Sunday, August 9, 2009

Legal Music Downloads Will Cost You Money

By John Roberts

Millions of people download music from the internet but we all need to be careful that these are legal music downloads. It is easy to be tempted to download music for free on peer-to-peer sites but this practice can lead to a very massive legal headache and fines in the thousands of dollars range.

The record companies are noticing who is doing what and from where. The entire music industry loses millions of dollars through music piracy. And although, you might think that your music library does not amount to much, you need to start thinking in more legal terms. The original download of each song and every upload is considering a single cont of piracy.

Although most piracy cases are settled out of court, people are still looking at fines that can range well over the thousand dollar mark. The initial suits are for millions of dollars and that scares most people into settling their cases. There is the possibility of paying thousands of dollars for just one popular song that you may have.

However, in today's economy who can afford several thousands of dollars in fines and court costs? The benefit of paying for a song or album is that once you pay for the music, it is yours. You can do whatever it is that you want to do with it. Most of the music sites have taken care of the DRM restrictions so that their customers do have to worry about what happens after the purchase.

Many people feel that the music industry makes enough money through the CDs, concerts and merchandise that is already purchased. The music artists and the leaders of the music industry live in big houses and drive fancy cars, so what is a $0. 99 song to them. Regardless of how you feel, downloading music for free is piracy and you are in the wrong.

They have a legal foothold to sue those that do have legal music downloads. According to the piracy laws, when people used to record music onto a cassette from the radio, they had a right to sue. They just did not have a way to track the people that were doing it and the music industry just had to accept the loss.

It the best course of action is to pay your money upfront and happily trot off with your music to do what you will with it. When faced with alternative, is there a better solution?

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