In recent months the RIAA(Recording Industry Association of America) has cracked down on college campuses nationwide including my own SUNY at Oswego in another effort to reduce piracy. Regardless of where you stand on the moral issue of piracy everyone would love to(safely) obtain free or relatively inexpensive music/movies/tv online. I’ve put together a short list of your best options and will would like to explain a few basic issues around online music and video today.
Before I begin listing sources for media I would like to share with readers one of the biggest issues in 21st century media. Digital Rights Management.
“Digital rights management (DRM) is a generic term that refers to access control technologies used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices.” -Wikipedia
What this essentially means to the average person is that if you buy a DRM-Locked song or movie, the company who sold it to you decides what devices you play it on or how long you can play it for. Some forms of DRM force consumers to periodically log online for their device to “check in” with the music store to make sure you still have the rights to play those files. If you don’t, the files may be deleted.
It is analogous to say purchasing a Ford vehicle and discovering you can only use Chevron gas in it.
Some have voiced concern over what this means when a company changes it’s direction or policy and switches off the servers your computer or device checks in with. Such as Google did with their “download to own/rent” program in 2007. I lost about $15 in television shows I legally had purchased. To be fair Google did offer limited refunds in the form of credits to the Google Checkout program but this is one of the downfalls of DRM that will have to be dealt with if companies continue to employ it.
XKCD.com Explaination of DRM.
The online webcomic xkcd known mostly for it’s geek-culture humor has on occasion expressed a serious opinion on legal or business issues surrounding technology has an excellent description of DRM. (The comic is traditionally laden with sarcasm, they are by no means promoting piracy, simply pointing out the holes in DRM policy through sarcasm)
Personally I believe the biggest risk to DRM media collections is the failure or the legal entanglement of the company that verifies the media you own is legitimate. It would only take a court order in a suit between a record label or movie studio and a media distributor to deactivate any copy of a given song, album or movie that consumers have legally purchased until the dispute is resolved.
The reason I bring this issue up to my peers is when we purchase music or movies while we could have obtained them for free we should have the same right to our newly obtained property as if we bought it on CD or DVD.
As there is no laws to prevent music labels and movie studios from employing DRM there are two other recourses to take. Either stop buying music from any label or studio that supports DRM(to be discussed momentarily) or purchase the DRM-Free copies of your music from iTunes or Amazon, the two biggest sellers of optional DRM-Free files.
Now for the fun part of this article. Below you will find a list of online sources for free or cheaper music, movies or TV shows. All 100% legal.
Free Movies and Television
Hulu.com
Hulu is one of my personal favorite websites. Up-to-date with many current television shows and with limited commercial interruptions Hulu has one of the best full length TV collections on the internet. There are many older shows that are hard to find on DVD or in cable syndication. Their movie collection on the other hand is not nearly as extensive but you can still usually find some very decent films on there. New content is added daily.
TV.com
TV.com while hosting its own television and movies also aggregates Hulu content, allowing you access to the Hulu repository of video as well as TV.coms own selection. It was voted one of the top 10 websites that will matter in 2009. In coming months you can expect this site to expand its offerings a great deal.
Joost.com
Joost is another excellent source for online video that does not put you at risk for finding yourself at the receiving end of a copyright infringement lawsuit. While many of the films seem to be duplicated between Hulu and Joost, there are some television shows that are exclusive to Joost.
Free Music
Music is sadly much more difficult to find without some “strings” attached. Much of the “free” music only plays on a limited number of devices and is locked with DRM or other catches involved in downloading the files. But if you have one of the supported devices and DRM doesn’t bother you then none of the following sites should cause you any problems.
Spiral Frog
Spiral Frog seems to be the top contender in the free-legal-music download arena, though plagued by problems with downloading early on and limitations on what devices can play the files(iPods and Zunes are out of luck) if you’re lucky you can download many of the top 40 songs and popular artists.
Ruckus
Ruckus has been reviewed many times online. It offers free ad-supported music to any student with a valid .edu email address. As with Spiral Frog Ruckus has a limited selection of Mp3 players the files work with but if you are just interested in streaming music to your computer this is an excellent choice.
Paid Music and Video Options
After reviewing the free alternatives I have several paid options that are more than worth taking a look at.
Netflix
Everyone knows of Netflix for delivering DVDs to your door via postal service but a lesser known feature is the ability to watch over 12,000 movies and television shows off from their website starting with their $8.99 plan. This offer became even more appealing as Netflix announced last November that their content could be streamed through any Xbox360 with an active internet connection. Meaning you can watch any of those 12,000 movies and shows on your television through your Xbox360.
eMusic
eMusic is to iTunes what the different but oddly “cool” kid in highschool was. With music offered as .Mp3 files it will play on any computer or music player. The downside is that currently the music has been limited to independent labels and artists. Starting at $9.99 a month for 40 songs the actual cost is very reasonable. With the recent news that major retailers of music are dropping DRM on music from the major labels we may see eMusic finally able to ink deals with the larger music industry players, effectively putting it on a level playing field with iTunes.
The selection seems limited at this time but 2009 promises to be a year of good news for ad-supported or otherwise “free” media. Especially if you enjoy independent artists. The major labels may take longer to adopt giving away their music or using ad-supported content. In the realm of paid music files, Apple has recently announced that it would soon forgo the default usage of DRM on all four major record labels music. They also announced a “tiered” pricing plan which some songs may be available for $.69 as opposed to the standard $.99. This may be to compete with AmonzonMp3 lowering the price of many songs listed there. This could be the beginning of a price war that may make free-music a moot point in the future, once the cost of digital-only music becomes reasonable in comparison with buying a CD.
As new and interesting sources come to my attention I will be posting them via my blog at http://lifetwopointoh.wordpress.com
