[catbertz]

I remember watching all the Napster/bittorrent thing from the sidelines, as I bought most of my cd's. I was starting to get aggravated by pricing, and was learning to really hate Lars Ulrich lol

Anyway in '05 the Sony root kit nonsense, along with the new "not certified cd" disks that sometimes don't play right was really the last straw. I wasn't directly affected by them, but it just pissed me off how one-sided the riaa/customer relationship was becoming. Give them an inch...you know.

I had heard good things about AOM, but I was paranoid about the russian mafia, as opposed to our record biz gangsters. I kept browsing AOM, and researching it online, then one day just said "fuck it" and jumped in. Good times. I can't imagine having less than total choice of format/bitrate now.

Funny thing, all my credit cards have called every single time I make a purchase to check validity.

[amperSND]

As all of you, I have gone through all the medium: vynil, CD, and mp3 that really changed my life when I was in college and a friend introduced me to the "new" Napster (when it was cool), I went from about 100 CDs to about 1000 with how easy it was to get music there! Then it was shut down, so moved to Limewire for years and years.

I tried the iTunes store, but didn't like the quality or the restrictions specially for sharing with friends, I also used (and still use) emusic for the more unknown artists and they have DRM-free only, but one day I was browsing Wikipedia I can't remember what for, and under mp3 download or something like that I saw AOMP3 mentioned, I dug into it more, and what really drew me in was the availability of CD quality if you wanted it. After about 10 minutes of using the site, I was hooked!

&

[whitete]

I read about allofmp3 in Rolling Stone. I was late to the P2P era and was looking for a more legitimate way to get music. It's an amazing place to get music. I feel very fortunate that I stumbled upon the site.

Tom

[AlderaaN]

Originally Posted by Gethsemane

I saw a clip on TechTV when it was still around -- that's how I heard about AllOfMp3.com

Cool

Same way I've first heard of the site.

Samuel.

[film_girl]

I don't even remember now how I heard about AllofMP3.com - but it was sometime in June of '04, I must have come across an online article or blog entry, something of the "is this for real?" ilk - and they used to give you instant credits when you signed up (in megabytes) - I took a risk and paid $10 via PayPal, and then I was hooked.

I won't lie, I've long taken advantage of file sharing technology. I'm 24...so when I was 16 years old, MP3s were just starting to become more wildly available - I used to use FTP search engines like oth.net and the original audio galaxy to find stuff - and then you had to go throug the agony of uploading a certain amount before you could download - and this was via dial-up, so if your connection conked out, you were SOL -- and there were some programs that were kind of like a really, really retro Napster - but for the most part, you know, it was hit or miss - especially for anything that wasn't really well-known. Then Napster came along, and everything changed. EVERYTHING. I mean, I was kind of anti-Napster at first, because I had become used to my archaic little process, and didn't like the idea of it being so "easy" -- that changed when a song that took me six weeks to find came up in 5 seconds on Napster. I was like, "screw pride -- this is WAY better" - and then it got so huge. I mean, I've always been a computer geek, always - but most of my friends are not - so the year before Napster, I tried to teach people about MP3s but the whole process was too much for them -- so when people who were not savvy at all started IMing me about Napster, I was like, whoa, this thing is going to be huge.

And when I started college, Kazaa had just started - it still used the Morpheus interface then...and so my T3 backbone connection took advantage of a lot of that stuff. And then as that started to get bad, Bit Torrent was developed and Suprnova and other sites became larger - and AllofMP3 also helped fill a gap.

That said, I'm not just a pirate - I've given the RIAA and the MPAA more money than anyone I know. In fact, I always joke that I would love to be sued, because I'll just come into court with my $20,000 + of DVDs and my several thousand dollar CD collection. I mean, I'm an early adopter of electronics, I'm non the cutting edge - I buy way more than I pirate -a dn the truth is, I can honestly say that because of illegal file sharing, I've spent more money on legitimate CDs. All of MP3 is kind of a grey area - I mean, I always feel like I'm paying for the convience of not having to search a million sites and for guaranteed quality. And sometimes because I'm too lazy to track down a CD that is in a box somewhere, but I don't actually believe that anyone in the industry is getting a dime of my money. And frankly, I'm OK with that - because they get enough of my money. And in return, I get root kits, my peers get sued and we get blamed for what is fundamentally the fault of an industry that refused to update their model to adjust to the times.

