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With the advent of internet music has been liberated. In olden days music used to be in the hand of kings or wealthy people. Radio had removed that barrier to an extent but you cannot listen to what you want. I know you can buy music players but this not something very liberated. With many free music listening websites coming up, music has been truly liberated. In the beginning there was huge cry over the music rights. Now that these concerns have died down that means they have found good business model wherein the websites which makes the songs available to public and the makers of the songs both benefit.

So how they may do this? Well, they make money by selling songs and ads. This is a nice model which even benefits in a big way. As the user is able to listen to the song and buy only those which he/she likes. Now lets check which are those sites which lets us listen music free, download music and purchase if you like.

1. Raaga.com: Raaga.com is probably the oldest legal free Indian music listening website. It offers music in all the south Indian languages – Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. Apart from that it also offers songs in Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Carnatic, Hindustani, world music and music videos. You can also create your own playlist and connect with other other people at Raaga.com. However, most of the downloads not available.

2. MusicIndiaonline.com: Music India Online features various genre of music. It has Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali Hindi and almost all prominent India language. It also features non filmi music like gazals, qawalis etc. It also features interview and music related news.

3. Dhingana.com: Dhingana.com apart from serving music is very interactive. It also has photos, videos, playlist, widgets like Orkut, Gmail and Iphone application, greetings, news and games. You can purchase song and download them. I found all songs of 3 Idiots are being sold at $6.23 that is Rs 292.81 ($ exchange rate taken Rs 47). This is too high, maybe they are targeting the abroad market. They have Hindi, Marathi and Punjabi songs.

4. Hungama.com: Hungama.com is a complete music store featuring songs, videos, mobile wallpapers, new and reviews. You can listen and purchase.

5. Dishant.com: Dishant.com has good collection of songs. You can sign-up and create your own play list. I myself has used it for long time. They have various genres like remixes, Qawalis, pop songs, classical etc. Songs in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malaylam, Kannada, Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi are available. Recently, they have added music videos, news and gossips.

There are probably more websites but I think these are the best sites in the free music listening sector. What do you think about them? Please share your experiences here about these sites here.

How do you feel when hear some good music? And how will you feel if you come know that you were never able to hear some good music because a good musician never got the break. Good musicians are rare and if they are lost just because there was is no platform, it will be sad. Though this days TV channels have opened the flood gate with a number of reality music shows like Zee Tv’s Antakshiri etc. Still there are people who are not able to reach the reality show platform. Also, on the other hand there are musicians who already created music but was never able to reach the public.

To give such people a break and let people hear to music which would have been otherwise lost, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd has launched ArtistAloud.com. This site gives independent musicians a platform to release their music. ArtistAloud will also do the distribution, marketing and event promotion for you. But they are asking for the license in their name. So when you are selling the rights then understand the value properly, any royalty in future etc. They have already roped in some singers like pop singer Suneeta Rao, Abhijit Sawant of Indian Idol fame, Roop Kumar Rathod etc. They also run the music and entertainment store Hungama.com.

You can also listen to music released by people on this site and the decide to buy if you like. I am little curious about the business model of this site. The earning capacity of the site in terms of ad may not much as it is a very niche site and will not receive huge hits. I see they are already using zedo as an ad provider. The main money spinner will be in terms of selling music rights to various platforms like TV, Radio etc, music downloads and to harness the inventory of Hungama.com with it. Because if they are looking to make money in the form of some fees from the musician then this model will serve only those who can afford.