ARRRR! No More
Published by Toni September 25th, 2005 in Uncategorized.So these past couple of weeks I started doing something I never thought I would ever find myself doing.
You don’t understand, people.
This is phenomenal for me.
I’ve started buying music LEGALLY.
Back in ye olden days (1997, to be exact), I learned about this newfangled thing called Mp3s. The idea of squishing a 26 meg song into 4 managable megs sounded great! Back then, the way I got mp3s was via the shared network at school (i.e. P2P). We’d log in, find someone willing to share their music files, and save them to our own computer.
When I moved out of the dorms, I naturally lost access to those files. I had to become more creative in searching for mp3s. Websites. Chatrooms. But these yielded very little findings.
Then one day a friend of mine told me about Napster.
It was like a whole new world opened to me.
So much music available for free.
So little time.
So little hard drive space available to house them all.
I bought an extra hard drive to accomodate my files.
It almost became an addiction. Every night I’d gleefully download about 10-15 songs (mind you, at this point I only had dial up).
It was awesome.
I made lists of songs that I needed. Whenever I would hear an old fave, or am reminded of a song I’d think to myself, “Gotta download that later.”
For several glorious years Napster was my trusted friend. A dependable old pal.
Until the musicians started complaining.
I was pissed when I heard that Metallica was bringing up charges against Napster and its users. What the hell? These guys are bazillionaires. What’s it to them that people are downloading their songs for free? And since when is Metallica become such law abiding citizens? Weren’t these guys into drugs and stuff?
The complaining musicians swelled in numbers, as did recording companies.
Fuck these guys, I thought. They have the audacity to charge 15$-20$ for a CD that only has one or two good songs on it, and they’re going to bitch that people are stealing their music?
Napster bravely fought against these charges. I felt proud to be a Napster user. I felt like I was part of a movement that wouldn’t stand for being raped by the music industry anymore.
It felt good to be a pirate.
I downloaded Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, partly out of spite, but partly because I actually still liked their music.
Then one day I was dismayed to hear that Napster finally collapsed.
The Powers That Be had won.
I felt bad for Napster, but I thought that at least they put up a good fight.
Besides, Napster wasn’t the only game in town anymore. Other P2P sites sprouted in its place. And I tried them all: Bear Share, Morpheus, Grokster. Eventually I settled on Kazaa -or rather, Kazaa Lite. I resumed my free downloading activies.
Then I heard one day that Napster had reinvented themselves. As a pay-for-download service.
In other words, they sold out.
I couldn’t believe it.
How could they do something like this? I thought. How could they go against everything they stood for?
I guess it was the only way they could save themselves.
I felt that Napster had betrayed me.
I stuck with Kazaa Lite. I kept using it until early this year, actually.
When my boyfriend and I moved into our apartment 5 months ago, we subscribed to SBC Yahoo! for a phone/DSL pack. When the DSL package came, I took charge of setting it up. A half hour later, it was up and running. One of the first things I did was fire up Kazaa Lite.
Strangely, it wasn’t connecting.
I tried again.
No luck.
I eventually realized that I won’t be able to access Kazaa Lite anymore, most likely because of SBC’s firewall. I was dismayed. I cringed at the notion of buying whole CDs, but I had no choice.
I bought one CD- Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. Sure enough, I didn’t like all the songs. I felt that I wasted my money.
Which brings us to the present.
A few weeks ago I got an iPod mini for my birthday. I was overjoyed. I could finally take all my songs and listen to them in the car and on campus. I tried using my CD player and MD player in the car but their batteries lasted only a couple of days at a time, not to mention that my glove compartment would be stuffed with CDs or MDs. It was impractical.
With the iPod mini, I was welcomed to the world of iTunes. I started using it instead of Windows Media Player.
A few weeks ago I clicked on the iTunes Store icon. Out of curiosity I typed in “Josh Groban” on the search bar. I had just watched the movie Troy and liked the song Remember.
iTunes spit out a list of Josh Groban songs, including Remember.
I listened to a sample.
Gosh, what a nice song. Josh Groban has an awesome voice.
I noted the price. 99 cents.
99 cents isn’t so bad, I thought.
I looked at the “Buy the song” button.
It was such a nice song. I had to have it.
I clicked on the “Buy the song” button and added Remember to my digital music library.
So begins my new life as a legal downloader.
I”ve bought 9 other songs since then. I have to be careful though. As cheap as the songs are, they do add up. It’s waaaay too easy to just click on the “Buy the song” button. I don’t want to be stunned when I find out I’d spent 50$ on music. But if I do spend 50$, at least I know that I spent it on songs I really wanted, not the filler crap that’s in most CDs.
Admittedly, iTunes isn’t perfect. They have a much smaller selection of songs compared to Kazaa. They don’t have a lot of older stuff. I tried looking for the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack and got only Return of the King. Another thing is that you won’t find a lot of cool and unusual stuff like wacky remixes and such. Also, I think that the search function is limited. You can only search by artist, album, or name of song. They don’t search by keyword.
But a good thing about iTunes is that satisfaction is always guaranteed. With Kazaa, it got to the point where it would take several tries to download a good file of a song. Since many CDs nowdays are copyright protected, when you try to rip one, the mp3s end up severely distorted. Second, I often couldn’t download a particular song because 20 other people were downloading it at the same time. I’d either take forever, or the guy sharing his song would get frustrated from his bandwidth being drained and cut off everyone downloading from him.
So I guess for now, I’ll stick with iTunes. Hell, I my even check out the new Napster.
Just maybe.
17 Responses to “ARRRR! No More”
Leave a Reply
Note: If your response doesn't show up right away, it's possible that my Akismet spam catcher accidentally caught it. Don't worry, I'll rescue it from the moderation bin so there's no need for you to resend it.
iTunes is okay, mainly because acc is much better than mp3. the new napster is kind of funky though. The drm is creepy with songs suddenly becoming unplayable and the encoder they use is TERRIBLE!
