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The Music2Web FAQ
Here’s a brief rundown of some common questions and answers for new users of music software and sites on the Web - for both listener and artists alike.
For Listeners
For Musicians and Artists
How do I find music to download?
There are a couple different ways to download digital music. If you want to acquire many songs from many different artists or genres, joining a digital music service is probably a good idea. Major download sites like Napster, Rhapsody, Emusic, Itunes, MusicMatch, MusicNet, AOL, Yahoo, and Amazon provide huge collections of songs and albums for download, either on a per song basis, or for monthly fees (see how much does it cost). Additionally, many individual artists and labels offer downloadable songs from their own web sites, often for free.
What’s the difference between streaming and downloading?
There are two ways to listen to music on the web: Streaming and Downloading. When you download a song, you take an entire audio file that contains a complete song, and put it on your computer.
When you stream songs off the internet, you receive what you hear in real time, so the entire song is never on your computer all at once. This is usually free and also saves a lot of disk space, provided you have a fast internet connection. With slower connections, the sound can be uneven and jerky. If you stream the song you also can transfer it to a portable MP3 player or put it on a CD.
Web radio is a continuously streaming broadcast, so when you “tune in”, what you hear streaming is what is being heard by everyone listening to that station at that time. Some web radio sites are just the broadcast of a standard radio station on the Internet, while music portals like 365live.com provide ongoing streams of music, usually based on genre.
How much does it cost?
Depending on which songs and where you get them, costs range from free to about a dollar per song, or can be in the form of flat monthly fees. Napster, for example, offers two services, one that simply charges 99 cents per song, and a more comprehensive service that begins at $9.95 per month.
Rhapsody charges a similar monthly fee, while Emusic has different options depending on how many songs you think you will download per month. For a comparison of the different services out there, check out the Legal Music Services Guide comparison chart: http://legal-music.info/allservices/. Streaming is usually free.
What about free downloads?
Artists often offer one or two songs free, since this helps to promote themselves and their songs, and hopefully encourages listeners to purchase albums. In other cases, the artist or record company can make many songs available to listen to free, but ‘mark’ each songs so that it will only play three times before you’re required to purchase it.
“Weed” is one service that does this, with the added benefit that when people purchase songs that you shared with them, then you receive 20 percent of the purchase price. Also, many sites will also allow you to stream music for free, but charge if you would like to download it. Download.com’s Music section also contains a large collection of free downloads: http://music.download.com
What do I need to listen to music online?
To stream music off the internet without downloading it, you need a computer, access to the internet, and a media player. Some of the more common media players include Quicktime, Real Media Player, and Windows Media Player. You can download these and many others for free at download.com.
Once you have all these, you simply need to visit any website that offers streaming audio. Many bands, artists and labels let you stream songs as well.
Many “real world” broadcast radio stations broadcast on the web as well. To find them, visit radio-locator.com, which has “links to over 10,000 radio station web pages and over 2500 audio streams from radio stations in the U.S. and around the world.” (http://www.radio-locator.com)
Why do some songs sound better than others?
There are two main factors that affect sound quality with internet music. The first is the quality level at which the track was recorded into electronic form. The second is the quality of your internet connection, if you are streaming music directly off the internet. With downloaded music, the first issue is the big one, though downloaded music is generally of higher quality than streamed music.
When a song is put in MP3 form, the original file (perhaps on a CD) is read and the song is compressed according to certain rules. But different programs for compressing songs work in different ways. Because MP3 is a standard file format, the result is always an output that can be read by all MP3 players, but how well they sound might be different. For example, some programs might create the file faster at the cost of lower sound quality. According to Will Ryu at arstechnica.com, the MP3 compression standard does not specify the encoding process, and this “allows improvements to be added to the encoder without needing to change the MP3 standard, per se. It is this flexibility which has led to the variety of encoders with different encoding speeds and sonic qualities that we have today.”
For streamed music, your connection speed have the biggest impact. If your internet connection is too low, one of two things will happen. Often, your computer will not be able to receive packets of audio information as fast as it can play them, and every little while it will have to stop – this is what causes gaps in the sound. Some sites provide different streams for different connection speeds, so that if you have a slower connection, you can select the appropriate version to stream, which should skip less, but will either require more buffering time or be of generally lower quality.
Just what is a file format?
A file format, according to Wikipedia, “is a particular way to encode information for storage in a computer file.” Computers can only store information in binary form, which means that some way is needed for converting useful information into and from binary.
The best way to do this depends on what is being encoded, which is why there are different formats for music, documents, and video games. And even for the same sort of media being encoded (say, audio) there are different file formats, depending on the programs used.
For example, MP3’s are one format for songs, and waveform files are another. You can identify all file formats by their three letter extensions: MP3 files all end in “.mp3”, waveform files in end “.wav”, files created with Microsoft Word end in “.doc” etc. For a complete listing of all file formats, visit WhatIs.com’s “Every File Format in the World:” http://whatis.techtarget.com/fileFormatM/0,289951,sid9,00.html
What is an MP3?
An MP3 is an audio file that has been efficiently compressed using the “MPEG Audio Layer-3” format. This is simply a very smart way to encode audio files so that they have relatively small sizes, but still offer nearly the same sound quality, which makes them well suited to sharing music over the internet.
