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Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites

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tomos:
okay I'm asking a lot here - I'm a modern music virgin - I got as far as cd's and stopped evolving
If there's any sites out the that might help do let me know :)
Over the last couple years I've saved stuff on the topic from the web in Surfulater but it's more about ripping music - which I havent quite gotten around to yet ...

I've been downloading music from a site where people share music copied from old 78's (or even earlier stuff)
The download is usually a mp3 file of some sort, then they have a metadata xml file

1)  Question: If I save both mp3 and meta.xml file, I presume I need some programme (player/organiser/both?) which also reads the xml file (hints/recommendations?)Sometimes they offer Flac / Ogg Vorbis / Wave files e.g.

2)  General question: I want to know - if I wanted to produce a cd compilation that could be played on pretty much any cd player which format (if any of the above) would be the best to use ? - This may be too difficult for me in the sense if it's too much work I'll probably say feck it and use mp3s.
(I'll ask at a later stage how to make the compilation :) - for starters I have the thread about how to standardise mp3 sound levels currently open)I wanted to buy some music online
came across two sites
First,
Amazon.com sounds good and reasonable - for albums at any rate, certainly a lot better than iTunes
unfortunately the beggars only sell to the US
Can international customers buy MP3 Music from Amazon.com?

At this time music downloads are only available to customers using a credit or debit card issued by a U.S bank with a U.S. billing address. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. We're working to build a successful store on Amazon.com and hope to adapt it to our other Web sites in the future. Please continue to check back for additional information on supported locations.
--- End quote ---
That credit cards are so international I didnt think it would be such a problem but maybe there's more to it than that ..

Another site I came across which has a lot of interesting music (not so much top 40 I think) is Ligamusic.com
I get the impression from the second link below that they actually make agreements with the labels they work with but this could very well be untrue (they apparently dont have some major labels but that could be just cause they're scared of them) - tracks I looked at were  $0.15 each ...
Couple of reviews of sorts:
http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Ligamusic.com-146008-1.html   - says music is reasonable quality "192Kbps+ VBR, LAME -alt-preset-standard"
http://trig.com/kagetta/blog/2008/6/20/post/49396
This the scary one - says it's a spam referrer:
http://www.utahpictures.com/referer_spam.php?spammer=ligamusic.com&ip=91.149.183.235
-
3) Any opinions/ other recommendations ?-
thanks for any help,
Tom

Lashiec:
1) By the looks of it, you're probably downloading music from Archive.org. I'm unaware of players recognizing .xml files with metadata, mostly because it's unnecessary as most file formats have their own tagging system, so in theory those MP3s should be correctly tagged. If not, either someone comes up with a recommendation, or you have to do it by hand.

2) If possible, get FLAC, it's smaller than WAVE, it has support for tags, so when burning the files the program will recognize them, and label the CD correctly (for CD-TEXT, although it's not that important), and they're easier to work with as well.

Between Vorbis and WAVE, which to choose as a second option is difficult. Vorbis is far smaller due to being lossy, but burning it to a CD will yield a negligible loss in quality (it depends on how good it's the decoder), and uses tags. WAVE, on the other hand, is lossless, but it's bigger and does not have support for tags, so it's not really an option if you intend to do something else with the file after burning it.

MP3 is a choice similar to Vorbis, except that is practically ubiquitous, and it's practically impossible to find a player that does not support it, which is not always the same with FLAC and Vorbis (WMP, QuickTime, iTunes and similar apps do not play them out of the box). Vorbis used to be of higher quality than MP3, but the LAME encoder quickly closed the gap, although no one assures you if the MP3s you download were encoded with LAME.

3) Duh, difficult question. The real reason why Amazon can't sell you music is because they also have to renegotiate the rights for the European market. While the credit card restriction is probably true (although I can buy other items from Amazon without problem), even if it wasn't, Amazon would get in trouble if they sold music to markets outside its agreement with labels and music copyright associations.

It's the first time I hear about Ligamusic, but a quick gaze over the Terms and Conditions page mentions something about the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society, which leads me to think this is something similar to AllOfMP3, which also claimed it was legal because they paid royalties to this copyright association. While this seems to make the business legal in Russia, I'm unaware if they also makes it legal outside it. The RIAA and other associations claims that it does, but the company that started AllOfMP3 opened new sites after the others were taking down, and they continue to operate normally under the Russian law, so at least they're quasi-legal.

In any case, I would be wary of putting my credit card details in a site that does have so little references on the net.

Personally, my recommendation is to continue to buy good old-fashioned CDs. Or LPs if you fancy :)

tomos:
3) Duh, difficult question. The real reason why Amazon can't sell you music is because they also have to renegotiate the rights for the European market. While the credit card restriction is probably true (although I can buy other items from Amazon without problem), even if it wasn't, Amazon would get in trouble if they sold music to markets outside its agreement with labels and music copyright associations.
-Lashiec (September 08, 2008, 04:27 PM)
--- End quote ---

Amazon now selling mp3s in UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/browse.html/ref=pe_8391_14162811_pe_09/?node=77197031



dont know does that include rest of Europe - I presume, as I got a mail from them & I not in UK
[but maybe not - that looks pretty definite]

Lashiec:
That's pretty cool! I hope they continue to expand the catalog (to satisfy some of my niche preferences :P), and the buying options in a near future.

app103:
Well, here is a great way to easily fill up your hard drive full of music, discover tons of great stuff you would probably never know about any other way, and do it all legally...for free:


* Download and install Juice (or a really good podcast downloading client of your choice)
* Do a tag search on last.fm for the type of music you are interested in. (I provided you with one seasonally appropriate)
* Select a tag from the list and click to go to that tag's page.
* On the right side, there will be a list of free downloads (if you don't see this, pick another tag)
* Beneath the list is a podcast RSS icon.
* Right click the icon and copy the target URL.
* Subscribe to that RSS url in your podcast client.
* Enjoy tons of new music.

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