Downloading music has always been a quick way for consumers to get new music without having to go to the store. However there are many different sites on the internet that you can choose from to get music from. The problem is that not all of them are legal and that you can get fined heavily if you?re downloading music from a site that isn?t endorsed by the record companies. Before you choose a site to download from you will want to take several factors into consideration.

You?ll want to start by ensuring that your chosen site is actually legal. This can be difficult as website may post all different types of things on their page to make you believe it?s legal when in fact it?s not. It?s obvious that the sites that you don?t have to pay for aren?t legal however there are plenty of sites that will charge you money to download from them even if they?re not legal. Most of these websites will boast that you can have unlimited downloads for a set monthly price. If you run into a site like this you should be cautious as you can download from them and still be fined by the record companies. Some websites also allow users to transfer music to each other. The site isn?t actually uploading the music it?s just acting as a portal for users to share it. This type of sharing is known as P2P and is illegal as well.

If you want to escape the legality problem facing most sites then you will want to stick with sites that are well known. If you download from a reputable site you won?t have to worry about downloading music illegally and you won?t have to worry about the problems that are associated with downloading music illegally such as viruses. It?s very easy to catch a virus by downloading music illegally.

After you have a list of sites that are legitimate you will need to find the best priced sites. Some sites will charge you a flat rate per song or per album. There are other sites that may charge various amounts depending on how new or popular the music is. You may also need to use a couple sites to get the best price per download if you are downloading a combination of both old and new music. There are a very few legal sites that will allow you to download unlimited amounts of music for free every month. However you won?t be able to transfer them off of your computer or iPod and you won?t actually own them. This means that you can only listen to them rather than put them on CD?s.

In many cases the best priced site will depend on how much music you want to download and whether they?re specific songs or whole albums. Besides music there are several sites that offer users the ability to download wallpapers, pictures, and videos. If you?re an avid iPod user that has multiple types of media on your iPod then you may want to consider sticking with one of these sites as you?ll have access to a lot more media types then just MP3s. In the end it?s all about how much and what you?re trying to download.