How To Download Legal MP3 And Save Money

I am not going to promote any site, nor services presented by the sites. I have been downloading mp3 music for a long time and have some experience that I would like to share with the honor audience. It's up to you wheather to use it.

When you will finish reading this article you will:

1. Know where (how) to find mp3 music on the Internet
2. Be sure it's 100% legal
3. Save money and even earn bonuses and $$.

Are you looking for the perfect online music service? A service that has every song in the world for a good price in an unprotected format and with a sound quality equal to the audio CD?

Sorry, we have to disappoint you. There is no such service yet. You will probably have heard of the iTunes Music Store, and Napster, services supported by the big labels.

These services are highly criticized because of the prices and limitations due to Digital Rights Management (DRM). Many believe that this approach will never attract the millions of p2p users who are sharing billions of music files for free. The strategy of the big labels is to force p2p users to refrain from their illegal actions by threatening them with lawsuits. This will only cause P2P users to switch to anonymous methods of sharing, thus making the big label’s problems bigger than ever before. P2P is here to stay, that’s for sure. How long will it take the music industry to realize that this is not the way to go? That the solutions is needed to be found elsewhere.

It may seem impossible to compete with free, but we are convinced that there is a way. Making legal downloading more attractive than P2P is the answer.

Services like Soundike, MP3Panda and other prove that it can be done. They offer popular music in an unprotected format for a decent price. This concept has already made thousands of die-hard P2P users paying for downloading music.

You would expect the big labels to copy this successful business model. The Music Industry has been disregarding the Internet for years in a row, leaving this great way to distribute music to those who they consider to be pirates. Introducing services like Itunes Music Store and MSN Music did not really change this. These people are not in it for the music. Their main goal is to sell hardware or to prevent their competitor from getting too big a slice.

The past few years I have been gathering information on music services. And I hope this will help you finding a consumer friendly music service.

Reviews of the websites providing legal music downloading services:

Soundike, a Russian site with a very pleasant looking design and over 1 million tracks in store.

Tracks cost $0.15 per track. But if you deposit for example $30 worth deposit you get a free bonus worth $30 added to account (total $60). That makes a track cost you only $0.075 wich is the cheapest price for a track I've seen so far. They accept all major credit cards (Master, Visa, Diners etc), PayPal and a few other methods like wire transfer.

Soundike has signed agreements with the Russian copyright organization FAIR. This entitles this service to legally offer music by all artists and from all labels.

You can listen to a 40 second preview of every track using the built-in flash player.

All files are offered in MP3 format and a good deal of them are encoded with a variable bitrate using the excellent LAME encoder and the alt-preset standard switch. This produces an excellent sound quality practically undistinguishable from the original CD. But you will come across other bitrates. Soundike has one of the best catalogues. Even the singles are present, with the usual special remixes. Recently released albums appear soon. Be sure to check their regular special offers.

Legality

Many question the legality of the Russian services. Lengthy discussions on this subject can be found all over the Internet. The bottom line is that the Russian services are probably legal under current Russian law. Using these services from outside Russia could be legal as well.

Advantages:

• low pricing;
• high download speeds;
• great sound quality
• no DRM copy protections;
• compatible with all portable players;
• good catalogue with all major artists;
• recently released albums are available;
• single releases are included in the catalogue
• nice and easy to use interface

Disadvantages:

• MP3 only;
• No download manager;
• Files are not properly named;

Conclusion

Soundike is a one of the best resources for music. The catalogue is impressive. Prices, considering their discount policy, is amazing. Too bad they lack advanced features like online encoding and a download manager. Downloading is fast.

Visit Soundike

MP3Panda is a Russian service. With a nice looking website it offers a lot of music for a more than decent price.

Songs cost about $0.05 per track. Prices vary, I have not been able to find out the pricing system behind this all, but it must be related with the file size. When you buy an album you will get a discount. They accept credit cards, PayPal, and a few other methods like wire transfer.

MP3Panda has signed agreements with the Russian copyright organization ROMS. This entitles this service to legally offer music by all artists and from all labels.

All files are offered in MP3 format but the bitrate varies. The sound quality is good but due to the many different bitrates it is not consistent. Filenames are like, 04_-_This_Is_A_Song.mp3. Not quite the way we like them but ID3 tags are properly filled so automated renaming with a tag editor should do the trick.

MP3Panda delivers a comprehensive catalog that includes albums from all major artists.

Songs cost about $0.10, album prices ar far less than the total price of the tracks. You can even find albums with a price below a dollar!

To be able to download you have to pay in advance by buying download credit, starting from $19,90. When you fund your account with a higher amount you will receive a bonus. A $34,90 payment will give you a bonus of $6 and a $99,90 payment even $25!

Many question the legality of the Russian services. Lengthy discussions on this subject can be found all over the Internet. The bottom line is that the Russian services are probably legal under current Russian law. Using these services from outside Russia could be legal as well. More information can be found on this page.

Advantages:

• low pricing;
• great bonuses;
• payment by PayPal is possible;
• high download speeds;
• no DRM copy protections;
• good catalogue with all major artists;
• compatible with all portable players;
• nice and easy to use interface

Disadvantages:

• MP3 only;
• No download manager;
• Files are not properly named;
• Bitrate varies;

Conclusion:

MP3Panda is a one of the best and cheapest resources for music. One of the best things is that you can use PayPal to fund your account, not to forget the great bonuses you receive. It lacks advanced features like online encoding and a download manager.

Downloading is fast but you have to download every single file separately using the "Right click -> Save target as" method. For downloading whole albums we advise to use a download manager. If you like clean filenames you will need a renaming tool.

Visit MP3Panda

Perhaps the most inexpensive music site on the world, LegalSounds.com boasts a great catalog and most importantly a music downloader and manager. If you want the least expensive option with the added convenience of a native downloader, then this is the site for you! Payment options include credit cards and several other alternative payment methods.

MP3 websites don't usually offer a native download manager; LegalSounds.com, however, does. For some people, this makes it more attractive than some of the alternative sites. Having a download manager means that downloading and searching for music tracks is quicker and easier than if you use a typical web interface.

Payment options include VISA, MasterCard, Diners Club or JCB and several e-wallets: WebMoney, Yandex.Dengi, Rapida, e-port, and Kredit Pilot. The site interface has what I think is a very classy design, and is available in English and Russian.

LegalSounds.com also has a bonus program: for each payment of $25 or higher, you get free track downloads. For $25 you get 25 free tracks, $35 gets you 50 free tracks, on up to $100 with a total of 200 free tracks. If you use the $100 bonus option, this effectively bring your total price per track down to about $0.076 per track.

Price: $0.09 per Track

Quality of Files: Mp3 192 KBs - 320 KBs

Selection: Over 640340 tracks

Payment Services Accepted: Visa/MasterCard/Maestro, Diners Club, E-gold, Webmoney, KreditPilot, Rapida or by SMS

Reliability: Reliable

Misc: For $25 you get 25 free tracks, $35 gets you 50 free tracks, on up to $100 with a total of 200 free tracks.

Learn more about LegalSounds

1. MP3Panda
2. Soundike
3. LegalSounds
   

   
   

To learn more about websites offering cheap and legal mp3 music, compare mp3 websites, go to Websites Comparison Chart.