A music download is a song or album available for downloading on the Internet. Downloading music first became popular with file sharing technologies such as peer-to-peer networks, with people breaking copyright laws by not paying for any of it. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claimed that this practice was damaging the music industry, and a series of law suits led to many of these networks being closed down. However, those who support such technologies argued that the music industry said the same thing about recordable tapes and CDs, and even when recorded music came out as before then artists got their money through live performance, and that the industry should embrace the advancements in technology rather than enforce prohibitions on the practice. Very little publishable academic research has been done to clarify this form of massive consumer behavior.
There is a great deal of freely available music online, which is distributed by the copyright holders for various reasons. (For instance, some university orchestras have high-quality recordings of their performances.) This fully legitimate free music is often overlooked by the popular media and is hardly a new development on the Internet.
