Copyright (c) 2010 Kanoknij Wattananukul

Because of the existence of music download sites, the way by which people acquire music has greatly changed. Even though these sites made it much easier for people to get their hands on the latest music in the market, people should be made aware that some of the sites are actually illegal. The fact is that it is already the responsibility of the people to distinguish which among the sites found on the internet are legal, and those that are not. To give you a better background of an illegal site, the first illegal software for downloading music will be discussed.

During the year 1999 people were oriented with the very first illegal software called Napster that was developed by Shawn Fanning. This software allowed people to freely share their files with other people. The boom of this new software was and still is considered as illegal because this new software totally bypassed the whole music industry. Anyone who has a computer and this software at home can acquire the music that they want without having to pay for anything. Truly, the software was viewed as something that totally violated the copyright laws considering the fact that these people who share their files through this software did not have any permission from the artists and even the recording labels to do what they are doing. Because a lot of the artists and label companies filed a lawsuit against Napster, it eventually got bankrupt on June 3 during the year 2002. However, they already became successful in introducing to people an illegal method of acquiring music because a lot of music download sites came about after Napster.

To make things clearer for you, you should be aware that a download site is considered as a legal site if it has an appropriate permission from the artist, recording label and whoever represents the music legally. That being said, a site is considered as a legal distributor of almost all of the songs released in the market if they made a legal agreement with the record label of the artist of a particular song. You have to know that some of the music record labels that a legal site should have an agreement with are Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Warner Music Group. You should also be made aware that if a site is really legally connected to any of these record labels, they should at least bother to include it somewhere in their site such as the 'FAQs' and 'About Us' sections. However, if you cannot find this particular information anywhere in their site, it is really up to you to find a way to contact them and make sure that they are really a legal distributor of the songs that they are offering people.

Making sure that certain music download sites are really legal is an internet user's responsibility. Hence it can never be used as an excuse that you do not have any idea that a particular site is illegal that is why you downloaded songs from it. It is your responsibility as a music lover to respect the rights of the artists and musicians by giving them credit for the work they have put in just to be able to create their music. You can never blame it on the website for offering you illegal music because it is assumed that you are properly aware of the legality of the site before actually downloading anything from it.

These sites can really be a blessing to most music lovers, but when used incorrectly, they can be unethical to the music industry that you really want to patronize.