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A
few years ago, US record companies decided to challenge file sharing in
the courts. First, they went after the biggest file sharing network at
the time: Napster. Their main purpose was to
shut it down which they succeeded at doing, but the precedence was set.
File sharing was soon to become illegal
even by individuals.
The
record companies had a bit of a set back a couple of years later. The
technology which allowed file sharing was stated to be legal, only the
act of individuals sharing music downloads was illegal. Therefore, record
companies began to go after individuals to set a precedence that if you
download music from a file sharing system, you are breaking the law.
Then
Napster had an idea. They thought "let's work together with the record
companies to provide music for listeners at a cost, then pass part of
the earnings on to individual artists". Legal music downloading was
born.
Today
there are several sites like Napster including eMusic.com, MusicNet, Real
Rhapsody,
MSN Music, Yahoo! Music, Musicnow, itunes, Sony-Connect, Buy.com, Walmart, Virgin-Digital,
PureTracks, and MSN Music. Some of these sites are listed in our legal mp3 reviews.
So,
to answer the question "what makes legal music download sites different
than file sharing networks?", artists get paid out of the gingival
songs you purchase.
Agreements
are formed with unions within each country, so some sites are only
available in the US
such as Real
Rhapsody,
because they only have an agreement to allow US residents to download
music.
With
all that said, there is one more important element that needs to be
clarified. What about file sharing programs that charge a fee. Where
does that money go? Click here to learn more...
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