I am getting broadband next week and wonder what you peeps are using to download mp3's ( for personal home use only ;-0 ) I have used kazaa on my normal dial up but wondered what else is out there??

Thanks

Naughtydog

Chris and the other members of DJ UNITED may not be able to answer your question as we dont condone or encourage the downloading of mp3s via sites and/or p2p software such as kazaa. Sorry not to be of any help m8.

LF Discos

I could only recommend trying a few of the usual search engines for things such as "MP3", "Download", "Free" etc...

I dont know any of the alternatives to Kazaa that may appear, (or may not appear) etc, but I'm sure searching the entire internet with a decent search engine, like Google, or Excite etc,etc,etc, should yield you some leads, possibly.

However...there are a number of 100% totally legal download sites now, who have taken on the ideal of "If you cant beat 'em - join 'em"

HMV offer a download system whereby you buy points every month for about £7, and use those points to either download temporarily or permenantly (for more points) songs from an extensive database of CD quality songs. This service is ideal for building a music library, filling in "holes" in existing DJ music libraries, and has saved my bacon several times for those impossible to find "wierd" bride and groom, first dance requests. What this service ISNT however, is upfront/up-to-date. A song which you see charting this week, might not appear for downloading for 5~6 weeks...

Much, much more upfront however is the Woolworths/MVC/Streets on-line, chain...again, totally legal...(lets face it, you wouldnt expect dear ol' Woolies, to be involved with anything suspect). How about this...They advertise an album as "Coming Soon: 3 week time" etc... in many cases, you can go to the "digital downloads" section of their websites, buy the CD at normal cost, there and then, and download the whole album, at CD quality that night. When the album is finally released, they send it to you by post, on the release day. This effectively is a pay-upfront promo/white label service for albums, giving ANY DJ, the ability to play pre-release material...for the same cost as buying the actual album, which you get anyway.

OK, neither of the above download sites are free, or 100% upfront, but costs could come down, and it wouldnt require any technological advancement for them to get more upfront, overnight, if they so wished. (Although I suspect the record companies would rather people bought the music over the counter, than pick'n'mixing only their favourite tracks, off the download sites)

Somebody recently asked me what stance I take on allowing discussions regarding MP3 material on here, and basically the answer depends on how professional we regard the group as a community, and the Terms of my hosting agreement .

As far as the host is concerned, we can talk and link to MP3 sites providing that we don't actually host any illegal MP3 material on the actual DJU server(s). So that only leaves the professionalism aspect, or how far you are willing to go with regard to admitting something like this on a PUBLIC forum!!.

I am never going to edit posts discussing MP3's, nor P2P applications - since both areas are discussed openly in the papers and in the news then I don't see why I should tread on eggshells at the mention of it!. Napster once even got a nice big plug on a certain soap opera!.

Just take care on what information you choose to make public