Record Online Streaming Music

Back in May, John blogged about Spotify; a desktop application for streaming music via the Internet.

(Spotify – Streaming Music On Your Desktop: http://john-willis.com/2009/05/spotify-streaming-music-on-your-desktop/)

Spotify have struck a deal with the major record labels in a way that it can offer it’s service free of charge. This free service is ad supported, with various banners shown whilst the Spotify browser is open and an audio commercial every 15-30 minutes or so. There is a monthly subscription service to remove the ads, but because of this platform, it didn’t make my recession beating Windows Apps article back in July: (Windows Apps – Beat The Recession: http://john-willis.com/2009/07/windows-apps-beat-the-recession/).

But Spotify is definitely worth a mention. There are artists that have refused to sign up to Spotify, but there is still a wide variety of choice of music in its library. But you can’t download the music, and the cached versions of the files are un-openable. Quite annoying really – since the music has clearly been paid for via the ad service?

I don’t HAVE to listen to the ads (though muting pauses the commercials) and I definitely don’t pay attention to the banners that pop into view from time to time, I can simply remove my head phones or turn the sound down for 30 seconds. This is no different from putting the kettle on during TV commercials, or pausing your recorder to have ad-less playback. The principals and morals are the same – if the product is funded by commercials, surely said product is paid for to be free?

Thankfully, there is away around this platform restriction. It’s a Windows application called Replay Music 3, and is worth every penny, should you choose to download the application from the vendors website.

What I LOVE about Replay Music 3, is it’s ability to automatically rename and complete meta data about the music you’re streaming from services such as Spotify, Napster or Last.fm

Even better than that is the features within the software to delete tracks less than x number of seconds. For example, Replay Music 3 can be set to delete records less than 35 seconds, which would of course – remove the ads. You don’t hear the ads, but the ads got played therefore a pre-funded product has been produced.

I highly recommend these applications as a safer alternative to P2P networks.

Unfortunately, Replay Music can not be emulated in Linux or Mac OS. If you know of an equivalent for these OS’s please leave a comment.

Related posts:

1. Spotify – Streaming Music On Your Desktop