Looking in the right places for free MP3s
One of the best things about the widespread growth of broadband has been the access it has given us to the world of digital music. Downloading music with dial-up Internet was nothing short of an ordeal, whereas now, with superfast broadband speeds we can download MP3s in a matter of seconds.
In recent years, literally thousands of online music sites have sprung up, giving us access to every type of music imaginable. Many of these sites offer free MP3s to encourage new customers to sign up and afterwards charge a very reasonable amount per track downloaded. Most of them are perfectly legitimate and above board, but if you are downloading free MP3s try and make sure you’re getting them from a legal site. File sharing sites like Limewire are not the place to go to get free MP3s. For a start the quality of your tracks won’t be great, but more importantly, the artist who produced the track loses out on the royalties they’re entitled to.
As the Internet has become one of the key marketing tools for new artists, many have begun posting free MP3s on their websites in the hope that offering free tracks will help them grow their fan base. This is certainly one way of generating goodwill and has proven successful for a number of up and coming artists, particularly in the dance music sphere, where the ultimate goal of any producer is to hear their tracks played out in clubs. By offering free MP3s to DJS, the chances are they will at least have a listen to the track and if they like it, add it to their playlist.
However, more established artists have also started offering free MP3s as a way of thanking fans for their loyalty. So, for example, if you buy an entire album you may then get a link to the band’s website where they offer special bonus MP3s as a thank you.
Overall the practice of offering free MP3s as a marketing tool seems to be a good one and one that fans appreciate. However it’s important not to take this practice for granted and realise that we also owe it to the artists we admire to support them by paying for their music and avoiding illegal downloads.