On average, one minute of music takes up about one megabyte. The term “MP3” is the abbreviation used as the file extension for files compressed in this format – they all end with “.mp3”. The MP3 encoding process works by using knowledge of human hearing to identify and leave out sounds that humans are unlikely to be able to distinguish, such as very high frequencies or tones which are overshadowed by louder tones.
How do MP3 Players work?
MP3 players are small portable devices that play MP3’s just like a computer, except that they are small enough to take anywhere. All you need to do is get your music files onto the player. According to HowStuffWorks.com, “all of the players currently on the market include a software application that lets you transfer your MP3 files into the player. Most of them also include utilities for copying music from CDs or Web sites, and the ability to create custom playlists.”
Just like with a computer, the number of songs you can store depends on how much memory you have in your MP3 player. This can range from 64MB for some of the less expensive versions (good for a couple albums), up to 20 and even 60 Gigabytes for players like the iPod and Archos Jukebox Recorder (food for an entire music collection). Of course, whenever you are at home with access to your computer, you can change what songs are on your portable player.
When shopping for an MP3 player, other things to check for are battery life, and whether it will play multiple file formats, like Windows Media audio (.wma).
What are file sharing networks?
File sharing networks (more accurately “peer-to-peer file sharing services”) make it easy for people who might not know each other to find and share files over the internet (including music files). Examples include Kazaa, Gnutella, Grokster, and Morpheus.
The main issue to be concerned about if you decide to use these programs is that you can easily download copyrighted material illegally. And while a federal appeals court recently ruled that the services themselves can’t be held liable, individuals who illegally share copyrighted material can still be in trouble – recording companies have thus far sued over 3,400 illegal file swappers.
For a nearly complete listing and review of these services, check out: http://www.webtechgeek.com/Mp3-File-Sharing-Programs.htm
How do I put my music on the Web?
There are a couple different routes to take. You can create your own website with information about the band, songs available for streaming and download, and whatever else you like. You’ll need to find a hosting service that will allow you enough space an bandwidth to make hosting your music feasible. We can reccomend MidPhase, a hosting company with an excellent reputation that we use ourselves.
You can also let larger sites host your songs. These sites hosts lots of different artists in the same place, and generally give each of them some amount of space (usually in a standardized format) in which to describe themselves and make songs available for download.
Keep in mind that large music portals often suffer from severe server overload, which means that your web pages and songs may be very sluggish to the sites visitor.
How do I get my music on Napster or iTunes?
The best way to get your music on digital music services is through CD Baby or The Orchard two leading online independent music distributors.
Most online music services (digital distribution) won’t work directly with artists, its just too unweildy. Instead they negotgiate terms with publishers and agencies. Thats why distributors like CD Baby and the Orchard are great resources for the unsigned artist.
With CD Baby, you “lend them the right to be your distributor” and they distribute your songs to the major download sites like Napster, iTunes, Rhapsody and Emusic. This service is free provided you are a CD Baby member. They then collect a 9% commission from songs sold on those services. The Orchard takes a flat fee of $49 dollars per release, and distributes your music to 13 major outlets in the United States and many times more in other countries.
While there are other services, few come close to the impact the companies mentioned above can have on your online distribution.
Do I need to copyright my songs?
You don’t have to but you should. According to the U.S. Copyright office, a copyright gives you the right to reproduce a work, prepare derivative works, distribute copies, perform the work publicly, and also to authorize others engage in those activities.
Technically, you don’t need to do anything to secure a copyright – once you have created a song, you hold the copyright to it. However, there is a difference between securing a copyright and registering a copyright, and you must register your copyright in order to be able file suit against people who have infringed upon it.
For more information on the benefits of registering and how to register, visit the U.S. Copyright office: http://www.copyright.gov
How do I convert my songs to mp3 format?
If you have created or recorded music onto your computer, you will need a program to convert it into MP3 format. There are many different programs on the market for this specific purpose, some which convert back and forth between only wav files, and others which convert many file types.
There is considerable variability in speed, size, and cost (from free to about 30 dollars). For a large list and reviews, see download.com. However, if you have a digital audio workstation for creating and editing your own music, you might not need a separate program, since they often contain this feature.
How do I make sure my music is protected online?
You can encrypt – but why would you? You really want to protect your authorship and performance rights, not prevent your songs from being played. You can get this protection by registering your music with organizations like ASCAP, SESAC or BMI along with Sound Exchange, which tracks public performances, airplay and Internet play of registered song. They also collect and distribute royalty payments.
Given that you’ve done this, you’d rather have as many people perform or play your music as much as possible. If you really want to ‘protect’ it, keep it locked in a drawer in your bedroom.
What is an FTP program?
An FTP program lets you easily move files over the internet. FTP stands for “File Transfer Protocol,” and FTP programs are user interfaces that allow you to send files using this protocol. An FTP program is very useful for moving files from your computer to your website.
Some common FTP programs include Cute FTP, Smart FTP, WS_FTP, and FileZilla. Downloadable trial versions can be found at download.com.
For more information on just what FTP is, visit FTPplanet’s beginners guide: http://www.ftpplanet.com/ftpresources/basics.htm
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