In this modern age of growing piracy and illegal downloads of copyrighted materials including music, websites which are providing legal downloads are indeed a relief. Illegal music downloads have an adverse effect on most of the record companies, and this can ultimately lead to their closedown. Hence legal music downloads are ideal in that you get the music you want without getting caught up in legal tussles. Legal music downloads are available either through public domain websites or through pay services.

Public domain websites which are offering legal music downloads mostly contain music for which the copyright period has expired, and therefore is royalty free. This public domain music can be owned by anyone for ones own use and for free distribution. The music can be modified as well. Most public domain music websites offer the works of independent and unsigned musicians, who contribute their music free to the online community, in order to popularize their work in a cost-effective manner. In the process they get a good number of fans as well.

Legal music downloads are made available by websites which are offering pay services. In these websites, the music downloads are completely legal, since these websites give a portion of the money obtained from selling music online as royalty to the artist or company who owns the music. Often such pay websites takes care to update their collections with new releases of music albums at the same time they are being released worldwide. Easy categorization of music according to their genre helps visitors of pay sites to easily search and download their favorite music.

While selecting a particular legal music download website which is offering music through payments, it is ideal to check whether the website has user review sessions. By reading user reviews, music lovers can easily identify whether the music they wish to download is worth listening to and buying. Most commercial websites providing legal downloads have both audio and video versions of music available for download. For video downloads, it is best to have a broadband connection as it offers greater transmission speeds, resulting in faster downloads.

With strict copyright laws being enforced worldwide, many websites which had earlier provided illegal music downloads have now transformed themselves to commercial websites offering only legal downloads. Such moves in the online music industry can make a significant contribution towards achieving totally legal music downloads online.

There are also a few websites offering music which can be burned directly to compact discs, apart from providing the facility for legal music downloads. With all music downloads going legal, the benefits are to the music companies and artists who work to create excellent, original music content.