Ok, I'll admit it. I have downloaded Mp3's from the net before. Previously with napster, now audiogalaxy.
Most of the tracks I've downloaded and liked I've bought on CD lateron. Most, not all. (I'll be so fair as to admit that)
But I've seen that Audiogalaxy now has an option of upgrading to a "gold" membership. Which would mean $22 a year. I would gladly pay that amount, hell I would even pay double or triple that IF that would mean then that when I download an Mp3 thought their service that I'm NOT doing something illegally.

Therefor I'm in doubt. I want to pay them, but then I'd have to register with them I don't know what they will do with that info. If it's a normal buisiness transaction : great. But I don't want to risk the RIAA (or their equivalent in my country) to come knocking on my door saying they've received my info though the Audiogalaxy service and are now going to sue the hell out of me.
See my problem? I WANT to pay, but because this is such a grey area, I'm afraid to do so.

Does anybody have any experiences with them? Is my fear justified or do you all believe it does not make any sense and I should just register?

what would you be paying for it they aren't paying royalties for the stuff you download ?

Downloading music isn't illegal in the US.

But I see you're in Belgium.

I don't know what I'll be paying for? For all I know they use the money to pay royalties with?
That's why I'm asking.

yes, and AFAIK downloading music isn't illegal here also...if you pay royalties. And that's what I would like to do, but I don't know if if my money would be used for that.

The audiogalaxy membership fee is simply funding audiogalaxy.

As per the gold membership info page,
http://audiogalaxy.com/account/gold/about.php?

If you are a frequent user of Audiogalaxy, consider becoming a Gold Member. For a low monthly fee, you can help to support Audiogalaxy, and you gain access to special Gold Member benefits.

Features include:
Satellite Gold: An optimized version of the Satellite application that sets up tranfers faster and uses a reserved set of servers so you won't have trouble connecting at peak usage times. Satellite Gold can only be used with Gold Accounts.
Note: the Gold Satellite will have the same issues as the Standard Satellite connecting to Audiogalaxy through a firewall or proxy. Make sure you understand this before upgrading.

Dedicated Web Servers: Gold Member accounts can access a dedicated set of web servers by going to http://fast.audiogalaxy.com instead of http://www.audiogalaxy.com. These servers have reserved capacity for all Gold users, resulting in faster-loading web pages even at peak usage times.

No Banner Ads: We remove the banner ads and generally keep advertising to a minimum on the servers dedicated for Gold users.

Change Queue Priorities: Choose the order in which your songs are downloaded.

All Artists List: The Artist List is an alphabetized list of all recognized artists on Audiogalaxy. Non-Gold members only have access to the Hosted Artist List.

Gold Message Board: Private messageboard for Gold Members only.




It doesn't seem to list paying the artists anywere in that list. Even if you pay the membership fee you are still pirating the music if you don't buy the CD.
I have dl'd my fair share of mp3's so don't take the above the wrong way. If you want to download music off the net that is your choice. I just wanted to clear up any illusions of legality .

-NiCKEL

Ah, that's good to know. Though I've always believed that would be an answer to a lot of the problems : I don't think many people would object to a small monthly fee to cover royalities IF they could then get a Napster-like service.

That's what emusic does. The problem is the copyright holder would have to agree to let them do this (they can't just send a check to columbia and say it's all good) So I doubt there will ever be anything from a major record company on there.

Emusic is great for 10 USD a month.

emusic is a great site, but they don't have very much content that interested me.

Yeah, the only program I've found that's as good as Napster is WinMX. The only problem with it is it always locks up after a few minutes, so I can only download one or two songs before I have to restart the program. Does anyone else get this problem with WinMX?

That's what I thought when I signed up. I pretty much signed up for the nofx stuff then I looked around and checked out some of the bands they recommended and found they have alot of music I like from bands I have never heard of. I Think if you are just looking for bands you have already heard of you will be disappointed you have to look a little deeper and be willing to try out new bands.

I have never had that problem out of WinMX, I love the program... the only problem I have had is it times out a lot while trying to connect to another server, but that is overcome easily

I can't figure it out. It does it every time.