Royalty Free Music Downloads and Social Networking Sites

Although digital information are free like the air, we should be aware that properties such as images, applications,sounds, texts also requires copyright holder's permission before copying, distributing or sharing them. We cannot upload or download music and other properties unless they are authorized or already paid with royalty fee such as royalty free music.

This is very common among social networking sites such as; facebook, myspace, friendster or whatever. Some users have used images as their profile photos without permission, some people are faking their names and identities and are illegaly using the identity of celebrities and other famous artist. But the biggest issue on the internet is the use of music and illegal sharing of mp3 files through P2P(peer to peer) or file sharing networks where many people are able to download, forward unauthorized copy through instant messaging, mails and even reproduce and distribute another copy on CD's.

Many music artist, composers and producers have lost their profits because of this and because of this the value of their creative work are lost as well. Due to the damage done, RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) issued a "No Electronic Theft Law" (NET Act) which is similar to copyright violations that involve digital recordings. Any person violating this act can be penalized with a criminal penalty that can run up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. And not just that, copyright holders can sue you for up to $150,000 in statutory damages for each of their copyrighted works that you illegally copy or distribute.

But don't lose hope we can still get copies of royalty free music in the internet without getting penalized. There are sites which are authorized by the owners of the copyrighted music, some of them are free some are not.

Just always remember, do not download unauthorized music from peer-to-peer systems which are considered pirate sites such as: Kazaa, Grokster, WinMX, LimeWire, Bearshare, Aimster, Morpheus, and Gnutella. Also keep in mind, do not to produce anauthorized copies of them as this may also cause you to violate the federal law. Before using such properties make sure you have the copyright holder's permission or it is paid with royalty fee such as royalty free music downloads, which has been purchased for a one time fee and can be used by the purchaser as many times as needed.