Free Legal Music

While surfing the Internet you might see an offer for free music downloads, say through a pop-up or banner ad or advertised on a search engine page. It sounds too good to be true. Curious, you click on the ad to find out about the offer. Is it possible to be able to download free songs? After a little research, the answer unfortunately is no.

Two advertised websites offer free music downloads, but there's a catch to both offers.

GetMusicFree.com is one site that offers free music downloads. Users signing up on the site's registration page are told registration is free and no credit card is required to join. According to the website's Terms and Conditions, users can listen to free samples of songs, but they must purchase the complete version of the song.

Musthavefreegifts.com promises $50 worth in free music downloads. During the registration process, users are required to complete a specific number of promotional offers through Musthavefreegifts.com’s sponsors. These include applying for a credit card, joining a CD or DVD music club or a book club, debt consolidation or mortgage loan offer, or signing up to complete surveys about Diabetes, smoking, or candy preference. The drawback to this site is that the list of promotional items you have to complete could be endless, placing you in an endless maze of offer pages. Plus, giving your personal information to the sponsor's websites could mean an endless stream of spam email, telephone solicitations, or junk mail mailed to your home.

Offers are listed on Google search engine when a "free music" is searched. Sites such as Napster, Rhapsody, iTunes, and Mp3000.net are included. Napster offers free music downloads under a seven day trial. Rhapsody, a subsidiary of RealNetworks, offers a two week free trial. After the trial ends for both Napster and Rhapsody, users must pay to download music.

Mp3000.net offers free music downloads with no strings attached. After performing an initial search for Eminem and choosing his song "Mockingbird," the download button immediately started the process of downloading the song to the computer without first asking for a credit card number.

Apple iTunes is a second option for "no strings attached" downloads. Besides having the availability for iPod, iPod Nano, and iPod Shuffle owners to download items, iTunes offers the downloadable software "iTunes 7" so users can download music, movies, television shows, audiobooks, or podcasts right to their computer. The software is compatible with both PC and Macintosh computers.

In the end, of six websites that offered free music, only two of them (Apple iTunes and mp3000) were truly free downloads. The remaining websites (Rhapsody, Napster, Getfreemusic, and Musthavefreegifts) had requirements that must be met before free music could be downloaded.




"Download Over 30,000 Songs Free. No Download fees, Find any Song Today!" Getfreemusic.com. Copyright 2006. GetFreeMusic.com. September 21, 2006. http://getmusicfree.aavalue.com/processflow.cfm

"Free $50 in Music Downloads." Musthavefreegifts. Copyright 2006. MustHaveFreeGifts.com. September 21, 2006.
http://registration.musthavefreegifts.com/index. cfm/campaign/133/affiliate/5/key/5240CFDC5CB6C0033 />LbQ

iPod and iTunes. Apple Store. Copyright 2006. Apple Computer, Inc. September 21, 2006. http://www.apple.com/itunes/

"Eminem-Mockingbird song download" page. mp3000.net. Copyright 2006. 3000. September 21, 2006.
http://www.mp3000.net/download/mp3/140523/eminem -mockingbird.php

Rhapsody home page. Rhapsody.com. Copyright 2006. Muze Inc. Copyright 2006. Listen.com. September 21, 2006. http://www.rhapsody.com/

Napster home page. Napster.com. Copyright 2006. Napster, LLC. September 21, 2006. http://www.napster.com/