Legally Download Your Music

Legally Download Your Music

Summary: Still obtaining your music through peer-to-peer networks ? Read this article.

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Article Body: Let's face it, the majority of today's youth over the age of know how to manipulate a computer better than their parents. They are also much more knowledgeable in technology in general; be it the latest cell phone or the newest mp player out in the stores. What is mp ? That is a question you will hear most often from parents when talking about the subject. They may have heard of the ever-popular iPod, but do they even know what it looks like ?

It is estimated that by there will be approximately million mp players in circulation. That is astronomical ! Mp is basically a musical format which is compressed whilst retaining the quality of the sound. It isn't the only format in existence, but is the most recognized. You also have WMA (Windows Media Audio - used by Windows Media Player), AAC (encoding technique employed by Apple), ATRAC (used by Sony), and a few others. Some mp players will not play WMA files, for example. There are ways of getting around this but it usually involves some illegal manipulation of the music files. WMA files can only be played and copied for a limited number of times.

With internal capacities of up to gigabytes (approximately , songs), today's digital music players are in hot demand. Almost every teenager has one. People are willing to spend over $ to get their hands on the latest gadgets capable of storing an unprecedented number of songs (and other media files such as videos and pictures). How do you transfer this media onto your newly-acquired mp player ? Scores of people are still downloading music illegally on the internet, infringing copyright laws. Others download their music legally.

Apple has its popular online music store, iTunes. Sony recently launched Connect, and Real has Rhapsody. All these are legal music downloading services with a low monthly service charge, with a small additional charge for downloading a song. The cost varies between c and c per song.

With Rhapsody, for example, one has the possibility of browsing their entire catalog of over million songs and creating a personalized playlist. You can listen to the songs as many times as you wish.

Using the legal music downloading services such as the aforementioned ones is a far better option for you the consumer, and your PC ! The RIAA is actively pursuing file-sharers (illegal music downloads) and serving them with lawsuits. Just like the AIDS virus, the RIAA doesn't discriminate. They once sued a -year old girl for sharing copyrighted music online. Nobody's immune.

Another downside to downloading music illegally is that you are also downloading hundreds of viruses that can cripple your PC. They hide themselves within the music files and then attack your browser or registry.

You are better off paying less than $ per month and download your music legally, than have to bear the embarrassment of a lawsuit, or having to purchase a new computer because a bunch of viruses have rendered it useless.