Don’t Get Sued… Use Tunerec
With the RIAA already suing teenagers for downloading pirated music, it’s time you move to the safer side and try another alternative. And yes, that ‘other’ alternative can be free and legal.
Tunerec is a web based service, that ‘records’ songs off internet radio streams and then tags them all for your convenience. Since it has to ‘record’ the streams first, it takes some time to save them in your database. But the patience is eventually rewarded. It has an iTunes like interface, where you can search for artists, songs and albums; Make playlists and also share them with friends.
Although I don’t understand why it has to ‘record’ songs for each user, and not just once for all its users, it probably doesn’t take much time as the number of songs i had last week jumped a whopping 100K this week, taking the total, as of now, to 1 Million.
It may not have all the songs you want, and likely demands patience even for those it has, the audio quality is commendable with very less buffering interuptions. As for the ‘legal’ thing you may be wondering about, the site mentions that it is completely legal and RWW also notes that Tunerec “ has worked out an agreement with the Swedish songwriters association STIM and the musicians (or at least the labels) get paid for every every song played on the service. ”
You can also invite your friends to the service and share your playlists with them.
Tunerec is currently in currently in closed beta but i was able to get into the service right away after i signed up. People living in Europe have a better option than Tunerec and that is Spotify. But sadly, Spotify is only available in Europe and will take some time untill it opens up to the U.S and rest of the world. Untill then, you have Tunerec. If you don’t like it, go buy your own CDs 
(By) An avid freelance writer and technology enthusiast, Keshav Khera is young geek from India. Fanatic about the web, he also writes a blog and makes unsuccessful efforts to avoid twitter.
3 Comments
I had this general idea some time ago: continually record from the radio and compare audio streams, then store reoccurring portions. Eventually you should end up with the majority of songs (ends might still have a bit of DJ commentary). Neat to see it actually being implemented. Unfortunately there’s no telling how long till the RIAA finds a way to shut them down. A good open-source solution might be the cure for that.
Although not evident, the RIAA may, or may not find a way to shut it down….Recently, The Pirate Bay was dropped from half of the charges they had on them…Time will tell the future of online music sharing
Hi,
I have spoken to the head tech at Tunerec and they have now agreements with the music industry in place and are implementing so that there will not be any need for radio recordings, all users will gain access to all music in the world directly. Only the small labels, which they haven´t had time to negotiate with will be recorded off radio stations!
I think its an awesome service and i like it better than spotify since you may share songs and playlists, which is one my favourite functions.
Will be awesome when all music is available from day one though, but for us old users it might not be much of a difference since i already have almost every song in the world by now.
Take care!