Free Music Download Sites - Does "Free" Really Mean Free?

Like everything in life - you pay for everything in one way or another.

If you get a payrise, you're usually expected to take on more work and/or responsibility with it.

If you're offered free shipping on a product the retailer has probably already added the cost onto the price of the product to make it look like a better deal.

Many "free" vouchers for the grocery store still require you to fill in your name, address, phone number etc. so the company who is giving you money off their products can send you lots of junk mail, or sell your details onto second parties for a profit.

And if your cellphone offers no monthly fee, the per minute cost of your calls will usually go up.

The same can be said for free music download sites.

Sure, there are free music download sites from which you can free online music, but you'll still end up paying for it in some way.

After all, unless a website is purely a hobby website, produced for fun, the owner will at least be looking to break even on his or her costs each month.

And with music licensing as closely regulated as it is, sites must either operate illegally and risk closure and hefty fines, or pay licensing fees in order to distribute downloadable music.

Add to this the fact that downloadable music is a rapidly expanding market, worth millions each year and it's clear that like the seedy worlds of online gambling or pornography, literally thousands of companies, both large and small, are seeing great big dollar signs before their eyes and trying to get a piece of what many see as the next Internet goldrush.

Online publishing - of books, software, videos, subscription websites for information such as stockmarket advice and of course music download sites, is a rapidly-growing sector of the market. It's a simple fact therefore that 95%+ of the websites you'll come across on the subject of downloadable music are after your cash in one way or another.

You can count on it.

Remember that I've spent the last 6 months or so visiting literally hundreds and hundreds of music download sites to get the point I'm at now.

Frustrated, tired, annoyed, but educated, armed and knowledgeable about what is and isn't worth spending your time, energy and money on in the enticing world of music download sites.

And like I say, free hardly ever means free.

If you're looking purely and solely for free music download sites, you'd better be willing to accept a few home truths.

I want you to know before you start surfing, and finding yourself going round in circles, what you're most likely to encounter.

Firstly, I should say that a few fan sites will provide you with free downloadable music. These are usually "official" fan sites of individual bands, who are willing to give away some free tracks to try to gain attention and interest and have managed to negotiate with their record companies, or bands yet to get a record deal, hoping to catch the eye of an overly busy producer.

You may well find you can get some free MP3s of your favourite bands off of their websites, which is great, and could therefore be classed as free music download sites.

However the downside I have encountered with these sites is that as they're limited to just one band, and usually just a handfull of tracks, you can spend an aweful lot of time sifting through the search engines, and numerous websites before you come up with what you're looking for.

Then, once you've downloaded the few tracks, you're off for yet another long search.

So in this case you're paying with your time - lots of time.

The second way in which you can "pay" for "free" music download sites is that use the revenue model of attracting lots of traffic as a result of offering something that's in high demand for free, then attempt to sell advertising space on their highly-trafficked site.

When you bear in mind that the bottom has fallen out of the market for this revenue model since the dot-com burst, with less companies willing to splash about vast amounts of cash on advertising that has an increasingly poor response rate. (Banner advertising response rates, for example, are generally agreed in marketing circles, to be dropping rapidly to the point it is very difficult to make any money with them at all).

OK, so you'd be willing to put up with a banner ad or two in exchange for some free music?

That's what I thought.

But like I said, selling advertising space on your website is a surprisingly difficult thing to do these days, and is unlikely to buy anyone that new Ferrari or condo in the Caribbean.

So in order to maximise revenue, you're often, if not usually, subjected to so many adverts that the page contains little else besides banner advert after banner advert. This considerably reduces the quality of the site you're visiting, and also makes some of them so painfully slow to load that looking at more than a few of the pages on these websites and it'll be time for you to have to get up for work again!

And popup adverts. Bucket loads of them. If you hate them as much as I do - I immediately leave any site that bombards me with popup adverts, you're going to hate visiting most free music download sites! I won't say any more than that on the subject!

Lastly, just like the grocery coupons I mentioned earlier, these websites may make their profit by taking your personal details.

Many free music download sites will require you to register before you can download anything. Maybe just an email address. Maybe a first name as well. A surname. An address. A telephone number. Your mother's maiden name. Your favourite color. Your first pets name. Favourite Big Brother contestant and so on.

You get the idea.

Now of course you can lie, but they can also take you to court if they wanted to be really picky for giving false information.

And what do you think happens to all your personal details? Sometimes, nothing. The owner of the website really does care about you and downloadable music and just send you occasional emails on new tracks, features and websites that may be of interest to you. They might even give you the chance of removing yourself from all future mailings if you wish.

But many won't. You'd be amazed at the number of spam emails I've gotten as a result of giving details on these sites.

And yes, I know it was from them, because I use unique email addresses for many subscriptions as a test, to see what I get from whom.

So is it all doom and gloom?

Of course not! Every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining.

There are some good free music download sites.

Winamp, for example, which I mention in the free mp3 players section, has links to free music on it - so could be classed as a free music download site.

However don't forget that my personal favourite of all the music download sites has a free 14 day subscription. Sure, they're hoping to entice you into staying a member, but it's up to you.

You're in charge. You can download up to 50 free mp3s and stay a member for 2 weeks without paying a dime, and then cancel if you like. Or you might decide, like I did, to continue your membership.

The choice is yours, the quality and range is excellent, and you do get some good freebies!

If you like it, a membership is so cheap it'll make you laugh. If you don't like it, who cares? It's popup free, you won't get any spam or have to put up with bucket-loads of banner ads and you'll come out the other end in a month's time with several CDs full of music you didn't have to begin with, that didn't cost you a bean!

To find out more, or sign up for your free 50 mp3s, and try out the best of the free music download sites, just click here.

And don't forget to join my free Music Download Sites newsletter for updates and reviews of free music download sites. I regularly provide updated lists of websites and resources to get free downloadable music from - so sign up and save yourself a huge amount of time - let me do all the searching for you.