Is Downloading Music Legal?

Music downloading means copying a digital music file from one place on the Internet and placing it somewhere else, such as on your home computer. MP3 music files have been around for a long time now and file sharing programs are still just as popular as they have ever been. Still, many people still do not know what is legal and what is not legal. Can downloading music to your home computer and burning it to discs put you at risk for possible lawsuits or criminal charges? Downloading music is legal as long as all of the copyright holders of that particular piece of music have given authorization for it to be downloaded and stored in digital format. Therefore, it is not legal to copy your downloaded music files onto a compact disc and sell that compact disc to someone else. Even giving a compact disc with your recorded music on it to someone else for free means illegal file-sharing and breaks current copyright laws.