Home > Legal Questions> Is downloading Mp3s illegal?
Downloading music, movies, games, or software from the Internet without paying and sharing these materials without appropriate permission is considered a breach of copyright laws. Recreational file-sharing, or the trading of movies, music, games, and/or software, is more easily detectable than you might assume. Copyright holders have been intensifying enforcement using automated scanning software to identify infringements, no matter how small. Moreover, when your music is under the custody of a music-sharing program, anyone can access it and download a copy. This makes you a distributor of copyrighted materials. Under the law, this is illegal unless you have permission from the copyright holder to distribute the material. If you are downloading MP3s for free, with services such as KaZaa. However, there are several legitimate sites where you can legally download MP3s for a fee, such as ITunes, Emusic.com, Musicmatch, and the best buy music store.
