MP3 Downloads -
File Sharing over Peer to peer networks - is it Legal ?
 

We have all heard of File sharing programs such as Kazaa, Grokster, Morpheus, Madster, eDonkey, Direct Connect, OpenNap, iMesh, or Gnutella and currently they rank among the top most popular programmes. The subject is pretty confusing as also controversial as a lot many people are confused as to what is legal and what is not. More so when we listen to copyright and intellectual property rights being violated and several lawsuits running. The file sharing programs connects users directly to each other allowing them to share and download files. They are also called P2P, or peer to peer programs. Unlike old file sharing programs such as Napster who ran all connections through their servers. And as such it is really difficult to determine exactly who is downloading what and from whom.

Let me first tell you that none of the file sharing programs 'itself' are not illegal. In fact they support useful purposes like in Research or University work which involve large groups and data sharing in their work. Even it comes to greater use when the groups are geographically spread. The illegal part is sharing Copyrighted content. Meaning when someone buys a Audio or Video or any media CD, DVD etc, he or she has the right to burn it and save the files in his/her computer or any other kind of storage equipment. But the law does not permit you to share that the same music or video with your friend by allowing them to download your file from your pc or computer. It only allows you to play the same in your drawing room in presence of others and nothing more. And for these the music labels are now going ahead with technologies which do not allow you to burn or rip or copy the content.

Believe me sharing a music or any copyrighted material using any of these networks either by you or even by your kid can really get you into serious trouble! The Recording Industry Association of America in short the RIAA is using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to force your ISP or service provider to turn over the names of people who share files using the file-sharing programmes. Its easy for them to determine your internet protocol address by connecting with your peer-to-peer client over the Internet. Using your IP address the ISP can determine your name. If the RIAA finds you this way, they will sue you. They will sue you even if your kid has done it ! They are also pursuing a House Bill to Make File-Sharing an Automatic Felony.

The copyright law was framed mainly to protect the artist community and very correctly so. Normally a artist has a contract with the music label publishing him ( making the CD or DVD) and a percentage goes to his kitty with every sale. And this is how the artist survives. However as always the major share goes to the Music Label who makes the CD. As such if only one CD is bought and is burned, ripped or copied in a PC and then shared by millions the artist suffers the most as he gets nothing at the end of the day. And this is the major reason why music and other media file sharing using programmes like KaZaa, Ares, iMesh, Limewire etc is totally illegal. Unless there is an explicit permission from the owner or the artist you cannot give, upload, share or sell any mp3, music or media files. Summary - you are not the owner of the content.

Having said these, it is also relevant to know that the majority of the profits go to the music labels and not the Artist ! Currently the Artist cannot do without the labels due to their reach, marketing avenues and promotions. However, if only it was possible to buy from the artist's directly without any middleman or music label in between you, me, the artist would have benefited much. The prices would have been extremely low, the artist would have earned more which is due to him and the best fact is we would have got options to choose and select and buy only the stuff we want. I don't think that is very far as there are already a lot of artist who have their own download pages and also you can interact with them and other fans. It is also important to know that Artist do not survive on the money they get from the music labels ! They gain from popularity and finally make it big through live events and concerts.

Of course there are trusted download sites who only deal with anything legal. Some of them are quite reputable MP3 download sites on the internet and you can trust. The most famous of all is itunes from Apple. Napster has a subscription service per month that allows you to download more than two million mp3 legally. Click here to visit "Napster Official Site" Plus there are lot of MP3 download sites who charge you a nominal fee less than 2 Dollars a month to download stuff. However, these sites allow you only to download the music for your own listening and not to share the same files in any manner. Again there are free music sites but they never allow you to share the music - please read the terms of service and copyright mentioned before downloading

Among the paid MP3 downloads, MP3 Advance is our first choice due to the huge collection and low monthly charges, They also have a collection of movies, games and some cool software's. We do have a storefront in association with them which you can check here. However you will need a PayPal account or credit card for subscribing to their services.

The best files and pod casts can be found with iTunes which is totally legal with soft DRM. The downloads are currently available to citizens of US and Canada and they have a huge membership community. Songs can be played on three computers and there are also many offers currently available. Please check the adjacent column on top for special offers from iTunes. Another reputed and trusted site is Napstar and we have tried to list a few of their offers also.

Apart from these there are over 50,000 artist currently which can be found on the internet. Some of them do allow free download. You can always search them at Google or Dmoz or Yahoo and other search engines. We also have a artist section newly launched which is a part of this website. Individual artist can easily host their music, video and pictures and announce upcoming events. The service comes free to deserving artist and they can easily configure their music files on whether to allow streaming, downloading for free or just give the visitors a preview copy in a lofi version. The section is called MyBand and can be checked here.

The big artist generally have their own homepages and we have tried to collect links to their sites also. We do have a fairly large collection of Artist Home Pages arranged alphabetically.

We welcome all artist, musicians and download sites to send us there link with some details to us by clicking here. We will appreciate a reciprocal link as given below:

"http://www.a1mp3.com/index.php?page=20" with the Text Description : "A1mp3 - Ultimate destination for Music Lovers"

You can also use the above code to create a link to this article we will provide a link to your site in this section. Alternately you can use the article in 'totality' in your website without any changes to the content or links.

The above article is Copyright protected.

Author: Debashis Dey - The Author currently manages several youth community sites focused on Business, Online Gaming, Media & Television, Music among others.

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