That ugly dude to the left is Steve... Sad Steve. He represents today's featured music site: www.sadsteve.com. (Special thanks to Sam for this site!) Sad Steve is another online music site. It is not like Pandora or PureVolume at all. Its not a radio site and its not an artist bio site (although the site does do featurettes on some bands). So what is it? Well, its a site where you can look up specific artists and songs and listen to them. So why would you use Sad Steve instead of Pandora or PureVolume? The answer lies in HOW Sad Steve works. Sad Steve indexes (just think of a library index) music on the internet. The index is large although not exhaustive. So what this means is that you can use Sad Steve to hear a song or artist that you want to listen to. Specifically. For example, on Pandora you search an artist and it brings back a song, specific to what you wanted or not, and plays it. Sad Steve allows you to play only the song you want. Obviously, comparing Pandora to Sad Steve is like comparing really tasty grapes "and really bad eggs" (respectively).
Either way, Sad Steve has its benefits.
- You will notice that when you search for a song in Sad Steve and play it, a pop-up window appears. That window has a simple little media playing script that begins playing your song.
- You will notice a list of links below said script: Download, E-mail to Friends, Lyrics, Album Art, Share on Facebook. Hmmm, those sound useful. Let's discuss them, last to first.
- The Share on Facebook link, simply places a link of that song on your Facebook profile. I did this on my profile if you know me and want to see it in action.
- The Album Art link is not useful.
- The Lyrics Link shows the lyrics... kinda cool.
- The E-mail link does what the facebook link does except through your e-mail address... that's kinda cool too.
- The Download link downloads the song...
On that question, Sad Steve's "What?" page - basically its Q & A about page - states:
Q 3. Is this legal? Will I get in trouble for downloading?
A. Yes, the site is legal. Sad Steve works by indexing mp3 files from all around the Internet. So, for example, if the website for John's California Surf Club hosts a Beach Boys song, that file is indexed and made available to the you, the user.
No, you won't get in trouble for downloading. Sad Steve's traffic monitoring tools do not log users' IP addresses, physical addresses, e-mail adddress, or any of that garbage. In fact, there is no record anywhere in our system of what files are downloaded, how many times, or by who. So whether you download zero, ten, or a thousand songs, nobody knows.
HUH?
The verdict: apparently yes and no... It is legal for them to index music on the internet. The strange things is that the site says its legal, then goes on to tell you how there is no way to monitor who uses it (i.e. who downloads from it). So... It legal for them to index the music, "yada yada yada" you can download to. My opinion: its legal to listen to the music. About the other stuff i don't know.
Check out Sad Steve and see if you like. Download some music if you like.
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3 comments:
Ok, that is a sweet site. Why is it named Sad Steve? It is way easy to use. The hardest part is getting off Pandora long enough to use Sad Steve. Maybe that is why he is sad, second place. :-(
This site is a good one...I've used it before and downloaded from it as well. Nice to know they haven't logged any of my info. It's as if I was never there. I still think the Steve depicted in the nasty picture is none other than Steve Jobs.
It's named Sad Steve in reference to Steve Jobs, the 'iPod Guy'. Because so many people believe that he is the mp3 god, the site name is SadSteve> He is sad because people download the songs without paying :P
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