Shareaza Review
Note: this site was originally used by the Shareaza open source P2P project. For more information visit the new Shareaza Project site.
Shareaza - shareaza.com - is one of several sites that advertise millions of free downloads and then take money for recommending and supporting free P2P file sharing software.
The advertising on shareaza.com is misleading. Visitors may think they are signing up for a service that offers millions of legal music and movie downloads. Instead they are paying for Shareaza to recommend and support free P2P file sharing software.
This brings up several questions:
- Is file sharing legal?
- File sharing in and of itself is legal as long as the files are not copyright protected. What they don't tell you is that a huge majority of P2P network files are copyrighted content and therefore illegal to download.
- The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has taken legal action against more than 30,000 people for downloading and/or sharing copyrighted music.
- Does P2P file sharing software normally cost money?
- No it does not. While shareaza.com doesn't mention what your paying for on their home page if you dig deeper you'll find that the cost is for their recommendation and support of the free file sharing software.
- Is Shareaza doing anything illegal?
- They make sure to cover the bases in different areas of the site advising you to follow all copyright laws. Hmm I wonder how many files that leaves you to download...
- Is Shareaza misleading visitors?
- We definitely find their site misleading. Visit McAfee Site Advisor for more opinions of the site.
What legal music download alternatives are out there?
- We review several legal music download sites. Some give access to millions of unlimited downloads while others offer song downloads.
- To find out more visit our legal music downloads page.
- Take a look at our free music downloads page for free trials from top legal music download sites.
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