First there was Napster, eMule, then came finally was the hour of the torrent: are now fifteen years abundant that the music industry has revolutionized the way fans listen to their products, so they have tried in every way to block, prosecute, attack.
Today, perhaps, the path is at a turning point. Are now increasingly common services that offer subscription music in fact, like Spotify, and as the discussion is open and lively on how these systems can actually be profitable for artists, the road seems somehow already marked.
However, it is not all that glitters, now and for some qualities that seem to magically solve the life (and even within the limits of legality) there are also many flaws. The principal, for example, is that these services offer music only in streaming, consuming then your data traffic (an element should be taken into consideration when you are on the move); but then you have to consider also the cost of the subscription, which is not always a young student is willing to shoulder.
We rescue arrive though perfectly legal sites that allow you to download music for free: Discover along the main.
Amazon
A catalog of 20,000 songs, but only if you Americans
Paradoxically, the first site of our five (ordered, we say at once, in alphabetical order) is the largest store on the web: Amazon. Jeff Bezos and Associates, in fact, seem to have understood for some time that the best way to sell online is definitely pay a lot of attention to the customer, but also offer a discount system so bold to take – as in the case of music – to make available even several content for free.
Twenty thousand songs, but on the international store
To find out the list of mp3 files that can be downloaded without paying a dollar, it's best to stay away from the Italian version of the store – where the offerings in this field you can count on the fingers of one hand – and move rather on international version: here we find ourselves plunged into a long list of files (at the time of this writing are 20,000 songs) available for download.
The most interesting fact is that it's not just about songs by newcomers: there are Arias by Luciano Pavarotti as the indie pieces of Metric, the songs of She & Him like those of Blondie, plus a whole range of other young artists to be discovered. There is, however, a defect: in order to download music from the American website you must have a u.s. billing address (as until recently, happened for the same Spotify). But if you have a friend in the us who lay (something relatively common now, given how many young Italians moved abroad) – or you already have an address like that, perhaps created in the past for other services – you can easily work around this obstacle.
Free Music Archive
Free music, in a simple and selected
Much more simple, and completely free of limitations related to the residence, instead, the discourse on Free Music Archive, a website that now offers a catalog of more than 60,000 songs, often issued via a Creative Commons license. Founded by a WMFU radio free America, the site is carried out thanks to the collaboration of some "curators" (as KEXP, dublab, KBOO, ISSUE Project Room and CASH Music) and offers its readers on a daily basis new files to download and discover.
"It is not only free music, good music also»
The motto is It's not just free music; it's good music and it's up to point out how the files are even produced by emerging or little-known musicians, but are chosen one by one by the curators. Of course, lack the big names who occasionally can be found on other services, but the strong point is the ability to discover and propose interesting promises, that they want to be known and to offer their songs to the public.
Interesting, finally, the "social" pages of the site: the Twitter account that on Facebook offering, as well as news from the world of music and from the site, each day the link to #SongOfTheDay, IE a track marked by download and listen.
Jamendo
A radio to download new pieces
Perhaps the principal – to offer variety and accuracy of licenses – among the services we present today is that provided by Jamendo, Luxembourg portal that offers free songs from 2005 released via the Creative Commons or free art license.
Also in Ogg format via torrent
At the time of this writing in the catalog web site has nearly half a million songs, which have been downloaded 240 million times; the download can take place directly from the site in case of an mp3 file, or via torrent if you want a higher quality file (Ogg). In any case, the offer is very wide, both by genre and origin of albums ranging from jazz to classical music, from pop to electronics, from hip hop to metal.
It is, obviously in this case, by emerging bands, but some services offered by Jamendo feet allow you to navigate easily between the proposals, quickly finding groups to be kept under observation: Besides the classic hit songs most played, in fact, and interesting applications for Smartphones (for both iPhone and Android and Windows, strictly free), there are real catalogued radio by genre, which allow us to jump from one author to another.
