Despite the death of physical CD sales of music, instant broadband access has made acess to music easy, making everybody a music expert. There are several ways to access music illegally via mp3s, though such sites are subject to the scrutiny of the law. Major record companies are only just coming to accept that online music is a loss leader for them, and listening to a song online would be a prompt to see the band in the flesh at a major venue, as the live experience is now more cherished than listening to a physical record. Youtube stores thousands of music videos and bootleg live recordings; to download music legally, there are several places where you can subscribe to an unlimited-play monthly service, including We7, Last.fm and Spotify. Napster, one of the most notorious free mp3-sharing sites, is now subscription-only and all the better for it. At such sites, you can listen to the tracks from their database however many times you want, with an option to purchase them in a Digital Rights Management-free file, with optional artwork. The account on such a site is connected to your debit account details so you must ensure enough money exists to cover your purchases; the iTunes music store is very vigilant in this respect. There are search functions on these websites and recommendation engines pointing you towards artists which sound like your favourites, giving you an infinite voyage of musical discovery. Though some artists have not licensed their songs to some databases (Pink Floyd and AC/DC and, after their lawsuit against Napster, Metallica are just three), most recorded music is there to be listened to and shared. On other music blogs like Pitchfork and Stereogum, there are options to download the tracks by right-clicking on the file and saving it in a folder, and many artists now offer free samples of their new albums in lieu of, or in addition to, radio play.
