Tell the RIAA to go away and....
Small Ceiling Mount Speaker

LET THE MUSIC PLAY!



Undoubtedly, nearly all of us browsing the WWW or using the Internet today have heard of the lawsuits being filed against people who use P2P file downloading programs to obtain copyrighted music in digital format...such as an MP3 file.

With the advent of the RIAA suing people who download music illegally, the number of folks doing so have dropped somewhat. This is understandable--people don't want to get sued! Unfortunately, the RIAA isn't suing people who sell CDs, (it's unbelievable that they will do anything else to bite the hand that feeds them) so the question of what to do to avoid paying too darn much for a CD with too few decent songs on it remains unanswered.

Until now....

This page aims to solve that problem with no risk of a lawsuit (though you may get some strange looks by doing some of these things) while you get all the music you want! Finally, no more waiting for slow or overloaded connections, or finding out that the song you just spent 1 year, 2 weeks, 3 days, 4.5 hours, 67 minutes and 89 seconds to download sounds absolutely awful.

(if you're particularly astute, you'll have noticed the sequential numbering of the time above!)

DISCLAIMER: This page is a JOKE! Getting music without compensating the performers is ILLEGAL, no matter how you go about it. I don't expect you to go and do any of this, and if you do, and if you get caught you are the only person who can be held responsible for the results. So don't do this. Your webmaster takes no responsibility for the results of doing anything described on this page.

All this said, let's get started! Have you ever noticed how many public places (banks, offices, elevators, stadiums, etc...) all play a lot of popular music over speakers that are placed all over? Ever noticed all the music you can hear while holding on the telephone before you talk to tech support? Sure you have.

Convenient Ceiling Mounted Speaker
Figure 1: A Typical Ceiling Mount Speaker That Could Play Music

You must surely be asking how you can download this music...well, it is very simple! All you have to use is Speaker File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) to get the music you want. This format is supported by any casette tape or tape recorder that has ever been made...even a simple portable model will do nicely! Anyone can use SFTP--there are only three easy steps!

  1. Locate a speaker playing the music you want.
  2. Position your tape recorder an appropriate distance from the music.
  3. Press record and wait until the song finishes!

The music is easily transferred back into your computer for conversion to MP3 format. All you have to is use Sound Card File Transfer Protocol (SCFTP), which is supported by your tape recorder and almost any sound card out there on the market today. You only need one little cable and the whole thing will be done in three easy steps as before:

  1. Connect tape player to sound card and rewind tape.
  2. Start tape playing. Make sure the sound card is listening and that you can hear what you recorded!
  3. Start recording on the sound card

I am sure that there are many "audiophile" types out there reading this right now and that perhaps they are shaking their heads in disbelief at the mention of this method. That's why there are some alterate methods offering better capture quality and fewer lossy conversion steps available if you're willing to take the additional effort and risk.

Method #2 is pretty much the same thing as what we have already outlined, except you use a multimedia-equipped notebook computer* with a microphone held up to the speaker or other music source while the computer runs a sound recording program.

Method #3 is a bit riskier, but guarantees a completely digital capture of the music you want. All you need to have with this method is a multimedia-equipped portable computer with a CD-ROM drive and MP3 capture program. Simply locate the source of the music, and if it's a CD player, stop the playback of the CD and "borrow" it long enough to pop it into the portable computer so you can convert it to MP3.

Should the source not be a CD player, you will need a simple set of patch cables from it to your notebook computer. Connect the source to your computer's line input and start recording! That's all there is to it!

No matter what you do, let the music play!

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Concerned Copyright Holders Read This: I do not condone theft of your copyrighted materials, but I don't happen to be a big fan of the RIAA. This page was created only for its humor value!