Downloading music from the internet is not as hard to do as many people assume. Recently people have been weary to the fact that music sites have been sharing their music illegally. Certain websites, have in fact been downloading, and giving out MP3 songs without the artists permission. This means that the music artist has not been making money from their music hits. Instead, they have been losing money because nobody is buying their music albums, and instead getting illegal free music downloads. Before recently, it has been difficult to distinguish which music sites actually have free music downloads that are legal. When it comes to downloading music, there are a number of hints that can reveal whether or not the music site is legal or not.

The first thing to consider when looking at different music sites, is whether or not the songs are downloaded music, or shared music files. Chances are, if they are shared, they are illegal. A lot of times, a source will download certain music hits into a network, and from there, millions of people get connected to that song. One way to immediately know if a song is downloaded illegally is to take note of when the sing is released. If a song is released on the music sites before the release of the music album, it has probably been downloaded illegally.

When illegal music is downloaded, it is usually flagged. There are certain trackers that find the people who are downloading music illegally, and they get in trouble. Depending on how many songs the user has, will determine how much trouble they get into. Typically, the average person will have a couple hundred songs downloaded onto their computer, so the consequences might not be as drastic. However, in some cases, there have been entire music search engines that have been shut down because of the illegal music downloads.

Another indicator of a legal music download site is to look where the source of the song is coming from. For example, when the song source is listed under so and so's music library, the chances of it being an illegal download are high. On the other hand, many free legal music downloading sites have free music that is available and can still be stored in the user's library, but they are not listed as the song's source.

Finally, finding a legal music downloading site is not hard to do, since most of the illegal ones have been shut down. There are plenty of music sites that offer free music downloads that are of high quality. It is a matter of a little bit of research, but it is very doable. In addition, someone can get thousands of great music downloads whenever they want, and it is legal.