CNET Launches Free Music Downloading Site

CNET’s Download.com launched a free, legal music downloading service that enables users to download music from participating artists without spending a cent. http://music.download.com went live yesterday on download.com, one of the most visited sites for legal, software downloads. The site is live with basic functionality that allows users to browser, find, download and listen to […]

CNET’s Download.com launched a free, legal music

downloading service that enables users to download music from participating artists

without spending a cent.

http://music.download.com went live yesterday

on download.com, one of the most visited sites for legal, software downloads.

The site is live with basic functionality that allows users to browser, find,

download and listen to music from an initial collection of thousands of songs.

As the song catalog grows, the website will undergo

development to introduce community and technology features to make the site

more functional.

"While commercial music services have proliferated,

we are the first large-scale provider to offer free music downloads in a discovery-focused

environment, saving music fans valuable time in finding tunes that match their

tastes," said Scott Arpajian, senior vice president of CNET Download.com.

"Our goal is to provide music fans free digital fuel for their devices,

and exposure to original artists and songs that can become their new favorites."

CNET seems to have a winning formula for fans

seeking to download. On a monthly basis, users download over 75 million software

files from over 30,000 offerings.

CNET is banking on the site to do well in the

downloaded music section, based on the fact that their "Audio and Video"

software category consistently ranks as the number one downloading category

on their entire site.

One of the first acts to be featured as an "Editors

Pick" is U.K. Hip-Hop group Lyrical Darkness, who count among their lyrical

influences Canibus, Ras Kass, Chino XL, Tonedeff and Cypress Hill.

The company also acquired the MP3.com domain

name after the company was snapped up and shut down by Universal and will also

relaunch the site in the coming months.

All genres of music are represented on the artist

friendly site. For more information visit http://music.download.com.