Spotting legal music download sites in the crowd.

It is so much more convenient to download music online than to go to the local record shop to buy music, but how can consumers know if what they are doing is legal? There has been quite a bit of controversy about copyright infringement with peer-to-peer music sharing online, which is a good cause for concern. There are a few sure-fire ways to tell if an MP3 music download site is legal, though.
Even if there are offers of free song downloads, any legitimate music download service will eventually require users to pay for their music downloads. Since the music industry fought to protect their music from being stolen, an MP3 music download site has to pay to offer the music. Since the site has to pay for the access to copyrighted music, consumers eventually have to pay for the music downloads. The fee might be per song, per month, or with a lifetime subscription.
A legal MP3 music download site should distribute music from reputable labels and artists, so there shouldn’t be too many crazy remixes and custom files that take a long time to download. Smaller MP3 music files are more likely to be found at an MP3 music download site that only sells legal material. Sights that offer other types of files such as video games and movies are also probably illegal.
One strange thing about legal MP3 music download sites is that variety comes with a price. A more established music download service will give access to hundreds of thousands of songs but it will cost more than at a sight that only offers a few hundred songs. Legal MP3 music download sites must give a portion of their fees back to the recording industry for copyright fees. The songs are not disposable since the sound quality shouldn’t degrade over time, so they have to charge enough to make back what they paid to provide the music.
Most legal MP3 music download sites don’t have the copyright authority to offer millions of music downloads. The songs and music are stored on servers with a fixed amount of space, unlike the tangled web of peer-to-peer music sharing files from the illegal sites. It is also very unlikely that they will get an agreement from every single record label to distribute their music downloads.
Legal MP3 music download sites shouldn’t place dangerous and annoying spy ware or ad ware programs on their user’s computers, either. Anyone who finds these little tag-alongs has probably visited a disreputable site. Finally, consumers can spot a legitimate MP3 music download site by the copyright notice. A clearly written copyright notice should be provided on the site stating the nature of the site’s authorization to distribute legal music downloads, what consumers can do with the files once they’ve paid for them and any limitations on either party as far as use and distribution of the files. Oh yeah, and there shouldn’t be any peer-to-peer music sharing on a legal MP3 music download site. That one should be a no-brainer, though. A good source of music downloads will charge a nominal fee, although they may decide to offer free song downloads from time to time. These are a much better place to buy music than from some illegal and disreputable site.

More women are downloading music online.

Music downloads are popular with so many different people, and some experts say they will eventually replace CDs. The newest emerging market for MP3 music downloads and other forms of digital music is women between the ages of 15 and 49. According to a new research study, this demographic has become the fastest growing group for MP3 music online. The fact is, though, that MP3 music downloads have increased in all demographics.
A survey by Digital Life America was conducted in the United States and by Fast ForwardTM in Canada. These research groups found that 28 percent of Americans over the age of 12 own a digital music player, which usually means an MP3 player. In 2005 only 12 percent of that group had an MP3 player or other digital music device, so the number doubled. When they looked at the number of women who owned MP3 players, though, they saw that the number had tripled from 8 percent to 27 percent. That means that three times the number of women is also downloading music online.
The iPod is still the most popular MP3 player, and their share of the market increased from 53 percent to 68 percent in only one year. As MP3 players grow in popularity, so do the number of Americans who download music online. Nearly half of all Internet users in the United States are downloading music from pay sites or music sharing sources, which is a 31 percent increase from 2005.
Not only are women buying more MP3 music players, but they are buying more MP3 music online. Nearly three times as many female Internet users are now regularly downloading music from paid online sites. There were also 14 percent of women Internet users choosing to download music per song online in 2006, compared to only 4 percent in 2005.
The total number of Americans who paid for an MP3 music download increased significantly due to the digital music player boom. Since more people own MP3 players, more people have to download music online. In 2005, only 8 percent of Internet users paid for MP3 music online, which went up to 23 percent in one year. The survey was based on a random national sample of 1,016 interviews conducted by telephone in the United States in June, 2006. They compared their results to a similar survey that was conducted a year earlier.
What this survey proves is that MP3 music downloads are here to stay. More and more markets continue to open up, bringing more consumers around to the benefits of MP3 music technology. If the number of people downloading music online continues to increase, this technology will surely replace CDs some day in the not-so-distant future.