3 Legal Ways to Get Music on Your MP3 Player

It is common knowledge that free digital music can be obtained through peer-to-peer sharing networks like Kazaa and Limewire. However, downloading copyrighted material is illegal and although punishment is rare, it does occur. Furthermore, the quality of these tracks can be questionable and using peer-to-peer networks opens your computer up to dangerous viruses.

For those of you who want to avoid these types of files, there are 3 great options available to you.

• Rip your own CD collection into digital format
• Purchase protected music files from a digital music store like Itunes (some are now unprotected).
• Rent music on a subscription basis from Rhapsody, Napster, or Yahoo Music Unlimited.
  

If you have a large CD collection, you can save yourself a lot of money by ripping your own CD's to your hard drive. Although this can be time consuming, it offers the highest possible audio quality and is generally considered legal (as long as you don't decide to share these files with millions of people). If you rip your music in mp3 format, it should be compatible with any mp3 player, including the iPod.

Digital music stores like Itunes offer millions of tracks for download, however, there are restrictions placed on these tracks for most artists (EMI recently removed digital rights management, DRM, from their music files). You are limited to the number of times you can burn songs to a CD and the number of computers you can use to listen to these songs. However, for most people, this is not a concern. Also, Itunes audio quality measured in bit rate is less than what you can achieve when ripping your own CD's. Finally, protected Itunes songs only transfer to an iPod, so if you have a different mp3 player, you will need to find a compatible music download service.

Subscription music services allow you to download millions of tracks for a monthly fee. When you stop paying the monthly fee, the tracks expire and will no longer play. The advantage of this service is that you can listen to anything you want without having to buy every CD. Prices range from $10-$15 a month. With a subscription to-go service, you can transfer any song to a compatible mp3 player and take it with you to the gym or on trips. If you like to listen to a lot of new music, then this may be the most cost-effective option.