My only real recommendation is that you get eome Etymotic headphones for your mini. They make the sound way better.
i use ares… maybe that can work with your firewall?
good for you to go legal. =D
i heard that the agreement between itunes and the record labels is up for renegotiation and the record labels want itunes to charge different prices for songs instead of that nice flat 0.99 cents. music is music, whether it gets released, gets on a chart and goes to number 1 or not. what do you think?
I read an interview with Steve Jobs the other day where he basically pwned the record labels - he said that he’s not going to charge more than 99 cents per song, because record labels already make more of a profit off each song sold on iTunes than they do on each song sold on real CDs, and if they’re asking for more, they’re just getting “greedy”, to use his words.
Ahh…yummy iTunes goodness.
Be sure to check out iTunes EVERY TUESDAY for free tracks (they’re in the lower right-hand corner).
They’ve picked up a bunch of my spare change over the past year or so.
Warchild- Good to hear from you again
Thanks for warning me about Napster. I’ll stay away from them.
Aren’t Etymotic headphones like, 150$? I went the cheap(er) route and got Apple’s in-ear headphones. They’re so much more comfortable than the crappy free ones that come with iPods.
Wyn- I don’t think I’ve heard of Ares. Do you have sucess in downloading songs or do you encounter problems similar to what I described with Kazaa?
As for song prices, I think that they should charge less for shorter songs. While it’s ok for 4 minute songs to be 99 cents, I think that songs half that length should be cheaper- maybe 60 cents.
Brooke- Ah yes, I heard about that. Seriously, what are those greedy bastards thinking? We shouldn’t complain too much though. I checked out songs on iTunes Japan, and they cost 200 yen! That’s like, $1.50 or something.
NWJR- Thanks for the tip on the free tracks!
It makes me sick to pay for music. I still won’t do it! But I totally related to your D/Ling past. Sounds just like me. Remember the good ole days of falling asleep while your computer “shared” 20 files per night?
Bug- It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside to hear you talk like that. Indeed, I do remember. I remember well. Ah, the good old days of downloading illegally using dial up. DIAL UP! Damn! Took 10-15 minutes per mp3- if we’re lucky!!! Usually it would extend to like, an hour if others were leeching off you. Can you believe that shit?!?!?
if there is a firewall preventing you from doing p2p file-sharing (which is over a specific port), it might be that you also cannot connect to ares.
i heard there are a lot of destroyed tracks out there that you inadvertantly download when you see it is the most popular, the most copies floating around. that problem i can’t say i’ve encountered much.
yeah…i recently completed my first legit music download on the net…so i can relate to your post..
I’ve heard . . . um, from a friend . . . of course . . . that you can use Bittorrent to download an entire album in .mp3 format and then you can pick and choose which songs you want to keep and which ones you want to delete.
And they’re still free.
Have you tried Kazaa Lite K++? It uses the same basic package as Kazaa Lite (Kazaa without the spyware) and is allegedly untraceable. It may or may not be able to circumvent SBC’s firewall.
Also, do you connect to your DSL via a router? If so, it may be the router’s firewall (or even the Windows firewall), not your ISP.
wyn- You’re lucky if you haven’t encountered many destroyed tracks while downloading. That’s the problem I was talking about. You think the file is ok, but at the very end it’s totally messed up. I tried countless times to download a good copy of Beastie Boys’ “Ch-Ch-Check it Out” but they were all the same. I ended up *gulp* buying the single.
donyell-How are you enjoying your iPod so far?
Dave- I tried using Bittorrent once, when I was trying to download American Idol clips off DJ Slim’s website. There was so much traffic that I eventually gave up. I reckon it’s the same with songs?
And actually, I do use Kazaa Lite K++ (I double checked). I didn’t know there was a difference between that and regular Kazaa Lite.
And to answer your question, yeah I connect to DSL via a router. Isn’t that how everyone connects to DSL? The DSL doubles as a wireless router.
Your ISP (in your case, SBC) should provide you with a DSL modem. That device then connects to your wireless router giving you wireless capability and enabling you to share your broadband internet connection among multiple computers.
The firewall that’s blocking Kazaa Lite could be in the router, not your ISP. Check your router’s documentation and see if there is a port you need to open up so you can engage in P2P file sharing.
I know that when I set up the Azureus Bittorrent client, I had to change some of my port settings to get the connection to go through and you may have to do the same for Kazaa Lite.
Dave- in this case, the SBC router is built into the DSL modem. I didn’t need to buy an extra wireless router, unlike at my parents’ house where they use Verizon.
I wouldn’t know how to change any port settings in the router though.
Aha; that explains much.
Did the router/modem come with any documentation? If so, it might show you how to enter an administrative configuration mode to open up certain ports for file sharing. On my router, there are some ports that have to be opened for file sharing and online gaming.
You might also try adjusting the port settings of the applications that you are using. In the Azureus Bittorrent client, you can manually set the port to use, and I think there is a place in Kazaa Lite K++ to do the same (I’d look it up for you, but my slave hard drive crashed and I can’t run any of the applications on that drive).
Dave- the only documentation that came with the router is the installation instructions. However, there is a website that shows the firewall settings and such. It needs a password, which is weird since I don’t recall providing a password for this particular section.
Whoa- wait a minute…it looks like Kazaa is working…
You might check out allofmp3.com which is a Russian site. While quasi-legal, RIAA gets no money from them, and there are no restrictions placed on copying the files you download from there. And at a penny per meg, it’s quite the deal compared to Itunes…a typical song usually costs less than ten cents.