I mean, I was born in late 1982, so I haven't really dealt with the whole "re-purchase" thing in regards to music -- a few cassette tapes I replaced with a CD-version, but by the time I started buying a lot of music, CD was the only choice. But I think it's fucked up to recquire people to buy a new copy of material over and over and over again, vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, then the failed SACD and DVD-A options (though that I can get behind more, beecause that truly is for audio fidelity - whereas CD was chosen for manufacturing, not for sound quality anyway)...like, to charge customers three and four and five times just so they can listen to Revolver in their car and on their home stereo is messed up, you know? But if they had jumped on the bandwagon early, started selling DRM-free copies of music, people would have paid. I mean, I bought the Boogie Nights soundtrack for ONE song - a song that wasn't even on the soundtrack (I got it through Columbia House and they didn't have the track list published) -- so I had to buy the second soundtrack. So I spent $30 to get Jessie's Girl (lame, lame, I know - whatever) -- but a year later, I had the opportunity to download that for free. I'll tell you what, if I was willing to buy two CDs for one song -- I would have more than willingly paid $1 for that track to get it online, no question. But you know, the industry messed up -- they refused to play ball and evolve, and now our buying trends have changed and it might be too late.

[solaris]

Originally Posted by film_girl

I don't even remember now how I heard about AllofMP3.com - but it was sometime in June of '04, I must have come across an online article or blog entry, something of the "is this for real?" ilk - and they used to give you instant credits when you signed up (in megabytes) - I took a risk and paid $10 via PayPal, and then I was hooked.

I won't lie, I've long taken advantage of file sharing technology. I'm 24...so when I was 16 years old, MP3s were just starting to become more wildly available - I used to use FTP search engines like oth.net and the original audio galaxy to find stuff - and then you had to go throug the agony of uploading a certain amount before you could download - and this was via dial-up, so if your connection conked out, you were SOL -- and there were some programs that were kind of like a really, really retro Napster - but for the most part, you know, it was hit or miss - especially for anything that wasn't really well-known. Then Napster came along, and everything changed. EVERYTHING. I mean, I was kind of anti-Napster at first, because I had become used to my archaic little process, and didn't like the idea of it being so "easy" -- that changed when a song that took me six weeks to find came up in 5 seconds on Napster. I was like, "screw pride -- this is WAY better" - and then it got so huge. I mean, I've always been a computer geek, always - but most of my friends are not - so the year before Napster, I tried to teach people about MP3s but the whole process was too much for them -- so when people who were not savvy at all started IMing me about Napster, I was like, whoa, this thing is going to be huge.

And when I started college, Kazaa had just started - it still used the Morpheus interface then...and so my T3 backbone connection took advantage of a lot of that stuff. And then as that started to get bad, Bit Torrent was developed and Suprnova and other sites became larger - and AllofMP3 also helped fill a gap.

That said, I'm not just a pirate - I've given the RIAA and the MPAA more money than anyone I know. In fact, I always joke that I would love to be sued, because I'll just come into court with my $20,000 + of DVDs and my several thousand dollar CD collection. I mean, I'm an early adopter of electronics, I'm non the cutting edge - I buy way more than I pirate -a dn the truth is, I can honestly say that because of illegal file sharing, I've spent more money on legitimate CDs. All of MP3 is kind of a grey area - I mean, I always feel like I'm paying for the convience of not having to search a million sites and for guaranteed quality. And sometimes because I'm too lazy to track down a CD that is in a box somewhere, but I don't actually believe that anyone in the industry is getting a dime of my money. And frankly, I'm OK with that - because they get enough of my money. And in return, I get root kits, my peers get sued and we get blamed for what is fundamentally the fault of an industry that refused to update their model to adjust to the times.

