Ad-Supported Free Music Downloads Doomed to Failure?

madonna writes "CNET extensively explains why the new We7.com download service — which offers ad-embedded free music downloads without DRM — is doomed to failure. 'This service absolutely, categorically will not succeed. You can quote us on that. It's true the best way to combat piracy is to provide a realistic and affordable alternative, and free is certainly affordable. But music downloaders are not going to switch to using a service that costs the same as using BitTorrent or Limewire, but comes with abominable disclaimers or advertisements.'"

Re:Removing the ads

[saur2004]

Isnt Audacity [sourceforge.net] free for anyone to use?

How are they going to stop you using something like that?

College Students Have Better

[Anonymous Coward]

Ruckus is free and legal to anyone with an .edu address. No ads, real songs, decent library. (Unfortunately in WMV format with DRM that says you must use WMP or the Ruckus player to play it, but it's free, so meh.)

My suggestion

[JoelMeow]

http://www.mptrim.com/ [mptrim.com] There's a few other programs out there that can chop up mp3s without losing any quality. I downloaded a couple of mp3s from we7 and they only slap an ad on the beginning of the song, so it's easy to chop off if you don't want it.