Many people search the Internet looking for alternatives to pay legal sites. But when searching online for Rhapsody, iTunes and Napster sites, you'll get millions of results which can become frustrating. Furthermore, when searching online for music download sites, it can be very hard to tell the difference between legal sites and file sharing sites.

P2P file sharing sites are confusing for many people because they make clear that they provide a legal service - which is true. But although P2P file sharing networks are still considered legal, it's how these P2P file sharing networks work that have gotten some people in serious trouble with the RIAA and MPAA.

Basically, anyone who is caught downloading or sharing copyrighted material could be sued by the RIAA or MPAA. And in more recent news, P2P file sharing companies, and individuals that encourage illegal downloads of music and movies, are now also being sued.

Furthermore, few people fully understand the hidden dangers and security risks of getting free MP3 downloads using P2P file sharing networks. These risks includes; adware, spyware, viruses, hackers and online privacy risks.

So how do you get free legal music downloads online? There are a variety of legal music sites that give you free mp3 downloads of cutting edge music, Indie music and up and coming new music stars.

1) Epitonic.com - Epitonic works mostly with small, independent record labels. Epitonic provides high-quality music downloads and a searchable database of "Cutting Edge Music" in a variety of genres including; Rock, Folk/Acoustic, Hip Hop, Pop and Jazz.

2) Garageband.com - GarageBand.com is a top independent music distributor and they feature popular free indie music. The site has thousands of Independent songs in their database that you can listen to, download and review. GarageBand's top songs are promoted by 1,000 radio partners and they featured music from Bo Bice (an American Idol finalist) before he was a big star.

3) eMusic.com - Although the subscription service is not free, with eMusic you can download free legal music when you sign-up for the free eMusic download trial. Emusic features over 600,000 tracks and hi quality digital music fidelity. Emusic provides the hottest legal music download trial online by giving you 25 legal MP3 downloads for free.

4) Amazon.com - Amazon provides free legal music downloads of today's top musicians. And it's easy to start downloading, just go to amazon.com and click on the "Free Downloads" tab where you can browse from a wide variety of music selections and popular artists.

Because new music downloads are usually always copyrighted, the sites above will most likely not have the latest new song downloads. However these sites provide a huge variety of free legal music downloads for you to choose from.