Best Music Downloads

  

Is it Possible to Download Music Legally Anymore?
© Jeff Schuman II

Throughout the past few years downloading music on the internet 
has increased in popularity.  At the same time though, it has become 
illegal through many companies to download music as musicians and artists 
have been losing money on their CD sales.With many people being sued 
in the past couple years for downloading music, is it really possible 
to download music legally anymore?  If so, at what price will it cost 
you for the best music downloads?

As music sites such as Napster and Kazaa and many more have
attempted to create sites to download music for free, they have
just increased the problem that much more.  Some of the users of
these programs have learned the hard way that music does not
come free, as they were sued for illegally downloading music. 

Today there are many sites in which you can download music at
where they claim it is 100% legal.  The latest music file
formats used are Windows® Media (WMA), Advanced Acoustic Coding
(AAC) and Atrac 3, and are very popular as it increases the
sound quality making it closer to an actual CD bought in stores.

Another great advantage is that many sites such as SonicSelector 
Service on MSN allow you to preview the music before buying it. 
Many sites today also offer a three-day trial of their music 
downloading site, and then after that you will have to begin paying 
a monthly fee.  So it is possible to download music legally online, 
but at what cost?

Pressplay.com offers unlimited music for a price of $9.95 per
month and then you also have to install the software from their
site. The downloaded music is non-burnable and once your
subscription runs out you no longer have access to any of your
songs.  Rhapsody at listen.com also charges $9.95 per month for
non-burnable music, but instead of downloading the music you
download a music player that gives you access to the songs.
 

Best MP3 Music Downloads
 

What about the best mp3 music downloads?

Now you can download mp3 music and you know the basic price per
month for non-burnable songs.  However, most people download
music so that they can burn their favorite CD with a variety of
songs.  Transferring these songs onto a CD or a personal MP3
player will cost you even more.  Many sites offer packages for
songs capable of burning as oppose to a set price per song.

For example, Pressplay offers 5 burnable songs for $5.95, 10
burnable songs for $9.95, 20 burnable songs for $18.95, and then
on top of those prices you are still required to pay the monthly
fee to use the program.  MusicNet offers a package for $17.95 a
month that comes with unlimited music downloads and 10
burnable songs. 

There are other sites such as apple.com/itunes that is priced at
99 cents to download a song and there is no monthly fee, but you
must own a Mac in order to do this.  Sites such as mp3.com,
peoplesound.com, and soundclick.com all offer free music to
download and burn.  The catch is that these sites offer a
majority of unknown artists and songs.  

With the exception of the last few sites I have mentioned, you
will find a relatively large selection of music to choose from
in all of these sites.  Not one of the sites offers less than
300,000 songs to choose from with all of the biggest names in
the music industry such as Eminem, Britney Spears, and even
oldies such as Elvis, The Beatles, and Frank Sinatra.

There are websites out there that are 100% legal for you to
download music at. The question now is how much money are you
willing to pay to download all of the hottest songs today, and
are you willing to pay extra to put those songs onto a CD?