a fair shake. From the major labels I scrounge for big discounts on all my purchases. I actually buy more used cds than new ones any more as I don't support the record labels that way. I don't want to give those ripoffs with their DRM any encouragement.

 

I would, if I didn't already have a bunch of music that I already know I want to listen to. When I get bored of it, if ever, perhaps I might. Like I said, it's great for someone who wants to listen to new artists.