More Free Music: SpiralFrog
Before you get too excited, there is a catch. Actually, there are a lot of catches…SpiralFrog is a new site that lets you legally and freely download songs and videos, most of which come from Universal Music Group. The site offers over 700,000 songs and 3,500 videos and the only requirement to access them is registering an account. Sounds too good to be true? It is. In order to continue to access the files, you must log into the site once a month or the DRM’ed content time bombs on you. Additionally, you can’t burn the files to a CD and you can’t put them on your iPod. If you have a (non-iPod) music player or phone, you can copy the files to them, but not to more than two devices at a time. Joe Mohen, the company chairman claims "We believe it will be a very powerful alternative to the pirate sites." Yeah…because all the restrictions on the files downloaded from Pirate Bay are such a hassle aren’t they?
Follow the conversation at YackTrack!
A reader asked: “Are you saying that the music I’ve already downloaded will become useless unless I visit the site once a month?”
The answer is yes!
This is from the SpiralFrog website:
“What happens if I don’t renew my membership?
A couple of things happen if you don’t return to the SpiralFrog Web site and renew your membership every 30 days.
On Day 31, you will no longer be able to download songs or videos from our site, but the music you have already downloaded will continue to play on your computer and portable player for another 30 days.
However, if you choose not to renew your membership after 60 days, on Day 61 all the songs and videos you have downloaded from SpiralFrog will no longer play on your computer or portable player.
At any time, you can renew your membership – even after Day 61 – and your music licenses will be restored, and your music will be good for another 30 days. You will NOT need to re-download your files.
The songs you download from SpiralFrog are protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM), and are programmed with a license to play only for the period that you maintain your membership to our Web site. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but this is a requirement from the record labels and publishers who license the music to us. However, if you keep your SpiralFrog membership up to date, you won’t even notice the built-in DRM as we’ve tried hard to keep it in the background as much as possible.
As your membership approaches the end of each 30-day period, we will send you an email at the address we have on record for you to remind you to renew. You can also see how many days you have left to your membership in the message located in the main navigation bar at the top left-hand corner of every page at SpiralFrog, along with a link to the renewal page.”