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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