Whether you want to make music or just listen to it, the internet has more to offer than Napster and doctored photos of Britney Spears...

Fair trade
Like the ease of downloading music from illegal sites but feel guilty about stealing artists' hard graft? Now there's an ethical alternative. Oxfam have launched this site, which features 350,000 tracks including most of the current top ten. Ten pence in every pound you spend goes to help the charity support the world's poor, which should be enough to satisfy the tree-hugger in you.
www.bignoisemusic.com

Nice one
If you're looking for a job in the music industry, the BBC's huge One Music site is like a careers advisor and A&R exec rolled into one, only without the bad leather jackets. Firstly, the site gives you the skinny on the skills you need to become anything from a studio engineer to a press officer. But if you are a musician, you can also send in your demo for Radio One's staff - and other site users - to pan or praise.
www.bbc.co.uk/onemusic

MP3s
If you're in a band, uploading your MP3s onto the web is a hassle-free way of letting fans, record label staff and journalists hear what you're like. But having dozens of your ten-minute opuses on the web is going to use masses of server space, which will cost you a mountain of money. Fortunately there are some free services around, including www.overplay.co.uk and www.vitaminic.co.uk, which won't charge you for hosting up to of your 25 tracks on their site. Overplay will even throw in some information on local rehearsal rooms, photographers and video producers too.

Ringtones
There's more cash to be made in ringtones than singles nowadays, but if you're not a member of D12 or Maroon 5 you've probably not benefitted. Stayaround is hoping to fill that gap with a service allowing small labels and unsigned acts the chance to sell ringtones to fans by text message or credit card Register at before their mid-August launch and they will aim to convert your tracks to ringtones absolutely free - afterwards it will cost you é20 to é30. So act now and it could be your track annoying everyone on the train soon.
www.stayaround.com

Next week we'll be looking at using the web to meet a mate. If there's a topic you would like to see covered, why not drop us a line here.

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