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Synopsis:

Find out where to download music on the Internet that’s completely free and completely legal. Whether you want to discover new music and new artists or just fill up all that extra space on your iPod, this is a great way to do it!

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There was a time when quite a few people got free music for their iPod from peer-to-peer file sharing services like Napster, Kazaa, and Grokster, however trading copyrighted music this way is illegal and such services have been rightly shut down or have tried to transform themselves into legal services with fees. You may think the days of free music downloads are over, but the Good News is that there is still plenty of free music available for download on the Internet – and it’s perfectly legal! You just have to know where to look. Here’s a list of my favorite sources of legal free music downloads:

Free Songs from the amazon.com MP3 Store

Many people are aware that amazon.com offers mp3 downloads for sale since they directly compete with the iTunes Music Store, however few people seem to know that amazon.com also offers thousands of mp3’s completely free of charge with no catches, no gimmicks and nothing else to buy. This is just their way of trying to top the iTunes Music Store which typically only offers a couple of free mp3 tracks for download each week.

The free downloadable mp3 tracks are in amazon.com’s mp3 store though it’s not immediately obvious where they are upon entering that portion of their web site.  To find them quickly, just click this link to be taken directly to the amazon.com free MP3 Page. As of the publication date of this article, there are approximately 2000 free mp3 songs available for anyone to download, and there’s no limit to the number of free mp3 tracks you can take.  Want them all?  Then go for it!  All the mp3’s that amazon.com offers are high quality 256Kb encoded tracks, and of course all are compatible with all iPods Apple makes including the iPhone and iPad (all models).

In addition to the free tracks, amazon.com also offers a large number of very low cost mp3 albums for purchase. There are quite a few albums from popular artists that are priced for $5 for less. If you like electronic/electronica/dance/trance/techno type music then they have a great deal on 100 A State Of Trance Tunes in which you get 100 great songs in this genre for just $8.99, less than 9 cents per song. If you prefer classical music, they offer The 99 Most Essential Handel Masterpieces for just $1.99 which is only 2 cents per song. And there are lots more great deals like this, browse amazon.com’s MP3 site.

Free Songs from ctgmusic.com

Ctgmusic.com is a site where independent artists can post their music for others to listen to, download, rate and enjoy. Ctgmusic stands for “Create the Great Music” and all the music is available for free download. And even better: you don’t have to create a account to access the tracks. Just start browsing and download what you like. There are no limits and nothing to buy. Ctgmusic presently lists close to 20,000 songs so you’re sure to find someone you like that you can take as a free download.

Free and Cheap Songs from soundclick.com

Soundclick.com boasts having nearly 4 million tracks available for download. A large number of them are available for free download on an unlimited basis. The rest are available for purchase at a fairly low cost: usually 75 cents per track. Their large library of mp3 tracks is easy to browse by genre and sub-genre, and it’s easy to listen to tracks to see what you like. Soundclick.com offers another interesting feature: the ability to license the songs for use in your own projects. You can find songs available for commercial license as well as licensing under the Creative Commons License. Not every song is available for licensing, but those that are can be licensed for a relatively modest fee. This is a great way to get music for your youtube videos so you don’t have to worry about the bothersome “matched third party content” warnings when you upload your video. The large selection of tracks makes this a great site for free mp3 downloads for your Apple iPod, and downloading from this site is legal.

Free Songs from macidol.com

Macidol.com is another site for independent artists to share their music. Like ctgmusic.com, there’s no signup required and no fees. Just browse around and listen to tracks, then download the mp3’s you like for free. There are no limits to how much free music you can download to your iPod or iPhone or just to your iTunes music library.

Nearly Free Music from bandcamp.com

Another good site where independent musicians can distribute their music is bandcamp.com. On bandcamp.com, you can listen and stream an unlimited amount of music for free. If you wish to download music a fee is involved but usually the price is very small. The musician sets the fee they want and sometimes they offer a “name your own price” option with no minimum. If you find these, you can sometimes download an entire mp3 album for as little as 1 cent which is a really good deal. Of course, if you find something you really like, you should pay the artist a reasonable amount and I would suggest a few dollars at a minimum, but in these cases the price is totally up to you. There’s a lot of good music on this site if you take the time to browse around. They don’t list how much total music they have, but it’s a lot.

Of the legal free music sites, amazon.com and ctgmusic.com are my favorites. Between them both, I’ve added around 1,000 songs to my iTunes music library and have discovered a couple of dozen new artists. And it has cost me nothing to do so. And spending just a few dollars at bandcamp.com has further boosted my mp3 music library. So if you’re looking for ways to fill up all that extra space on your shiny new 160 GB Apple iPod classic then these sites are great way to fill it with free legal music mp3 downloads.