Digital Music



Digital music takes up a lot of space--about 10 MB for every minute
of stereo sound. But, as it turns out, there's a lot of information
in every second of uncompressed digital sound that your ear doesn't
need to hear a song. Codec (compressor/ decompressor) algorithms
shrink an audio file's size, without making the music it contains
sound too much worse. Without codecs, you wouldn't be able to
download, e-mail, or stream digital music over the Internet--the
files would be huge. We'll talk more about how codecs work later on.
For now, let's take a look at some of the most popular codecs out
there.

MP3: Developed by a German software company and can be played on
most players you can find.
WMA (Windows Media Audio): Microsoft's codec. You have to use
Microsoft Windows Media Player to encode WMA files, but many
software players can then decode, or play back, your music.
Ogg Vorbis: An open-source codec--It's totally free and has no
licensing requirements, which has helped it gain popularity.
MP3 Pro: A fairly new codec that attempts to achieve the same audio
quality in smaller file sizes than MP3. It's backward compatible
with existing software MP3 players, so you may see more of it in the
future.
ACC (Advance Audio Coding): Another codec that offers excellent
sound at low-bit rates. Apple Computer uses AAC for the audio
portion of its QuickTime format.
RealAudio: One other file type you might come across is RealAudio.
RealAudio files are usually streamed, rather than downloaded--we'll
talk more about what that means later on. A significant number of
Internet radio stations broadcast in the RealAudio format, playable
by RealPlayer, or RealOne as it's now called. We're not going to use
this format for our projects.



Some of the bigger Web sites that offer music you can legally
download are:

MP3.com
iTunes
MSN Music
AOL
Launch.com: Now part of the Yahoo! Network, this Web site lets you
create your own custom station by rating songs, artists, albums,
genres, and subgenres, or you can listen to other sponsors' radio
stations.
Epitonic.com: An excellent source for MP3 downloads and streams of
cutting-edge music. Its knowledgeable staff of music experts makes
its presence known on the Web site, separating this site from other
free or subscription-based music sites.
Garageband.com: Lets bands upload their own music for others to
download and rate. Dig around on the Web site--you'll find a
terrific variety of artists outside the mainstream.
So how do you know if you're committing copyright infringement? The
rules depend on the content you're dealing with. If you copy
something from an unprotected format such as a CD, you haven't
circumvented copyright protection, but your right to copy the
content would still depend on how a court saw your actions relative
to what is allowed by the fair use doctrine.

In a nutshell, you don't automatically have the right to rip and
burn copies of music--even if you purchased it. Just because you can
find a downloadable copy of a song online doesn't mean it's legal to
grab it and save it to your hard drive.

For example, it's possible to save streamed music with a piece of
software called Total Recorder, which essentially grabs the audio
right from your sound card as the decoded stream is being played.
But recording copyrighted, encrypted streams is a felony against the
DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

Subscription Services and Other Issues
So how can you legally download the latest hits? You can do so
through a subscription service. You can pay a monthly fee to
download copyrighted music and compensate copyright owners in the
process. Unfortunately, the copyright protection these Web sites
apply to their files often renders the downloads illegal to use as
source material, since you'd have to circumvent copyright protection
to turn them into WAVs. But for personal listening, subscription Web
sites can be worth the price of admission. MSN Music, Amazon,
Listen.com, Emusic.com, the new Napster.com, and Andante.com, all
offer downloads in exchange for a monthly fee; the iTunes.com Store
lets you download individual songs for $.99 each--with no monthly
fees.

Burn A CD:
The basic process, regardless of the program you use, is simple:

You insert a music CD in the drive, and instead of playing it, you
use the software of your choice to copy the entire contents of the
CD to your hard drive and save it as WAV on a PC or AIFF on a Mac.
You're making an exact copy of every bit - literally! This process
can take anywhere from a few minutes to about an hour, depending on
how up-to-date your equipment is.
After the copy of the CD is on your hard drive, you can eject the
original, insert a new, blank CD-R, and copy the contents from your
hard drive onto the CD-R. The result is an audio CD you can play on
any CD player.

Be Your Own Radio Station
How many people do you know who have a personal radio station? The
answer is none (legally, anyway)--because the FCC won't allow it.

But you can Webcast your own show--worldwide--and often for free.
Using the Internet, you can transmit your own show to as many other
computers as allowed by your station's connection and processor
speeds. Unlike other radio media, the Internet always has room for
another station--yours included. You just need to choose an approach
that matches your levels of commitment, both financial and temporal.

The easy way to broadcast online: head over to Launchcast and set up
your own station for free. It's easy to follow the instructions and
begin rating genres, artists, albums, and songs. The more you rate,
the more your station reflects your tastes. You don't need to have
your own music or bandwidth--you're selecting the songs and
streaming your station from an online catalog.

Eventually, you'll want to Webcast songs from your own music
collection. You can program your own station with a little help from
Live365; upload your MP3s to the server, and stream them. You'll pay
a bit--$5 per month or more (depending on how much you want to
stream)--but you can try a 14-day free trial first.

When you choose music for your Live365 station, the sky's the limit.
You can Webcast all the copyrighted music you want, legally, because
Live365 uses your monthly fee to take care of the royalty payments.


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