how-to: download mp3s in web 2.0
the internet is a humongous resource. to say that mp3s could only be found in file sharing networks is a gross underestimation of the collective rectum's capacity.
first was the era of IRC. it was a great resource. but the danger of being infected or nuked was just too high. also, it takes forever to be served especially during high-traffic hours where those waiting in queue could easily reach to a hundred. furthermore, there are also a lot of arrogant operators. so great resource, but annoying to use.
then the file sharing networks took over. napster, then kazaa, then now limewire. i'll admit that these programs were great. but as time wore on and the music industry began to fight back, these programs started failing to deliver. it started with the quality of the downloads not being good. then the music industry, led by the RIAA, started cracking down on the users. So, less resource coming from the US. Then they went further as to flood the network with fakes and dummy copies. again, it became annoying as well.
then came rapidshare. with rapidshare, sharing became a centralized thing again, from being uncentralized with the p2p networks, with file hosters being the central server. of course these central servers didn't allow posting of copyrighted materials, but by the time they take it down, a lot of people would have already been able to download it. sounds great, but the downside is, its hard to come across the links to download the files. a query of '%song's name%.mp3 site:rapidshare.de' in google would usually yield nothing since the filenames of the mp3s are usually incoherent text. so you have to query '%song's name%' mp3 rapidshare' to be able to view pages where those appear. that means digging through pages upon pages of search results, usually forum posts. furthermore, after a month of inactivity, file hosters would usually delete the file making searching for mp3s a race against time. however, some sites still provides a great resource like cameron's blog here.
now with web 2.0, blogs have taken over. and i can assure you, you'll find a lot. this is a lot like the rapidshare thing except that the mp3s are hosted by the blog owners. you can find these by simply googling '%song's name% mp3 blogspot'. you will be treated to a list of a lot of blogs. now, not all of them have mp3s in it, but a lot of them do. thing is, bloggers would always claim that the mp3s they post are for previewing purposes only and that they would gladly take down the mp3s if the artist asks them to take it down. some bloggers also take down the mp3s after a week, but there are a gazillion other bloggers there anyway. so, what's nice with doing it this way? well the quality is often top-notch, you'd also come across a lot of other mp3s from artists you probably haven't heard of,and its absolutely of no danger of being tracked by RIAA. and once you find a blog full of mp3s, check out where that blog links to, chances are, they are music blogs as well. to help you get pointed in the right direction, here are a couple of blogs:
Bow plus Arrows- one of the "central blogs"
My Old Kentucky Blog- one of the oldest blogs
some blogs would also have a nifty flash-based music player like what i'm using in this page. you can also rip off music from there if you like something that's playing. just follow these steps:
1. Right-click 'View Source'.
2. Search for the string "*.swf?playlist_url=http://*.xspf*". for this site, this is an example "http://www.freewebtown.com/fapri/xspf_player_slim.swf?playlist_url=http://www.freewebtown.com/fapri/how_can_i_tell_you.xspf&autoplay=true&repeat_playlist=true" the italicized part points to where the flash player is located, you have no need for that. it will be followed by a '?' to denote a parameter. look for the 'playlist_url' parameter. all like players will have this for this contains the links to the actual mp3 files. the value of 'playlist_url' will always be an absolute path.
3. Copy the value of 'playlist_url', http://www.freewebtown.com/fapri/how_can_i_tell_you.xspf in the example above, and paste it in the address bar of your browser.
4. Your browser would know that the xspf file is actually an XML file and so all it will contain is data and thereby display it in a friendly way. If your browser won't display it properly, download it then open using notepad.
5. Since its XML, you will be looking at the values inside the tags, and all playlists for this type of player would follow the same format. the 'annotation' tag would usually contain the song's name. then the 'location' tag will contain the absolute location of the mp3. Copy that then paste to your web browser's address bar to download it.
this will not work with myspace's player. this also won't work if the player is integrated into a bigger flash animation since it would effectively hide the parameters.
now, if you didn't like either of the two ways to nick mp3s from the web, there is of course another easier way. but that's not the point, you're gonna miss out on the fun of discovering unknown people's blogs which may contain a lot of other info and even more mp3s and resources. to take a leaf out of Forrest Gump's page, "Life is like googling blogspot for mp3s, you'll never know what you're gonna get". ok, ok i'm being melodramatic. the easiest way to nick mp3s from blogs is, of course, to go to the site which indexes mp3s from blogs! d-oh! its located here:
SONICX- for all you lazy people out there who's gonna miss out on seeing all those porn pics from bloggers all the world over. oops, now i said too much. haha, nah, just kiddin. ;-)
i'd recommend that you drop by the sites which sonic indexed cause if you liked what you're nicking from that site, then you'd probably find other more fun and exciting stuff there.
