Free Music At The Library And Streaming Versus Owning
I’ve always loved libraries, but I’m becoming more of a fan now that I’m a blogger. When I go to the library I’m able to focus and write so much easier. It just works.
But I just found out my library gives away free music! And nope – if you’re thinking “yeah they have CD’s there, who uses those anymore?” – it’s not about CD’s. With CD’s you have to take them on loan. You aren’t supposed to copy them, even though I’m sure many folks do.
This is free digital music, and better yet (for me at least) – it’s not streaming. They give away free music in mp3 format!!
It’s called Freegal Music. My library is contracted with the service and they have the entire Sony Music catalog plus some smaller labels. Each week you can download five mp3’s, and they’re yours to keep!
Here’s a screen shot of the interface once you have an account
Oh and if you do prefer streaming you get 3 free hours of streaming every week as well. But I prefer to own mp3’s….
Aren’t MP3’s Dead?
So you may be asking, why is an .mp3 download better than streaming? Well, I still believe in owning music. Once I own a piece of music, it’s mine to keep.
When you pay to use Spotify or Pandora, you’re “leasing” music. If Spotify goes under, that’s it, the access to all that music is gone. You gave them hundreds of dollars over the years and now you have nothing.
Many streaming music services have disappeared from the landscape. And more will.
I don’t totally dislike streaming though. The pluses are that you get access to a massive collection of stuff. But in the end, you’re paying money to own nothing. Let’s break it down.
Spotify premium is $9.99 a month. So let’s say you have it for two years, that’s $239.76 you’ll give Spotify over that time.
Then let’s say Spotify goes bankrupt. Or they don’t even have to – let’s just say you stop buying the service. It’s still the same, you’re out $239.76 and what do you have?
NO MUSIC.
Now, let’s say you have a service like eMusic, where I’ve been a member since 2005. I get most of my .mp3 downloads on eMusic for 49 cents each. For $239.76, I get 489 mp3s in those two years.
The average rock album has about 12 songs on it, so that’s 40 albums that I now own. While you gave Spotify that money to own nothing, I now own 40 albums.
Those are mine, I own them. Forever. When/if mp3 goes away as the predominant format I’ll just be able to convert them to whatever is next. I permanently own that music.
If you never own any music and only stream, you will permanently be paying for music or listening to songs you don’t own with commercials mixed in. I can completely stop spending on music if I want and listen to my glorious collection forever.
I’ve been doing this for a long long time and I now have thousands of albums.
“Thousands of albums!!?”
As you can see, I’m a music nut. I’ve played in rock bands, and from as early as I can remember music occupied a special part of my persona.
If you’re a casual music fan or just don’t want the hassle of having files to manage and store, then streaming services are probably your best bet.
Me, when it comes to music I play for keeps. And the library has given me an awesome free resource.
Frugal music fans – unite!
Your turn readers – do you stream music or own? Or both? And do you have Freegal at your library or a similar service?
Both, albeit I’m trending to the streaming side. The CD’s are taking up a lot of space and probably just need to go when we downsize during our next move. Still having the free version of spotify. Can’t be to bothered by the occasional ad (listening to live shows/podcasts/dance music give you very long play times, so fever ads per hour of enjoyment ;-).
My CD’s have all been digitized and just sit. I can’t bring myself to sell them yet. In time. I did sell my cassette collection, it was over 400 cassette’s and I got $100!
And I used to listen to free Spotify more but they’ve added waaaaay more commercials in the past year. They reached my limit of tolerance
Over 400 cassettes? Wow, we have over 400 records, but that will cost me my marriage if have those sold 😉
I was a child of the 80’s
I like owning. And I was a big fan of freegal. Until I subscribed to their reminder service. And downloading everything became a chore and I stopped. And the emails became a hassle and I unsubscribed.
It has been at least three years. I should try it out again. Right now, I just listen to what i can get without paying extra via Amazon Prime.
Owners unite! Cool that you used Freegal, I haven’t gotten sick of them yet, I just filter the emails to a specific folder and clear out from time to time. I’ve used the Amazon Prime music before, I am paying for it so thanks for reminding me to give it a go again!
Neato! We are so lame. We just rely on NPR and the halfway decent college radio station for our needs. At home we fire up Pandora and let the Lounge and Deep House waft away in the background.
Sad too – we have a big fat CD wallet of hundreds of discs, just sitting in their sleeves hoping to see the light of day again…
We had a great indie rock station here near DC before, but they went the way of the dinosaurs. I used to use Pandora too but abandoned them when they kept adding more ads.
This may be weird (and I still have no idea why) but I HATE libraries, even though I love to read…Couldn’t tell you why haha
My cheap/frugal self still relies on Spotify’s free version where songs get interrupted by ads constantly! Maybe one day I will upgrade (probably not haha)
Sean sean sean sean… tsk tsk tsk. Maybe you had trauma in a library as a young child? Give them another go brother!
