Peer To Peer Music Downloads - To Cheer Or To Fear?

Peer to peer music downloads applications have been swarming the internet since the invention of the mp3 in the late 1990's (actually the mp3 has been around since 1987, but it first entered the mainstream around 1998).

You may wondering if peer to peer (p2p) networks are right for you. Maybe you have heard about it and are contemplating using it or not.

This page was designed to help you in your contemplation.

Well, your computer's hard drive becomes a server that allows others to access files stored in your computer. So, another computer connects directly with your computer and downloads whatever stuff you want to download from it - for example, music files.

With peer to peer music downloads applications, there is no "central server". Basically it's your server that's providing the music.

This means that your songs are available for upload - from your computer to someone else's computer.

The digital music services that cater to peer to peer music downloads have been under scrutiny. This even includes the ones that charge a fee and claim that they are 100% legal.

Unlike popular legal, heavily advertised networks, such as iTunes and Napster, the songs that are available via peer to peer music downloads networks are not there because of licensing agreements between them and the artists/record labels.

That said, there are a few that stand out from the crowd which we will get to in a moment. First, though, let's discover what happens when you sign up for a P2P digital music service.

After paying a one-time fee (or a low yearly or biannual fee), you can download an unlimited number of files (actually some of these don't charge a fee, but their use is becoming less popular due to spyware problems, extremely low download quality and speed, and legal scrutiny. It is also actually becoming more difficult to find songs on the free peer to peer music downloads sites. I believe in about 1-2 years they will be extinct).


You can also receive an unlimited number of burns. These burns are extremely compatible with portable units, including iPod.

Finally, while only iTunes remains so from the legal heavyweights, peer to peer music downloads are compatible with Mac computers as well as PC's.

The problem remains however that there are no peer to peer music downloads sites that have acquired license agreements. This is in contrast to the truly 100% legal sites, where they have acquired permission from each artist and label to carry their songs. Downloading from legal sites? No problem.

Conversely - downloading from peer to peer music downloads sites? May or may not be a problem.

So how do you tell which songs are legal to download from P2P sites and which ones are not?

A rule I like to follow is this: If you can find a song on legal site, via a search and/or if you can find the song easily in the stores, then it would be most definitely illegal to download that song from P2P sites. So, forget about downloading Nelly or 50 Cent from these. Just buy them at your local store, or visit the suggested legal networks listed in this site.

What songs may you find from these sites and download? How about special remixes of your favorite tunes? Now, that would be the best decision.

You probably won't have to worry about acquiring viruses from the better peer to peer music downloads sites. Every site that does not charge a fee is saturated with virus-infected downloads. Now there are some paid sites (scam sites) that are full of these, too. But a few, including the following three, are well protected from these:

All Cool Music - Unlimited FREE MP3 Downloads

My Music Inc. - Download Unlimited Free Music

mp3 advance - Unlimited Free Music


Why these peer to peer music download networks?

Go to next page: The best of the bunch - peer to peer music downloads: