How Many Songs On Your iPod? Legal? Not Legal?

Our anonymous reader Mac Poll strikes again. This time the question is simple and difficult at the same time. How many songs do you carry on your iPod? 100? 500? Over 1,000?

Better yet, how many of those songs are downloaded “legally” vs. downloaded from peer-to-peer, like the old Napster: “not legal?” Readers voted. You can too. Anonymously, of course. And there’s that article from Boston…

The killer application on both Macs and PCs in recent years has been music downloading; legal and not legal. The winner of the legal downloads has been Apple’s trinity products; iTunes, iPod, iTunes Music Store.

By some accounts, that combo chalks up over 70-percent of music downloaded (legally) in the US.

The iPod mini only holds 1,000 songs and Apple says that’s more than most users have. With the average CD these days holding about 10 songs, that means you can get about 100 CDs on an iPod mini. The new gen iPod should hold about 500 CDs (5,000 songs) and the 40 gig model about 1,000 CDs or 10,000 songs.

How many songs are on your iPod? Take the quick-click poll and check the results immediately.

How many of the songs in your iPod are legal (purchased CDs copied to the iPod via iTunes, and/or purchased music from the iTunes Music Store or other store-- hence, “legal")?

How many are not legal (downloaded from Napster or other peer-to-peer file sharing system)?

Rock the vote with your click to answer. How many songs on your iPod, legal or not legal? All you have to do is Click Here.

To see the results on how the voting is going, just Click Here.

Of course, your voted is tallied immediately (one per day only) and is completely anonymous, so don’t expect the high sheriff to show up asking for receipts for your iPod’s music.

Now, about “stealing” music online-- Hiawatha Bray writes for the Boston Globe and says Apple is encouraging people to steal digital music. The full article isHere.

What do you think? Are you more encouraged to “buy” digital music online with Apple’s iTunes Music Store, or, as Bray suggests, do you think Apple is encouraging you to steal?

The votes so far indicate a couple of surprises. More songs on iPods than expected. More legal music on iPods than illegal music.

NOTE: This is an encore publication from August 2004.

Off Topic Note: Which Mac do you plan to buy next? It’s rumored that Apple will release updated MacBooks soon, perhaps with a design similar to the hot selling MacBook Air. Will you buy a Mac soon or wait awhile? Click Here to take the Mac360 Buyer’s Poll.