In the post Napster era there are three major means of getting free music:
- Borrow and Burn - If you have access to a CD burner, you can talk your friends into lending you their CDs and you can rip MP3s or burn copies of the disks. This is blatantly illegal and unethical, not to mention being a real hassle for you and your friends.
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Share the Wealth - You can download one of a number of file sharing applications and join a free music file sharing network. The legalities and ethics of this method are not much better than borrow and burn. Most of the files being shared are illegal copies. There are other problems which are explained below.
- Free Music Sites - There are many Web sites that offer free music downloads or streaming music. Most of these tend to keep their nose clean and offer only free music files that have been authorized by the artists or the music labels. You can get some great free music with a clear conscience and free of the hassles of the other methods.
Acquiring your free music through MP3 file sharing networks such as Kazaa and Gnutella may seem attractive because it is relatively easy and almost any song you could ever want is available. The downsides, in addition to many of the MP3s being illegal, have to do with the nature of Internet file sharing. When you participate in a file sharing network, you install client software. Some of the software has been discovered to contain spyware, which at worst may be a privacy and security risk, and at best is an annoying resource hog. You may also be opening yourself up to attacks from viruses and trojans.
In my opinion the best place to get free music is one of the free music sites. Many new artists and an increasing number of established musicians make free music available on these sites. The free music sites not only provide a fun and legal way to get free music, they also give you chance to try out music from artists you may not have tried otherwise. Go out there and grab some free music, and enjoy.