Vista scores big!

[Neon]

Okay, so like most people I keep all my music backed up nice and neatly organised and tagged. I started flipping through it to drop in a few new albums I bought. Yes, really, bought mp3's!

Vista runs away and automagically grabs all the album art, direct in explorer! All I did was organise things in folders as you would /genre/artist/album and setting the folder size larger, holding CTRL and rolling the mouse wheel, yielded after a second shiny new album art for the majority of the albums!

Most excellent. Yes really.. ;)

http://www.squaresphere.co.uk/images/musicfolder.jpg

Sorry if you already know this by the way, but it's a pretty good feature :)

[zhardoum]

im looking for a legal non drm locked supplier of online music.. any recommendaions..? (already knew about the music label feature).. oh, and ill not be using it on an ipod, heard itunes forces you to use ipod only or has that changed?

[Neon]

iTunes Plus, or some of the record labels. I bought a Black Grass album direct from Cat Skills (http://www.catmerch.com/store/index.php).

[Afty]

im looking for a legal non drm locked supplier of online music.. any recommendaions..? (already knew about the music label feature).. oh, and ill not be using it on an ipod, heard itunes forces you to use ipod only or has that changed?

www.allofmp3.com - it was shutdown, but accounts still work on www.mp3sparks.com

Comes thoroughly reccomended by me. Great value, very flexible and a fairly comprehensive catalogue. I get all my music in 192Kb OGG format, good enough for my ears and less than a quid an album on average.

[Baz]

yeah, but it's not exactly legal is it afty?

I mean, paying for mp3sparks is comparable to paying for usenet access and warezing the music that way, except obviously mp3sparks has a nice friendly UI, and is paying for some Russian guys Lambo.

[Jez_Gafys]

Does this for a few folders aswell including the GAMES folder that pulls in game art, developer information, website links etc etc blah blah whoop di do

[Cheez]

www.allofmp3.com - it was shutdown, but accounts still work on www.mp3sparks.com

Comes thoroughly reccomended by me. Great value, very flexible and a fairly comprehensive catalogue. I get all my music in 192Kb OGG format, good enough for my ears and less than a quid an album on average.

I think his keyword there is legal, allofmp3 was shut down because it was about as legal as downloading them using torrents, if not less so because they're taking money for their illegal downloads.

[RocketKnight]

MY understanding is they exploit a loophole in Russian copyright law. If someone in the UK buys music from them, is he/she breaking UK copyright law?

[Swyft]

Vista runs away and automagically grabs all the album art, direct in explorer! All I did was organise things in folders as you would /genre/artist/album and setting the folder size larger, holding CTRL and rolling the mouse wheel, yielded after a second shiny new album art for the majority of the albums!

You do realise that XP does this as well right?

[Neon]

You do realise that XP does this as well right?No, I don't.

[Afty]

yeah, but it's not exactly legal is it afty?

I mean, paying for mp3sparks is comparable to paying for usenet access
I think his keyword there is legal, allofmp3 was shut down because it was about as legal as downloading them using torrents, if not less so because they're taking money for their illegal downloads.

Let's get a few misconceptions out of the way first.

1] AllOfMp3.com was shut down not because it was illegal to DOWNLOAD from them, but because the US Government placed pressure on the Russian Government to shut them down due to lobbying from RIAA representatives in Washington. The RIAA doesn't like the fact that they are cheap and DRM free. The US was able to apply this pressure because Russia is looking to join the WTO and the US made it clear that AllOfMp3 was a "barrier to" WTO entry.

2] AllOfMp3 does not illegally distribute music. Quite the opposite - under Russian law *ANYONE* can distribute music, but must pay a fixed royalty fee for works distributed. AllOfMp3 *DO PAY* this fee, and it is paid to ROMS (Russian Organization for Multimedia and digital Systems), the organisation designated by law to collect these payments. Here is where it gets interesting - many of the big Music Industry Bodies are refusing to recognise ROMS as having the authority to do this, and so are refusing the payments - they are free to do this, but currently the law in Russia does not support their position, so they are SOL.

3] The owner of AllOfMp3 was taken to court for copyright infringement earlier this year and convicted... it was however a Kangaroo court arranged with friendly judicial staff and mostly positioned as a PR move by the Russian government to aid their campaign to get entry into the WTO. Subsequently at appeal he was acquitted of all charges - which is why Mp3Sparks continues to operate and AllOfMp3 will apparently be returning at some point.


So here's a moral question for you: If the Music Publishing Companies are allowed to take advantage of globalisation and cheap labour to produce CDs, Inserts, Hardware etc. for much much lower costs than they could here in the UK - why should we consumers not take advantage of the same globalisation forces?

And finally, how is buying a music track from AllOfMp3.com in Russia somehow different to buying Bioshock via Steam (a digital download from a foreign country) or from buying copies of Tribes (all those years ago) from a store in the US and paying for shipping to the UK? I fail to see any substantive difference between any of those scenarios - so why should me buying from AllOfMp3 be any less legal than those other 2 purchases which are both PERFECTLY legal?

[Elkeeed]

Agreed allofmp3/mp3sparks are perfectly legal. People should use them as a protest to the RIAA trying to buy the law.

Its also interesting that the US takes a totally different viewpoint when the shoe is on the other foot. Look at their ongoing gambling argument with Antigua.

[oxy]

You do realise that XP does this as well right?

i demand to know how you send it off to get album art :P

[Elkeeed]

i demand to know how you send it off to get album art :P

i think he means media center edition

[oxy]

ah ok then

[Ch3m1c4L]

media player displays it in normal xp, but i dont think it gets it itself, you have to have it in the folder, or maybe it does get it itself when its set to "get album info" but i dont know. I would check but i just broke my music hdd :(