I recently read the article on squidoo regarding the activities of these sites that say they offer free and unrestricted downloads of all types of music and movies. The article says they are scams and believe me many are for as long as I can remember in writing for this blog, I’ve come across tons of them.
Some sites offer free downloads at the beginning in exchange for subscriptions for their music service (which has declined in the recent years with the proliferation of P2P download sites that have all the latest tracks up for grabs). They give you a couple of tracks and then offer you more, for a fee of course. Some sites are totally commercial and have you subscribe up front to get access to their vast collection of stuff which is by the way the best one to go with for the music you get from them is considered to be licensed. The more devious sites hook you in, keep you on the line and pull you in along with the sinker and all. They do crazy stuff such as drop malware and viruses as they go exploiting vulnerabilities in your system’s configuration. They even contain stuff that shouldn’t even be available to those who don’t want or are not even interested in them (porn and other dirty stuff) without you even asking for it.
But along the way, I’ve come along some unexpected sites such as the BBC and other library sites facilities that have a lot of archived free stuff that you can get for personal use. The industry has stopped research and development into copyright protection for all types of media simply because they are futile and people still get them somewhere over the internet. Responsible users do respect the rights of the owners and buy licensed originals but there are just too many people who want it for free. Hackers make this possible with deep rooted hate towards industry for their ways and monopoly. Others, do it for hatred of the people who make the software and music so whatever the reason it might be left to the user to say enough is enough and initiate control over them (which is next to impossible) but we can make a change by starting on your own.