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First of all: it's true. Just by registering with
an e-mail address and filling in a phone number
(note the "a"), you can get access to
the giant catalogue of EZTRACKS.com among which a surprising
selection of Reggae Music.
The Canadian website is part of Traffix Inc, an
"interactive media company", based in
New York. In 2007, the company acquired the
exclusive rights for 10 years with an option for
another 5 years. Mr. Jeffrey Schwartz, Chairman
and CEO of Traffix, had this to say about it:
"The exclusive nature of this licensing
relationship enhances it even further. It's not
hard to find unauthorized songs for free, but to
distribute songs for free that are licensed for
download is a rarity, indeed. We believe that
this arrangement will solidify our position as
the largest free fully licensed music download
marketing business in the world" SOURCE
So, until 2017, potentially, we've found a very
interesting website here.
The registration process is easy, even though a
bit confusing. After you've filled in your e-mail address, you're directed to a page that at first
look screams: DO NOT GO FURTHER!
What's the case?
Unless you click on the link on top of the page
which says something like "I'm not
interested, give me something else" for about
5 subsequent times, you will not land on the
registration page where you simply have to fill in
your information, including a phone number. That
fortunately does not have to be your own phone
number, otherwise this article would never have
been written.
At least, not in this way.
For after the registration process, you are
indeed given access to a 1000 free downloads from a
rather extensive catalogue of music. No, not necessarily
Reggae and/or Dub, but we stick with
our own realm of expertise.
A couple of names: The Wailers, Toots and the
Maytals, The Mighty Diamonds, Yami Bolo, Sugar
Minott, Abyssinians, Junior Delgado, U Roy, Prince
Alla, the Heptones, Steel Pulse, Gregory Isaacs,
Phillip Frazier, Dennis Brown.
Not all tracks are downloadable straight from
the website, though. A huge portion is only
"available through our partners at
Kazaa". For which you have to pay, of course.
Then there is the thing that a lot of titles on
the site are actually cover versions by a band
called "Countdown", which is not really
obviously announced. There's even a set of karaoke
tunes which you don't even want to hear!
In order to help you keeping the experience
free and make sure you only download the nice
ones, the Dubroom started a portal to EZ Tracks HERE.
Basically,
there are two ways to download a track. If you
choose so, you can download the EZ Tracks Music
Manager. You will unfortunately be offered to do
so, when you download a track. When
you don't like this, just click on the link at the
bottom of the page to download the MP3 without
their download software. That is, after you've
cancelled the offered download of the music
manager.
All that trouble, is it worth it? When you're
interested in a 1000 free and legal (DUB) Reggae
MP3 downloads, definitely so. However, since a lot
of collectors might already have many tracks in
the EZ Tracks catalogue, it might be fruitful to
take a look at the DUBROOM
EZ TRACKS PORTAL before visiting
the website itself.
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