and this concludes my how-to. remember, i posted this guide for previewing purposes only.
first was the era of IRC. it was a great resource. but the danger of being infected or nuked was just too high. also, it takes forever to be served especially during high-traffic hours where those waiting in queue could easily reach to a hundred. furthermore, there are also a lot of arrogant operators. so great resource, but annoying to use.
then the file sharing networks took over. napster, then kazaa, then now limewire. i'll admit that these programs were great. but as time wore on and the music industry began to fight back, these programs started failing to deliver. it started with the quality of the downloads not being good. then the music industry, led by the RIAA, started cracking down on the users. So, less resource coming from the US. Then they went further as to flood the network with fakes and dummy copies. again, it became annoying as well.
then came rapidshare. with rapidshare, sharing became a centralized thing again, from being uncentralized with the p2p networks, with file hosters being the central server. of course these central servers didn't allow posting of copyrighted materials, but by the time they take it down, a lot of people would have already been able to download it. sounds great, but the downside is, its hard to come across the links to download the files. a query of '%song's name%.mp3 site:rapidshare.de' in google would usually yield nothing since the filenames of the mp3s are usually incoherent text. so you have to query '%song's name%' mp3 rapidshare' to be able to view pages where those appear. that means digging through pages upon pages of search results, usually forum posts. furthermore, after a month of inactivity, file hosters would usually delete the file making searching for mp3s a race against time. however, some sites still provides a great resource like cameron's blog here.
now with web 2.0, blogs have taken over. and i can assure you, you'll find a lot. this is a lot like the rapidshare thing except that the mp3s are hosted by the blog owners. you can find these by simply googling '%song's name% mp3 blogspot'. you will be treated to a list of a lot of blogs. now, not all of them have mp3s in it, but a lot of them do. thing is, bloggers would always claim that the mp3s they post are for previewing purposes only and that they would gladly take down the mp3s if the artist asks them to take it down. some bloggers also take down the mp3s after a week, but there are a gazillion other bloggers there anyway. so, what's nice with doing it this way? well the quality is often top-notch, you'd also come across a lot of other mp3s from artists you probably haven't heard of,and its absolutely of no danger of being tracked by RIAA. and once you find a blog full of mp3s, check out where that blog links to, chances are, they are music blogs as well. to help you get pointed in the right direction, here are a couple of blogs:
Bow plus Arrows- one of the "central blogs"
My Old Kentucky Blog- one of the oldest blogs
some blogs would also have a nifty flash-based music player like what i'm using in this page. you can also rip off music from there if you like something that's playing. just follow these steps:
1. Right-click 'View Source'.
2. Search for the string "*.swf?playlist_url=http://*.xspf*". for this site, this is an example "http://www.freewebtown.com/fapri/xspf_player_slim.swf?playlist_url=http://www.freewebtown.com/fapri/how_can_i_tell_you.xspf&autoplay=true&repeat_playlist=true" the italicized part points to where the flash player is located, you have no need for that. it will be followed by a '?' to denote a parameter. look for the 'playlist_url' parameter. all like players will have this for this contains the links to the actual mp3 files. the value of 'playlist_url' will always be an absolute path.
3. Copy the value of 'playlist_url', http://www.freewebtown.com/fapri/how_can_i_tell_you.xspf in the example above, and paste it in the address bar of your browser.
4. Your browser would know that the xspf file is actually an XML file and so all it will contain is data and thereby display it in a friendly way. If your browser won't display it properly, download it then open using notepad.
5. Since its XML, you will be looking at the values inside the tags, and all playlists for this type of player would follow the same format. the 'annotation' tag would usually contain the song's name. then the 'location' tag will contain the absolute location of the mp3. Copy that then paste to your web browser's address bar to download it.
this will not work with myspace's player. this also won't work if the player is integrated into a bigger flash animation since it would effectively hide the parameters.
now, if you didn't like either of the two ways to nick mp3s from the web, there is of course another easier way. but that's not the point, you're gonna miss out on the fun of discovering unknown people's blogs which may contain a lot of other info and even more mp3s and resources. to take a leaf out of Forrest Gump's page, "Life is like googling blogspot for mp3s, you'll never know what you're gonna get". ok, ok i'm being melodramatic. the easiest way to nick mp3s from blogs is, of course, to go to the site which indexes mp3s from blogs! d-oh! its located here:
SONICX- for all you lazy people out there who's gonna miss out on seeing all those porn pics from bloggers all the world over. oops, now i said too much. haha, nah, just kiddin. ;-)
i'd recommend that you drop by the sites which sonic indexed cause if you liked what you're nicking from that site, then you'd probably find other more fun and exciting stuff there.
and this concludes my how-to. remember, i posted this guide for previewing purposes only.
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