I mean, I was born in late 1982, so I haven't really dealt with the whole "re-purchase" thing in regards to music -- a few cassette tapes I replaced with a CD-version, but by the time I started buying a lot of music, CD was the only choice. But I think it's fucked up to recquire people to buy a new copy of material over and over and over again, vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, then the failed SACD and DVD-A options (though that I can get behind more, beecause that truly is for audio fidelity - whereas CD was chosen for manufacturing, not for sound quality anyway)...like, to charge customers three and four and five times just so they can listen to Revolver in their car and on their home stereo is messed up, you know? But if they had jumped on the bandwagon early, started selling DRM-free copies of music, people would have paid. I mean, I bought the Boogie Nights soundtrack for ONE song - a song that wasn't even on the soundtrack (I got it through Columbia House and they didn't have the track list published) -- so I had to buy the second soundtrack. So I spent $30 to get Jessie's Girl (lame, lame, I know - whatever) -- but a year later, I had the opportunity to download that for free. I'll tell you what, if I was willing to buy two CDs for one song -- I would have more than willingly paid $1 for that track to get it online, no question. But you know, the industry messed up -- they refused to play ball and evolve, and now our buying trends have changed and it might be too late.

This might be the most insightful message yet posted in this forum I hope the MAFIAA read it and weep.

solaris

[ipodfan]

Originally Posted by solaris

Dating back to 1981, I have always bought enormous amounts of records: 7", 12" and LP's.

When the CD came around in the last half of the 80's, I (like everyone else) went out and bought almost all the same music on that medium also.

Later I bought virtually all of it once more - now on different compilations: both by single artists and various artists.

Somewhere around the millennium the opportunity to listen before buying arose on the internet: Napster and KaZaA appeared on the scene.

I never got to try Napster and my flirt with KaZaA was a short one. Six months or so, until IFPI began their hunt down in my country. I probably wasn't in any real danger though, since I had sharing disabled all the time. This was in late 2002.

At almost that exact time, I came upon a site called www.mp3sfinder.com, which was the first time, I had had the opportunity to hear songs months before they were released in the UK and the USA.

All went well until January 2004, when the administrator probably got tired of the constant pressure from the music industry and closed down the site.

Where to go now? All the online stores in my Scandinavian country were all married to the evil twin of Satan (DRM) and I couldn't get the music I wanted anyway, so I tried all the British and American online shops, that I knew of (which were many!!!) but only Tesco would let someone from another country buy in their store. Now that is discriminating!!!

I got to download 20 or so DRM'ed songs, before I finally gave up. The keys kept getting invalid or run out, so I could neither listen to or burn my legally bought music.

On January 15 2004 I came across an article on the web, written by the same guy that many of you probably saw on YouTube showing people how to download from AllOfMP3 and revealing porn among his former downloads (this was done on purpose by the way).

Anyway: in this article he praised a Russian download site called AllOfMP3. I gave it a try and I haven't looked back since... and now I'm a MemphisMember

But as you can see from one of my other posts, I still buy a lot of physical CD's, so AllOfMP3 has only increased my spending - not decreased it.

solaris

I can't remember exactly how I found it. It was in Fall 2005 and I was probably searching for a certain album and it came up. Then I googled it (if google existed then) and read articles about it, praising it. I was afraid the first month or two, but then I couldn't resist because of all the qualities we've been talking about here. It was my first foray into downloading and I haven't looked back since. As I've posted here elsewhere, I very rarely purchase physical CDs anymore, and if I do, they're used. Because of these online music sites, I've been introduced to a lot of new music and I too have as a result had my music spending increased. I purchase an average of 2 albums a day now - online. I will always be grateful to Allofmp3 and it will always be my favorite. It's like the Papa Bear of online music sites.

[Blaze]

My husband i both had accounts on allofmp3 prior to marriage. He found it recently. Thus i am back too!

[TxTurbo]

A friend randomly mentioned it one day and I decided to check it out. As soon as I saw the poor translations, I was suspicious and began doing some research. Finding out that the site was quite legal and gaining traction in the media helped calm a lot of my fears. At the time their site was powered by ASP.NET (a programming language I'm familiar with). This gave me the additional confidence to sign up!

Being a DJ who ran an online radio station at the time, I pulled almost 10,000 songs down in just a few weeks time. The rest is.. history.

[lilkat]

I was moderating a computer oriented forum a few years ago and off topic chat turned to audio/video equipment and to music. Allofmp3 was mentioned and I joined before the night was out.