NoiseTrade
Free or leaving a tip
More or less the same background philosophy is based also NoiseTrade, cute site even in graphical approach that offers a decent amount of albums by emerging bands, sorted by genres, leaderboards, and various other ways that allow you to find valid suggestions. The most interesting thing here is that every band is presented based on the similarity with famous artists: thus, for example, on the page of each group is marked "For fans of", which enables you to find artists similar to the ones you already love.
The only obligation is to subscribe to the newsletter
To download the album, we must first of all connect to the site, or by registering an account or using the provided login to Facebook; then simply provide a zip code (should be fine even those Italians) and agree that the site may send you emails (which however you may unsubscribe at any time) to download starts immediately. All files are in mp3 format. In addition, after each download will also be offered the chance to give a "tip" to the group, at its own discretion: a way as any to remunerate those bands that you liked.
In addition, the site also offers books and audiobooks – in English only – available according to the same principle: you download for free (in mobi format for epub, Kindle, or for all other readers) and then you decide whether to give a tip or not.
Purevolume
The site that has helped many bands to take off
We conclude with PureVolume, Portal among the oldest in the industry, founded still fifteen years ago by a group of students at the University of Massachusetts; Here, too, the primary purpose is to promote and help to discover emerging bands struggling to gain some visibility; stirring news from the world of mainstream music and legal downloads of mp3 songs, the site has gained some space on the indiescene, much to be purchased in 2010 from SpinMedia, formerly editor of Buzznet, Spin, Vibe and other successful sites.
How is tPurevolumehe music
The artists present in the database can be filtered according to their nationality and even the city of origin (Milan area alone there are about 300), and of course for musical genre; There are also both charts as usual most downloaded songs that the most popular ones that help the neophyte to noise and immediately download any song of good if not excellent workmanship.
Presenting entire albums as well as a single game – always in mp3 format –, the site gives you ample space to a large number of bands, which especially in the past has helped many of them to sign a record deal or at least get noticed. For these pages are in fact passed groups such as Paramore, Boys Like Girls, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco and others.
Today, perhaps, the path is at a turning point. Are now increasingly common services that offer subscription music in fact, like Spotify, and as the discussion is open and lively on how these systems can actually be profitable for artists, the road seems somehow already marked.
However, it is not all that glitters, now and for some qualities that seem to magically solve the life (and even within the limits of legality) there are also many flaws. The principal, for example, is that these services offer music only in streaming, consuming then your data traffic (an element should be taken into consideration when you are on the move); but then you have to consider also the cost of the subscription, which is not always a young student is willing to shoulder.
We rescue arrive though perfectly legal sites that allow you to download music for free: Discover along the main.
Amazon
A catalog of 20,000 songs, but only if you Americans
Paradoxically, the first site of our five (ordered, we say at once, in alphabetical order) is the largest store on the web: Amazon. Jeff Bezos and Associates, in fact, seem to have understood for some time that the best way to sell online is definitely pay a lot of attention to the customer, but also offer a discount system so bold to take – as in the case of music – to make available even several content for free.
Twenty thousand songs, but on the international store
To find out the list of mp3 files that can be downloaded without paying a dollar, it's best to stay away from the Italian version of the store – where the offerings in this field you can count on the fingers of one hand – and move rather on international version: here we find ourselves plunged into a long list of files (at the time of this writing are 20,000 songs) available for download.
The most interesting fact is that it's not just about songs by newcomers: there are Arias by Luciano Pavarotti as the indie pieces of Metric, the songs of She & Him like those of Blondie, plus a whole range of other young artists to be discovered. There is, however, a defect: in order to download music from the American website you must have a u.s. billing address (as until recently, happened for the same Spotify). But if you have a friend in the us who lay (something relatively common now, given how many young Italians moved abroad) – or you already have an address like that, perhaps created in the past for other services – you can easily work around this obstacle.
