Free Downloadable Music: Right Price, But be Careful
The Internet has plenty of free downloadable music. You can't beat the price,
but there are some important caveats.
Download Numbers Are Staggering
Fans download more than 500,000 free and paid tracks every day. In 2004, 20%
of all music acquired was downloaded from the Internet, and the trend shows no
sign of slowing. But with copyright and
security issues, is it advisable to download music for free online?
The answer is yes, but be careful. Make sure the download is legal and comes
from a trusted source. The recording industry is coming down hard on copyright
violators and you certainly don't want to download a virus with a song.
Free MP3 Music Download Files Abound
Most songs are copyrighted, so we need to know which are legal to download.
Many musicians want to share their music by offering free downloads. Why?
It increases the artist's exposure and free tracks lead to more CD, concert and
merchandise sales. Plus it boosts a musician's image and popularity.
An excellent source for low or no cost downloads is web sites created for a particular genre of music. Their mission is to promote the
artists' work. Sites are usually supported by advertising, donations or fees, and visitors are free to download
all the songs they want.
Downloadable Music File Formats and DRM
Music files only work on devices compatible with the file format. For
example, Apple's iTunes are AAC format, so unless you have an iPod you may be
out of luck. Napster music download files, on the other hand are in WMA format
which won't work on iPods.
Fee-based download services usually encode music files with Digital Rights
Management (DRM) that limits copies and conversions. Make sure downloaded files
are compatible with devices you intend to play the songs on.
AAC, MP3, WMA and others are lossy formats, meaning selected "inaudible"
sounds are discarded during file compression. Free software will convert mp3 to other formats
and vice versa, but sound quality suffers when converting from one lossy
format to another. DRM can complicate the issue, often making conversion
impossible.
A-Z MP3 Players is the place
for unbiased information and the
best online merchants for mp3 players,
accessories and music downloads. We invite you to browse dozens of articles by
clicking the links in the Site Menu at the right and on our
Related Articles
pages. Be sure to bookmark this site for
future reference.
| 
