Our Digital Music

Beware Of Fake Downloads And Don’t Eat The Red Sauce

by bhoughton on January 6th, 2008

WILL THE REAL ELVIS PLEASE STAND UP?

Ever search for a song on iTunes, Amazon or your favorite music service? You know what you think is the song title from the lyrics, but you have no idea who recorded it. And when you find the song there is a dizzying array of choices: several songs with the same or similar titles, 32 different artists recording the same song, 3 versions marked “karaoke”.

• How are you supposed to know which version you really want?
• Listen to the 30 second sample?
• NOPE. That’s no longer enough.

Some companies, most notably UK based Red Sauce are actually exploiting the song search feature by recording new versions of hits that sound almost exactly like the originals…and only when you download the whole song and listen to it carfully the next morning when your buzz has worn off do you realize that you’ve been ripped off.

Can you return the track to iTunes. No way. Its yours and they may be even betting you’ll go back and spend another 99 cents to try to get the right version.

How to sop from getting ripped off? Listen closely or better yet spend 60 seconds doing a Google search of the song title to see if you can find out who did the song originally. Or try searching on a lyrics site like MetroLyrics.com to find out. That extra minute of your time is worth 99 cents. Not so sure? I wish I made $60 an hour….

POSTED IN: Downloads/P2P, Free Or Cheap, safe surfing