Alice Trundle asked:


Today there is a huge raft of places available to download music from. Some of these are legal sites, some are definitely not and some appear to lay somewhere in the middle. In addition to this, some artists allow tracks to be downloaded from their own websites, however, these tend to be short previews at a low quality sampling rate, appetizers to entice you to buying their music at full price.

Most music downloads are protected with “Digital Right Management” (DRM) which restricts the ability to transfer the downloaded track onto more than one device. Many users feel this to be unfair as they may want to put the music on one device that they own.

It is estimated that the online music business now makes up over 10% of the global music market; in 2008 an estimated 10 billion songs equalling 76,000 years of continuous playtime were downloaded! The vast majority of these were offered through peer to peer websites with an estimated 1 billion downloaded legally. How long these sites can keep operating for is unsure as so many legal cases are being brought against them. We have also seen legal cases being brought against individuals who are sharing files on these peer to peer sites. In short, our advise to you is to avoid them.

Yet even legal music downloads are facing challenges from artists, labels and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). This came to a head in 2007 when Universal Music Group decided not to renew their long term contract with iTunes. This was due to Universal wanting more control over the pricing that iTunes dictated, they favored a move from the traditional 99¢ a song that iTunes charges to a more variable rate based on artist.

As mentioned above, the majority of music is downloaded illegally. This is a highly dangerous practice that could potentially carry a significant threat of infecting your pc with a virus. Numerous peer to peer sites such as Limewire and Bearshare have sprung up offering a way to download music, but beware, music is not all you might get! Make sure you have a good antivirus program, these are freely available and one such as AVG should fit the purpose perfectly. Also ensure you have a good spyware program place, just in case your machine does become infected.

Most importantly, use a reliable service such as Legalsoundz – guaranteed free of viruses and safe to use. It has an excellent software download manager (free to download) and songs are much cheaper than iTunes at only 9¢ a song, definitely the choice of myself. I have been using this service for 5 years now and never had a problem. Every download is of high quality and with a reasonable connection a whole album can be downloaded in under five minutes due to their powerful servers.

Another must to remember is to back up your music often, if possible to a removable hard drive. This will ensure you can recover your music should the worst happen! There would be nothing worse than losing your entire collection of music

Davion W asked:


Unlimited music downloads was a dream to music lovers in the past. Today it has become a reality to us. With so many online music stores, we are able to find songs we love, download them onto our computer or portable media device such as the MP3 player. This article would share with you what are some of the benefits of downloading music online and why it will take over traditional music CD as the largest source of music for the world.

Benefits of Downloading Music Online

1. Convenience of Music Downloads

You can access to unlimited music downloads anywhere you want with an internet connection and media file players such as Windows Media Player, Real One Player, etc. You don’t have to hunt for a music store, nor step out of your house to get hold of a CD.

2. Ease and Speed of Downloading Music

Did you know that searching, finding and downloading can be done in double-quick time? In fact, once you have identified the list of songs you wish to download, you can leave your desk, and go for a short break. When you are back, the music downloads would have been complete and they are hot for playing. Forget about having to ransack the music CD store to look for your favorite songs and singer.

3. Choice of Music Downloads

Gone were the days when you are forced to buy a whole CD even if you only like one song inside. With an unlimited music downloads, you have a choice as to what song title you wish to download and listen. There is no need to skip those songs you don’t really want to listen to so you can relax and plug in only to your favorites.

4. Compact & Portable

With MP3 media, it is so simple to store your music. Nowadays, the prices of MP3 players such as iPod, iRiver, Creative, etc have become affordable even for those models with huge disk capacity. Remember those days when we have to carry large CD cases whenever we travel around, and those clumsy moments of switching from one CD to another? A matchbox size MP3 player can easily store a few hundred songs.

There is one beauty about unlimited music downloads that must be mentioned here. You no longer have to go through the tedious process of ripping songs from CDs and burning them either to a CD or transferring them to your MP3 player. Everything at the music downloads site is a simple zip and go. Music lovers who are keen on laying their hands on a lifetime access of unlimited music downloads, drop by and read more at my blog.

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