Free, legal, professional music online
I love music. I could easily spend $100-200 per month purchasing music. But even more than that, I love music that I can share with others.
I don't spend that much, and I couldn't justify that, but I love adding songs to my personal library to play whenever I want. So I've been compiling lists of free songs that I've found online that I can share with you.
Amazon has over a dozen great songs for free.
B.Reith has 4 songs on Amazon for free as well. He's an amazing artist,and so creative and talented, and friends with tobyMac.
Many sites are more limited with just a free song download. But these can add up when you have a good list of them.
Tangle has a free song download once per week.
Worth Dying For has a song you can download once you create an account and login.
Jars of Clay Closer is available hassle-free, as is Heaven for the cost of your email account.
I wish these songs came with the license to allow folks to give them to friends or whatever (no selling them, obviously). But it's important to realize that they don't give you that license, and legally you cannot distribute the music. What you can do is give friends a list of links where they can download the music themselves.
Hey, please post comments if you have lists of your own free, legal, and professional music sources (it's easy to find 2 of the 3, but not all 3). The hardest thing I've found is the ability to document how/why things are legally available. I've found dozens of fan sites with MP3s, but they cannot document how they legally have the right (i.e. a license) to redistribute them, or if they claim they are in the "public domain" what their source is. Without that, you're setting yourself up for trouble.
Proverbs 19 speaks to this. Especially verses 1-3, "Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is perverse in his speech and is a fool. It is dangerous to have zeal without knowledge, and the one who acts hastily makes poor choices. A person’s folly subverts his way, and his heart rages against the Lord," vs. 8, "The one who acquires wisdom loves himself; the one who preserves understanding will prosper," vs. 10, "The one who acquires wisdom loves himself; the one who preserves understanding will prosper," vs. 16, "The one who obeys commandments guards his life; the one who despises his ways will die," and verses 27 and 29, "If you stop listening to instruction, my child, you will stray from the words of knowledge. A crooked witness scorns justice, and the mouth of the wicked devours iniquity... Judgments are prepared for scorners, and floggings for the backs of fools."
God's word is simple, don't steal. You can debate it all you want, but taking something that is not yours, that you do not have permission to take (in our day and age, this is called a license, if it is not in the public domain) is stealing. If you don't want RIAA/MPAA slapping you with a lawsuit, don't steal.
For those who don't have understanding, let me point out one more thing: When you use BitTorrent to download music and movies, you are sharing (distributing) content to others as you download. You are legally setting yourself up for a world of hurt. Don't do it because it is ethically and morally wrong, but even more than that you are setting yourself up financial disaster.
Live within your means. If you can get free and legal music online, as I've listed, do it. Save your pennies, make wise choices and buy what you can. How about praying and ask God? (See James 4:1-3). Listen to free resources online like KLOVE or watch online and locally too.
