Can we really...
Download unlimited music, movies and software?
Can we really get our music, movies and games free?
How about legally?
On this Page:
- The torrrents and file sharing.
- Where you can get free music legally.
- Azureus and Vuze: torrents plus commercial content that's legal.
- Getting movies and music that is in the public domain, out of copyright or otherwise free to use.
The Torrents
I saw this site, which promised unlimited access to music, movies, games & software.
The site offered all these features:
- With or without file sharing
- With a huge selection
- No per-download fees
- No burning fees
- No download limits
- Top quality movies and music
- 100% Mac and Linux compatible
- MP3 Players and iPod compatible
- Home/Car DVD players compatible
- Burn your movies to DVD and also CD
- Easy and Quick
- Unlimited Support!
Includes:
- Unlimited DVD Movies and TV Shows
- Unlimited Live Concerts and Music Clips
- Unlimited Music Downloads
- Unlimited Games Downloads for all platforms
Who wouldn't want all that?
It sounded good so I signed up. It turned out the site offers information and help for people to start using torrents and torrent clients like Limewire and Azureus.
This is all very good if that's what you want. However it leaves it up to you to work out whether it is legal for you to download copyrighted material available among the torrents.
Since it was a subscription service, I thought maybe it was offering access to, e.g., recent music and movies – that it would be legal to download.
Of course there is a lot of material in torrents that people make available for free, which is legal to download.
If it sounds like what you want, find out more here.
Remember, what you are paying for on that site (and there are lots of others like it) is advice, assistance and support for you as you you set up things like your torrent clients, file searching, CD and DVD burning software etc. Those things themselves are all free – so you could also find and install them all yourself.
File sharing services, sites where users submit files for anyone to download, are a security risk. Don't even consider using them unless you are well equipped with protection from malware – such as spyware, viruses, trojan horses and worms. Need help with that? Check out ComputerSecure.net to find out about trusted spyware and anti-virus protection. (Some is free.)
However, what I'm always looking for is an alternative to:
- going out to shop for music or movies
- going out to the video store to rent DVDs
- paying international air parcel prices when I buy something overseas, e.g. at Amazon
And I want to legally own the things I download. Also I don't want to pay a large monthly fee to use a service, because I probably won't use it very often.
I have not found a one-stop solution, but see all the links below for some options.
Free and legal music
We can get some free and legal music from places like:
For a large list of mostly classical music (that is public domain or Creative Commons licensed) see: this collection at Wikipedia.
Amazon
Of course Amazon is a great place to shop. Perhaps the best if you are looking for older or obscure movies, music and, of course, books.
But there is a drawback with Amazon for all of us that live outside the USA – the cost of international air parcel post.
It would be great if we could get free postage. Luckily we can, from some vendors.
Free International Postage
I found an alternative to paying for international air post from Amazon: YesAsia offers free international delivery for DVDs and CDs.
The catalogue at YesAsia is mainly aimed at Asian markets: i.e. they mainly sell Korean, Chineese and Japanese videos and music – but just click on a link that says 'Western' or 'Western Videos' and you will get a catalogue of the latest movies that you can buy with free international delivery.
I haven't yet tried buying from YesAsia but I'm tempted because I see that I can pre-order Inland Empire.
Other Sources
Azureus and Vuze
Check out Azureus and Vuze. Azureus itself is a popular torrent client. Vuze is a related, new project with an emphasis on content encoded with a high video quality. (I.e. DVD quality and High Definition video.) Vuze adds content (TV shows, Anime, Movies) from major media companies including Showtime Networks and BBC Worldwide.
So Vuze distinguishes between the usual torrent content and other licensed digital content that can still be legally used either for free or for rent/purchase at very low prices.
Online Documentaries
This helpful site has categorised links to lots of documentaries that you can watch online for free.
Movies and Documentaries – Public Domain & Out of Copyright
This page lists movies and documentaries that (they say) they have verified to be in the public domain and/or out of copyright.
archive.org: A Huge Digital Library
At archive.org you will find a huge digital library including movies, music and books.
Much of the material is in the public domain and much of it carries a Creative Commons License so it is free to view and even re-use.
Why is this page here?
A while back I wanted to download just one or two songs. I was happy to pay for them. But it was impossible.
I searched for a site to download from. But I was bombarded with search results that went to sites where I could not download anything.
They were all 'portal sites' or automatically generated sites pointing to other portal sites, or just advertising for numerous other music 'download sites' which were nothing of the sort. They were just more music portal sites.
I knew that sites existed where I could buy some MP3s - but they were totally obscured by sites that merely had links to other sites.
When I finally found a site where I could buy MP3s of the songs I wanted it was not very satisfying.
I had to sign up and pay about $20, for a minumum $20 worth of songs. I only wanted two.
Then they couldn't process my perfectly good credit card.
Other sites wanted ongoing monthly fees. But I was not sure that I would want to use them very much. So it might have been a waste of money - on an ongoing basis.
Meanwhile... I have been collecting lots of links to sites with free and legal music and movies you can download.
It's an on-going process, not ready yet: will put it on the blog once I write up all the links and details.