Download music legally

THE enormous USD$220,000 fine recently handed down to a single American mother who shared 24 songs over the internet has made even the most hardcore internet users stop, look and pay attention to online music piracy.
The easy and seemingly harmless activity has prompted recording companies to take extreme measures to prevent their products from being consumed for free.
In Australia, the usual course of action is for a recording company or peak body, like the Australian Recording Industry Association, to contact internet service providers and have them warn or ban pirates from their service.
But if you enjoy the ease of downloading and don’t mind paying between $1 and $2 a song, or between $15 to $17 for a full album, then perhaps legitimate music downloads are for you.
Without a doubt, Apple’s iTunes is the easiest way to download music online.
You download the 30 megabyte program, install it, and browse the store for music. Songs are easily downloaded with the click of a button, and the program automatically places them in your iTunes’ music library.
The incentives for paying are clear – a store that has higher quality music, is available around the clock without relying on peers having their computers on to download from, and not to mention lightning fast download speeds.
iTunes downloads also come with an image of the album cover, and all of the essential information pretagged, such as artist, recording company, the album it is from and the year released.
The only hitch is that iTunes uses a proprietary file type that is digitally protected and can only be played back using an Apple iPod device.
This limits the choice when it comes to choosing an MP3 player but if you’re using iTunes you’ll more than likely want an iPod to maximise your portable tunes experience anyway.
Once connected to your PC, the iPod automatically updates itself with any new songs or playlists.
Songs on iTunes cost about $1.69 and albums about $16.99.
Other alternatives, such as BigPond Music which is hosted by Telstra’s BigPond Internet service, require a web browser – not a separate piece of software – to purchase songs.
Again, the songs are copy protected with Microsoft’s WMA format and won’t play on an iPod.
But if you’re a BigPond Internet subscriber, songs can be as cheap as 99c, which is a bargain compared to iTunes.
Log onto itunes.com, or bigpondmusic.com to learn more about legal music downloads.