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General discussion

Newbie question re: online music stores for mp3 downloads

Jan 4, 2006 6:14AM PST

Forgive my ignorance on this subject...but...when I create my family photo slide shows on DVD, I like to put background music to them - often a specific song comes to mind. Is there an online mp3 store where I can buy single songs, download them to my PC and have no issues adding the track to the slide show or burning to a CD? I saw where Walmart's online music store was easy to use, but read where there are licensing obstacles. Thanks in advance for your help.

Discussion is locked

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Online music store downloads
Jan 11, 2006 11:01AM PST

After you download the purchased music burn to cd. Then you can use the music from the cd you burned as background music on your dvd.

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music store - iTunes
Jan 17, 2006 4:14AM PST

iTunes is a totally legal online music store - it is the one I use to buy music. I don't have an iPod but I use it anyway because it has a huge variety of songs. Go to http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ to get it (it is a downloadable music player and you can access the store from the player). iTunes is a one-payment-for-song store, which means that there is no monthy fee or anything.

Also, the music player itself is very good at organising all your digital music.

The only problem is that iTunes downloads songs in .m4p format for some ridiculous reason. However, you can easily burn it to a CD (by clicking the CD simbol in the top-right of the player). Then you can extract it and save it as .mp3 using a utility called Exact Audio Copy. You can get it from http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ and then the "Download" button. This tool is very handy as you can extract any audio from any CD, so you can digitalize any of your other music.

Just say if there are any problems.

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(NT) (NT) Thanks, Slasher...I'l definitely look into iTunes.
Jan 17, 2006 4:59AM PST
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MP3 and MP4
Jan 18, 2006 12:59AM PST

"The only problem is that iTunes downloads songs in .m4p format for some ridiculous reason"

Could it be that MP4 is a better format than MP3?

Also remember that all tracks purchased from the iTunes Music Store are copy proctected, as are legally purchased tracks from the Windows music stores

P

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You don't get me. I said .m4p
Jan 19, 2006 1:07AM PST

It downloads in .m4p NOT .mp4. This is because they only want you to use the store for songs for your computer and iPod. But .m4p is a copy-protected thing. This means that I cannot easily change it to .mp3 to play on my mp3 player.

And as far as legality goes, changing the file is OK, as long as you don't distribute it.

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My Bad
Jan 19, 2006 2:40AM PST

but, your statement "for some ridiculous reason" is still, in itself, ridiculous.
They format in that way because the Record companies required copy protection on tracks that were downloaded.
All the other, legal, music download stores do the same thing but use a different format, for some ridiculous reason.


P

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lol yeah
Jan 19, 2006 8:22AM PST

but all the other main ones I've seen are .mp3 but hey. You can always find ways around it. It's just annoying because I can't put .m4p on my mp3 player grrrrr...

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Just...
Jan 21, 2006 4:17AM PST

use Rhapsody.com or Napster.com - they offer single song downloads and are easy to use.

if you PURCHASE the song and/or album, then it is quite easy to then burn to cd, and also add as a track to home movie etc

songs, usually $0.89-$0.99, full albums $7.99 - 10.99

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Napster WMA
Jan 28, 2006 8:57PM PST

Napter downloads are wma protected format........

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Yes - 2 suggestions
Jan 24, 2006 4:45AM PST

Emusic.com and Audiolunchbox.com both sell individual songs in .mp3 format. All of the other services have proprietary file formats. The only drawback is that they have more limited selection - more independent labels.