Take 1: FREE LEGAL MUSIC – Courtesy of Spiral Frog

Now that I have your attention, I’d like to tell you about practically the only true legal way to get free music.

Wait a minute, how is this possible? If they’re not making money from selling the songs, then how will the green giant (I’m referring to the site’s colours, haha) be able to pay the artists and labels for the music?

Through advertising, of course! There are various ads placed around the site, and all you have to do is surf around while your song downloads through their download manager (more on this later in the article). The revenue made from the advertisements then go to the artists and recording labels – and that is basically how Spiral Frog works in a nutshell.

Of course, there is much more to it – you are required to renew your account every thirty days (around once a month). Renewing is an easy process – answer a few questions (a survey of around three short pages) and you’re practically done. Why the surveying? Well, due to the importance of the advertising, they have to choose and target the audiences carefully. The questions are straight-forward and are strictly opinion-based, so no worries. It’s not an IQ-test or anything.

The only cons I see; first, the songs don’t work with the IPOD. Now this is horrible news for around half the population; seeing as how the iPod is the most commercially-successful digital audio player, the majority of the users of digital audio players will not be able to listen to the Spiral Frog songs (which are in .wma format). Secondly, the jailing DRM – the song can only be downloaded once on a pc and put onto two digital audio players. And the DRM expires after sixty days, so the file won’t work if you don’t renew your account after sixty days. Horrible. But hey, you’re getting your money’s worth.

Bad news for the audiophiles; the files are encoded at 128kbps. Not the greatest quality – but comparable to iTunes songs (ignore iTunes plus for now)! In fact, Spiral Frog’s files are quite similar to iTunes – they are both heavily guarded by DRM and are encoded at 128kbps. Nothing for iTunes to be proud of; 99 cents per track as opposed to free – it’s yours to choose (it’s not a difficult decision, believe me…unless you have an iPod, haha).

Downloading the track itself is easy – Spiral Frog’s got a huge collection of popular mainstream music and has contracts with both EMI Music and Universal; two of the big four labels, not bad at all. Enjoy the rocky noises of Bon Jovi or the hardcore rap of Bone Thugs n Harmony! The only weird part is the download manager – which only ensures you don’t download more than one track at a time, as far as I can see (so you view more ads, which is kind of like paying for the music – seems fair). The downloaded song appears in the folder selected by Spiral Frog during the installation (default is the My Music folder). The only pain in the neck – Vista uses a folder called Music, as opposed to My Music – so due to my carelessness I took a while to find the songs.

Spiral Frog is a great concept – and even if it does not succeed (no matter how unlikely that sounds), I think that music companies can learn from the idea of free music. I just wish that the formats were iPod-compatible – and that the DRM wasn’t so darn strong. But I can’t complain; it’s a free service, and if I don’t like it, I should just buzz off (same goes for you, haha).