P2P sites and mp3s

It is not legal to download songs from P2P sites without paying for them regardless of whether you put them on an MP3 player.

It breaks the rules.

i've seen some amateur musicians put songs on torrent sites and offer them free for download, but it's rare, most will offer them through a website, if it's a torrent expect that its copyright material and not legal for download

Few and rare exceptions can apply. If the artist or band themselves had placed their (most likely) unpublished or creative commons copyrighted material like some bands have at archive.org then it technically isn't illegal to download such music.

But that being said, it is likely that 99.999+% of the music, movies, books, and video games on these P2P networks have been illegally copied material and the act of downloading these digital files does in fact violate international copyright laws.

Ok, so can you all recommend a site where I can get songs for cheap?

Unfortunately the site you are asking for is the HOLY GRAIL of music sites. I've given up looking for a site where one can buy individual songs for less then 89 cents per song.

I buy all my music at Amazon.com's MP3 store: 89 to 99 cents per song and slightly less if you buy the entire album (depending on the size of that album and that most albums cost about $9.99). No DRM and no limits to how many computers and MP3 devices one can place the music on. Plus it's at a higher bit rate (higher quality music file) then that of the higher priced iTunes.

I guess one of the music subscription sites where you pay about $14 or 15 a month for unlimited songs might be the way to go but you lose access to the songs once you let your account expire.

Hopefully someone here can name drop some of those services. I can't remember their names right now and I never used them either.

Eek!

Minnesota Mom Hit with $1.5M Fine for Downloading 24 Songs

That's....$62,500/song!

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7020438829?LimeWire%20Ordered%20To%20Be%20Shut%20DownLimewire Ordered To Be Shut Down
November 4, 2010 8:12 p.m. EST
New York, NY, United States (AHN) - Peer-to-peer file sharing site LimeWire has been ordered to close down after a four-year battle with the music industry. A federal court in New York issued a permanent injunction against the P2P website last week.

A notice on LimeWire's website reads: "This is an official notice that LimeWire is under a court-ordered injunction to stop distributing and supporting its file-sharing software. Downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal."