Yes. The difference between legal and illegal music downloads is that illegal downloads share copyright material without paying the creator or owner, as property laws require. If you are downloading music from a P2P file sharing site that offers access to music and movies for no charge, then they are most likely illegal downloads. If you are paying a fee for the music you download, the site is most likely making payments to the artist or their agency and the download is legal.
In addition to the advantage of free music, music sites online also appeal to users who want to shop from home, those who want to purchase single songs rather than entire albums and those who want the freedom to browse and sample large catalogues of music. For these reasons there are now music sites online that offer these services. A good example of this is Napster, which started as an illegal P2P file sharing program until it was forced to shut down in 2001 after the US Supreme Court ruled that the service had violated copyright laws. The developer of the program, a college student from Boston, was bankrupt and forced to liquidate to pay legal fees and fines. The Napster name and logo were acquired by a European company and then finally bought by the American electronics stores, Best Buy. Taking advantage of the Napster name and notoriety as a music site, the company now runs the website legally, selling access to unlimited music files for less than $10.00 per month.
Another legal music site that allows you to listen to unlimited music MP3s for 12.99 without paying for each track separately is Rhapsody. Rhapsody offers other features to seduce users including millions of songs on their database, personalized song recommendations generated from your searches and downloads, customized playlists and mobile access. Taking some of the market back from iTunes, Rhapsody is compatible with iPods. For a slightly higher fee these sites let you increase your membership to include downloads and mobile downloads.
iTunes might be the best known source for legal downloads and offers similar services to the other music sites and then some. Compatible with iPods that have high-resolution screens for viewing, iTunes also sells episodes of television programs and movies.
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