Music sharing has drastically shifted directions over the past five years, so much so that it’s hard to keep up! When you consider that less than a decade ago sharing music meant borrowing someone’s cassette tape, it sure has come a long way. New technology allows people who have never even met, or don’t even speak the same language, to share their favorite tunes.

Sadly though, long gone are the days of downloading the material directly off the Internet from any particular server you wanted to. The music industry has reformed its stance on sharing music, making it a bit different than what previous services offered you, after all the artists need to make their royalties somehow. Of course, with how fast the music sharing business has changed, you might just wonder what all has gone on in the past five years and how you can share and listen to music now that wasn’t available before.

Napster, Limewire and Frostwire
You have always been able to download music directly off of the Internet for your own use. However, After Napster went belly up, thanks mostly to government regulations, it is still possible to download the content, although generally this is illegal. There are peer to peer file sharing programs which allow you to do this, although even these are being shut down one at a time. The last service was Limewire and the Frostwire download service, although there will be other services that are shut down and spring back up. As long as there is content to download, a new system will come up, and in seemingly the same amount of time, the government will shut it back down.

Pandora
The music business has moved to sharing material and streaming it online through the popular online service Pandora. With Pandora, you are now able to listen to just about any song imaginable (although these songs never actually download to your computer via MP3). Instead, the music simply streams over the Internet connection, although the main downside to Pandora is you can’t actually select a specific song.

Spotify
Taking up where Pandora left off, Spotify allows you to select specific songs and create your own playlists, using any kind of music you desire. This way, should you want to listen to a particular music file or artist, you can do exactly this.

MP3
Outside of this, it is possible to purchase audio files in MP3 format from a service such as iTunes, then download the content directly to your computer. You are then able to share the files with up to five different devices. This means, you can upload the content to one of your computer computers, or you can download it and share it on your friends computer, as long as you log into your iTunes account. On top of it, you can upload the music to your iCloud service then play the music whenever you decide to, on any device.

Sam is a blogger with a background in social media and email marketing. He is also an avid music fan and listens to Spotify playlists whenever he writes.