At any time, there are hundreds of internet radio stations streaming music across the world. It's possible to listen to these stations using Winamp or Windows Media Player, or a similar program.
What Radiotracker and programs like it do is to allow users to copy tracks from these internet radio stations to a computer, as they are being streamed.
In theory, this gives a nice alternative to illegally downloading music – in essence, it's like taping songs from the traditional radio. But the catch is that like home taping, this is still illegal.
Nobody from the music industry is going to catch you doing it, and no-one using Radiotracker is going to get sued, but the fact remains that you'll end up with music on your computer that hasn't been paid for. And unlike home-made tapes, these recordings are pretty high quality.
Internet radio stations generally broadcast at 128Kbits/sec, which is the same as would be found on legal download sites. Because these are being broadcast from radio stations, however, they tend to cut off the beginning and ends of the tracks, and sometimes the source audio from which the station is playing is not quite up to scratch.
On the plus side, the program can automatically pick up track information, album cover art and even, sometimes, lyrics for each song. It's possible to set the number of stations it records from (it can tape several at once) and select by genre or pick specific sources.
The new edition improves the interface, making it a little easier to use, although Radiotracker 1 wasn't particularly hard to get the hang of. In a nice touch, there's also a 'Ringtone' button that will turn any downloaded track into a mobile phone ring tone. It's not to our tastes, but for ringtone fans it's a way of avoiding the ridiculous ringtone download charges the networks set.
The only other qualm is that there's no way to specify what tracks you receive – it's a matter of picking the right stations for your tastes and hoping for the best. In short, it works very well, but on a moral level it's still a case of taking without paying.
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