14 DAY TRIAL // In case you're one of those users who are willing to remain on the safe side, you surely pay important amounts of money for genuine content purchased from legitimate sources. But what if the music files that you have just bought are not so genuine as you think? A few days ago, it has been confirmed: there are too many websites out there attempting to trick you and steal your money for so-called genuine music, which is actually pirated. The CDT (Center for Democracy & Technology) published a list of the deceptive fee-based download services that are not licensed with the US record labels and that use several tricks to steal people's money.
"In particular, the sites on our list promote themselves in ways that suggest their music catalog is relatively comprehensive, when in fact they appear to have done nothing to license or otherwise ensure the legality of any downloads from the major music labels. Even where these sites include 'legal information' cautioning users against illegal downloading, that information is not sufficiently clear, or prominent, or specific to prevent users from mistakenly perceiving the sites as sources of lawful copies of most mainstream music", it is mentioned on the CDT page.
The list contains no less than 34 music websites, which claim they're offering licensed music for very low prices. Let's take one of them and see its problems.
AllCoolMusic.com has an Alexa traffic ranking of 73,430, claiming it includes "unlimited free music & movie downloads." According to the CDT list, RIAA confirmed the fact that AllCoolMusic "is not licensed to provide major-label content." And even so, the website still "claims to be rated as "#1 Music Download Website" on NBC, CNN, MTV, AOL, and Google."
Obviously, the owners of the website have already been informed about the legal problems, but no response was received, CDT continued in the notification published on the list.
If you'd like to view the entire list of deceptive music websites, you can find all of them here along with all the details about them.