Five Reasons to Pay for Music Downloads

When there’s a song or album you just have to have, it may be tempting to start searching for free music downloads at sites that don’t concern themselves with copyright law. There

are a few very good reasons you may want to stick with legal pay sites, though.

Legality

Most people who download MP3 files off the Internet assume copyright law will never really affect them. While it’s unlikely some copyright lawyer is going to kick in your door anytime soon, in some states there are laws that require computer repair techs to report any illegal use of peer-to-peer file sharing software like KaZaA or Limewire.

What’s worse, many people are unaware of the laws surrounding copyrights. For instance, there’s a widespread belief that as long as you don’t make money from your music downloads, it’s ok to share them. Not true, according to the DMCA.

Security

If you’ve visited any sites offering illegal free music downloads, you’ve probably noticed how it’s nearly impossible to find anything because of all the popups and blinking banner ads.

Those ads may also pose a security risk to your computer because some can install a virus or spyware without your even clicking on them. Then there are the files themselves. Quite a few come complete with their own viruses, spyware, malware and other things you don’t want on your computer. Legal music downloads, on the other hand, are clean.

Quality

This is one you may not realize if you’ve never bought music downloads online before. While most aren’t quite CD quality, they’re almost always better than anything you’ll find for free, legal or otherwise. Not only is the sound better, but you won’t have to put up with things like ads and songs “demos” that end halfway through.

Support artists

At most of the legal music downloads sites, at least a portion of what you pay for the right to download the music goes to the artist who created it. Look at it this way: if you were in the home of an artist you respect and noticed a chance to steal some change off their kitchen table, would you do it? Taking their recordings without paying is really the same thing. It may be pocket change, but it’s still stealing.

What you want when you want it

Your time has value, too. Is it really worth spending time hunting around the net for a free copy of some song when you could easily find a place to download it legally for less than a dollar? And then there’s the fact that sometimes the really good stuff just isn’t available for free. Maybe you’re looking for an older song or a song by a lesser known band. You may not even find it with P2P software. Fortunately, sites that offer legal music downloads have huge selections that are well organized so you’ll find what you’re looking for fast.

These days even legal music downloads are so cheap, it’s just not worth the risk to download music free from pirate sites. Steer clear of viruses, get good quality recordings and support your favorite artists but paying for legal music downloads.