Some sites host MP3s, others point to them


In my effort to find free and legal MP3s, I have tried not to spend too much time worrying about where, specifically, the file is stored, as long as the song is both free and legally distributed.

But it is true that there is a difference between hosting MP3s and pointing to them, a difference that may be more important to recognize now, with a vast proliferation of pointing sites online, than it was when Fingertips was first getting going way back in good old 2003.

Sites that host MP3s literally store the song files on their servers. Many MP3 Hubs and Boutiques alike host the MP3s they list. If you choose to download a song from one of these sites, you will download it directly from the web site in question.

Some MP3 Hubs and some Boutiques, however, only link to MP3s that are actually stored elsewhere--usually on the web site (more accurately, the server) of the musician him/herself or the web site of a small record company. This, of course, is all that Fingertips does: link to free and legal MP3s that are stored elsewhere, not on the Fingertips server.

Some sites do a little bit of each, both hosting and linking.

Both hosting and linking sites are featured in the Music Site Guide, but I'll admit I'm far more excited in general to find a good hosting site than a linking site--after all, the hosting sites are where the goods really are. As often as possible I want to steer Fingertips visitors to the original sources, not merely other sites that are pointing to the original sources. But of course as more and more worthwhile linking sites have sprouted up online, the more you're going to read about those here too.






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