wilkes

As always, go with a good UseNET server.

www.easynews.com is one of my favorite, and will even be easy for the "pc challenged". All IMO, of course.

You can try if you like...CitrixWire or MP3 download...from download.com

It is also incredibly frustrating that a group like the RIAA dictates who makes it and who doesn't by influencing what is heard on the airwaves. Do you really think that consumers thought that we needed 98 Degrees, InSync, Back Street Boys or the other myriad of sound alike cookie cutter bands because the RIAA "thought" that this is what consumers wanted and what they promoted and rammed down our throats?

Like I said before...they made their beds...now they can sleep in it.

Here is a great little snippet from an article in Rolling Stone about who killed the record industry.

So who killed the record industry as we knew it? "The record companies have created this situation themselves," says Simon Wright, CEO of Virgin Entertainment Group, which operates Virgin Megastores. While there are factors outside of the labels' control -- from the rise of the Internet to the popularity of video games and DVDs -- many in the industry see the last seven years as a series of botched opportunities. And among the biggest, they say, was the labels' failure to address online piracy at the beginning by making peace with the first file-sharing service, Napster. "They left billions and billions of dollars on the table by suing Napster -- that was the moment that the labels killed themselves," says Jeff Kwatinetz, CEO of management company the Firm. "The record business had an unbelievable opportunity there. They were all using the same service. It was as if everybody was listening to the same radio station. Then Napster shut down, and all those 30 or 40 million people went to other [file-sharing services]."

And if you want to read the whole article - which hits the nail right on the head - here is the link.

http://www.rollingstone.com...

You WILL find independent music on the major digital download sites like Napster, iTunes, Rhaphsody, and tons of other less popular sites. These sites and internet promotion have opened up many new affordable opportunities for the indies, and for the less mainstream genres. It is incredibly frustrating to find an entire album uploaded to a Russian FTP site only days after it's made available for distribution. These free file sharing programs are the same thing. The terms of some of these sites may not be agreeable, but it's not just "Big Music", major labels, etc that are taking the hit when thousands of people download their stuff for free.

D++

Take a good look at ANY pay site and read the Terms Of Use and get you a nice big dose of the rules...

The Tracks and Materials are owned by <insert company name here>, its business partners, affiliates and/or licensors, as applicable, and are protected by intellectual property laws.

You can burn ONLY a certain number of times

Only <insert mp3 player type here> are supported

<Insert company name here> may at any time lose the right to make certain Tracks and/or Materials available. In such event, you will no longer be able to obtain these Tracks and/or Materials or to utilize the "Sync/Restore" function for Purchased Tracks.

And my personal favorite...

Please note that, following cancellation of your subscription, any Downloads that you have saved to the hard drives of your personal computers or “Napster To Go” Downloads that you have transferred to compatible portable devices will become inactive and not playable. The files will remain but will not be accessible.

So basically I PAY for something but I don't own it and I'm told what I can and can't do with what I PAID for?

It's not free and it's not for the pc challenged but I think it's the best thing going. www.giganews.com

I TOTALLY agree with Jack on this one!!! Anyone remember the days before cds? You were able to pretty much buy any song you wanted on a cassette SINGLE. You didnt have to buy the whole tape!! I download music and find it a relief that I can get the song(s) I want without having to buy the whole CD just to be disappointed. These pay sites rip you off. Try the Charter music service.. You can download music to your hearts content for a fee and then you cant do anything with them, burning wise.. What a joke! :P

Nope...it sure wouldn't. Just like it wouldn't have killed the music industry to embrace new technology instead trying to maintain their antiquated business model.

The problem with the pay sites is that the big 4record companies, Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner haven't all gotten behind a single entity like Napster and for that reason you will not find certain artists on certain pay sites. You also aren't going to find alot of independent artists or obscured versions of songs on the pay sites.

I also have this strong distain in regards to someone telling me that even though I have a subscription to their pay site I either can't burn or transfer the music or if I cancel their service the music that I ALREADY paid for will not play.

So no...I wouldn't kill me to pay just like it didn't kill me to pay $16.99 for a CD that contained only one or two good songs for probably 15 years. It is a personal choice and personally I like being able to download songs with P2P apps.

Would it really kill you to pay for the music you download? Just subscribe to Napster or something, you pay only a fraction of a cent to listen to songs and you don't have to download them unless you really want to buy them.

PK I've got to say that songbirdnest looks interesting. I downloaded it and tried it out and it found the majority of things that I was looking for and downloaded very easily.

I am curious though to see how long it takes for the RIAA to sprout a boner over this one and try to level it's cross hairs on this software.

If you are just looking for music, check www.songbirdnest.com

It's a media player with built in search engine that lets you VERY easily download songs that others have uploaded to random websites, keeping you OFF of the gnutella and other P2P networks that RIAA keep trolling for lawsuits.

just checked this out www.aresgalaxy.com it is not free.

i would advise you to stay away from Morpheus,and Kaza.not only are they loaded with spyware,but alot of the files you download there are bad.

www.aresgalaxy.com

I thought that we had just did this...

http://www.gowilkes.com/voi...

Shareaza is another one. It doesn't have any spyware, and handles bittorrents well too.

Morpheus. try it, or someone told me about utorrent too ? then ther is the infamous.. Kaza

Help! What free fileshare programs are there besides limeware with no spyware?