A sneak peek at the latest ad-supported music downlaoding website in the war against illegal P2P.
I first mentioned FreeAllMusic, the latest and greatest ad-supported music downloading service, a couple of weeks ago, and have been lucky enough to finalkly get an invite to beta test the most recent salvo in the war against illegal file-sharing.
Described by the site’s chief executive, Richard Nailling, as “iTunes meets Hulu,” users can download songs for free after watching a brief 15-30 second advertisement. Users will initially be allowed a maximum of 20 free downloads per month, five per week, starting every “New Music Tuesday.”
FreeAllMusic says the download restriction is based on the usage patterns of a typical “hits-oriented” iTunes customer, and is in keeping with its “walk before we run” philosophy in slowly building its user and advertiser base.
So here’s how it works:
1. Select a song.
2. Select a “brand” to “free” your download.
3. View the ad.
4. Download your free track.
It’s all pretty painless, watching the 30-second ad clip aside, and has a pretty decent selection of music to choose from. For those who regularly use Apple’s iTunes and fit that 20 track purchase “hits-oriented” customer profile FreeAllMusic is definitely for you.
For others the 20 track monthly cap, though temporary, will probably mean you’ll want to use the site in conjunction with other sources of music acquisition until its adjusted upwards.
Stay tuned.
Really… has ANYONE actually gotten an invite besides the admins here?
Jared!
Is there any way to extend the invite to allfreemusic.com to me??
You can use a proxy although its not always the best solution. Often the proxies are blocked by these sites, some sites will limit downloads per IP making proxies fill up immediately, and many proxies have a file size limit. What I’ve started using is a free VPN to connect to U.S. services, so far so good.
@ ArcticFuzzball use an american proxy.
Not a bad idea… probably to mainstream selection for my taste but hey, it’s a start.
I was wondering if anyone actually got an invite after signing up.
More info would have been nice though, like details about the variety, depth of catalog, file bitrate/codec, DRM, etc.
Unfortunately, yet again, visitors outside the US are left out :/ And this time we don’t even get a pretty page, just plain text telling us sorry but go away! If this is a “salvo in the war”, then it’s a pretty weak one.