Yep, too many ads on free Spotify nowadays
Ok..you played in rock bands? Do tell more! Instrument? We want to see pictures.
My name is Anon Y. Mous. I blog at Accidental FIRE.
I play guitar. I’ve been in three bands, my last one was the best but we were still “marginally talented”.
Okay, what don’t you do? 🙂
I don’t make as much as DocG 😉
So you have “The Joy of Nothing” and they have … nothing! Great music selection! For us, it’s vinyl. We’ve got all our albums from way back. The quality of sound is much better than mp3. As a music buff, I’m sure you would enjoy hearing the difference, even with the occasional pop and crackle. Oh and finding a good vinyl album at thrift is great. Almost as good as cashmere.
I has some vinyl too! I have about 50 or so of my own vinyl records from my childhood as well as a stack of 45’s. My Dad passed many years ago and I have his ENTIRE collection of vinyl from the 40’s – 70’s. Maybe 400-500 records. All of the old Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller. I love that old stuff! You’re right, the crackles add to the joy.
I also have a record player that will let you record the record to .mp3. A big project of mine that I keep putting off is to listen to all those oldies and rip them to digital. It would be a lot of work, but awesome in the end 🙂
WOAH. DCPL also has Freegal, which I had never heard of until this post. Looks like it’s slightly different-we get 24 hours of streaming a day. I don’t need that because I do pay for Spotify premium, which I use for offline streaming, especially when I’m driving. The beauty of that is that I don’t have to use up all the space on my phone to store my music, and I don’t have to use data to listen to music in the car. I’m a shuffle days-long playlists kind of gal (I guess I get bored easily?), so single CDs don’t really work for me in the car (plus it’s safer to not switch them out all the time while I am driving!). #spoiled
We only get 3 downloads a week instead of 5, but who cares? I’m about to go take advantage of that. Thank you for giving me yet another reason to love the library!
Your welcome Erin – pretty cool eh? I guess DC libraries bought a smaller license which might explain the 3 vs 5 downloads, but still cool.
As for your storage issue, I assume you have an iPhone. I don’t want to start an Apple/Andriod war (talk about holy wars…), but if you get an Android you don’t have that issue. For $10 you can buy a micro-SD card that can double/triple/ or even quadruple your storage. And you can keep multiple cards for music, video etc and just swap them out. Why Apple doesn’t allow this is beyond me.
Oh, I know why, they want you to upgrade to their new $700 phone (sorry, anti-Apple rant over 😉
You’re damn right I have an iPhone! 😉 I’m not going to be switching anytime soon—I’ve been a Mac girl since my family got our first computer back in elementary school, but I do have to agree that it’s frustrating you can’t use any external storage. And I will be steadfastly keeping to my older model to avoid shelling out $700 (plus the huge new phones don’t fit in my hand)!
See what I mean – holy wars!! We can have different phones and all be friends 😉
Myself I stick with Souncloud and stream all my content for free. It’s a good platform if you like house, hip-hop electronic, chill content as much of it is used for creators, artists and DJs to share their music. Other than that I download my podcasts from iTunes which also has great 2hr mixes from the DJs I like on their weekly shows. Then the interview and educational style podcasts. To be honest the only music I have looked at buying in the last few years is licensed content to create youtube and social media videos without having copyright issues.
I love Soundcloud for podcasts but I’m not into that kind of music. I like guitar music and more roots/organic-type stuff. That’s okay though Chris, we can like different kinds of music but still be outdoor-buddies 🙂
Lol 🙂
I’ve never paid for any type of music service. Just didn’t seem worth it to me when I can just use the radio (although that’s mostly crap now-a-days). I cannot say enough good things about the library though. I don’t know if my library does this music thing or not, maybe the bigger one in town does, but just libraries in general offer SO MANY things that people normally pay for for free. Classes, internet usage, movies, etc. I can’t believe more people don’t use the library.
Terrestrial radio does indeed suck and has for a long time. But you’re so right, every time I go to the library I find out about another thing that I could use or learn. After all, I’m helping fund it, I might as well use it!
Okay, I need to figure out if my library has this option as well, because this is awesome. I don’t own a ton of music, but it’s really handy whenever I’m somewhere without cell service.
Yes, that’s another thing I forgot to mention in the post – owning actual mp3s is great for outdoorsy folks like us who go ‘off the grid’ often. No cell service – no problem. We can still kick out the jams!
Important stuff for sure 😉
I thought I knew everything there was to know about libraries but I didn’t know these tips. Very cool.
Glad I could help you discover it – it doesn’t have tons and tons of variety like Spotify but it’s free and no commercials!