Free Music Archive
Free music, in a simple and selected
Much more simple, and completely free of limitations related to the residence, instead, the discourse on Free Music Archive, a website that now offers a catalog of more than 60,000 songs, often issued via a Creative Commons license. Founded by a WMFU radio free America, the site is carried out thanks to the collaboration of some "curators" (as KEXP, dublab, KBOO, ISSUE Project Room and CASH Music) and offers its readers on a daily basis new files to download and discover.
"It is not only free music, good music also»
The motto is It's not just free music; it's good music and it's up to point out how the files are even produced by emerging or little-known musicians, but are chosen one by one by the curators. Of course, lack the big names who occasionally can be found on other services, but the strong point is the ability to discover and propose interesting promises, that they want to be known and to offer their songs to the public.
Interesting, finally, the "social" pages of the site: the Twitter account that on Facebook offering, as well as news from the world of music and from the site, each day the link to #SongOfTheDay, IE a track marked by download and listen.
Jamendo
A radio to download new pieces
Perhaps the principal – to offer variety and accuracy of licenses – among the services we present today is that provided by Jamendo, Luxembourg portal that offers free songs from 2005 released via the Creative Commons or free art license.
Also in Ogg format via torrent
At the time of this writing in the catalog web site has nearly half a million songs, which have been downloaded 240 million times; the download can take place directly from the site in case of an mp3 file, or via torrent if you want a higher quality file (Ogg). In any case, the offer is very wide, both by genre and origin of albums ranging from jazz to classical music, from pop to electronics, from hip hop to metal.
It is, obviously in this case, by emerging bands, but some services offered by Jamendo feet allow you to navigate easily between the proposals, quickly finding groups to be kept under observation: Besides the classic hit songs most played, in fact, and interesting applications for Smartphones (for both iPhone and Android and Windows, strictly free), there are real catalogued radio by genre, which allow us to jump from one author to another.
NoiseTrade
Free or leaving a tip
More or less the same background philosophy is based also NoiseTrade, cute site even in graphical approach that offers a decent amount of albums by emerging bands, sorted by genres, leaderboards, and various other ways that allow you to find valid suggestions. The most interesting thing here is that every band is presented based on the similarity with famous artists: thus, for example, on the page of each group is marked "For fans of", which enables you to find artists similar to the ones you already love.
The only obligation is to subscribe to the newsletter
To download the album, we must first of all connect to the site, or by registering an account or using the provided login to Facebook; then simply provide a zip code (should be fine even those Italians) and agree that the site may send you emails (which however you may unsubscribe at any time) to download starts immediately. All files are in mp3 format. In addition, after each download will also be offered the chance to give a "tip" to the group, at its own discretion: a way as any to remunerate those bands that you liked.
In addition, the site also offers books and audiobooks – in English only – available according to the same principle: you download for free (in mobi format for epub, Kindle, or for all other readers) and then you decide whether to give a tip or not.
Purevolume
The site that has helped many bands to take off
We conclude with PureVolume, Portal among the oldest in the industry, founded still fifteen years ago by a group of students at the University of Massachusetts; Here, too, the primary purpose is to promote and help to discover emerging bands struggling to gain some visibility; stirring news from the world of mainstream music and legal downloads of mp3 songs, the site has gained some space on the indiescene, much to be purchased in 2010 from SpinMedia, formerly editor of Buzznet, Spin, Vibe and other successful sites.
How is tPurevolumehe music
The artists present in the database can be filtered according to their nationality and even the city of origin (Milan area alone there are about 300), and of course for musical genre; There are also both charts as usual most downloaded songs that the most popular ones that help the neophyte to noise and immediately download any song of good if not excellent workmanship.
Presenting entire albums as well as a single game – always in mp3 format –, the site gives you ample space to a large number of bands, which especially in the past has helped many of them to sign a record deal or at least get noticed. For these pages are in fact passed groups such as Paramore, Boys Like Girls, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco and others.