If you’re like me – poor – and you love music, but you don’t often have the spare change laying around to pick up a CD or hit that fancy iTunes store, life can be a tad frustrating. Well cheer up, because the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library is offering a new, downloadable music service that’s completely legal – and completely free!

 

No more bootlegs! Except maybe this one.

The service is called Freegal, and it gives library card holders access to the entire Sony Music Entertainment catalog. That’s thousands of artists across fifty record labels, including everything from Johnny Cash to the cast of Glee, available for your downloading pleasure. And the files come as straight-up MP3s with no kind of rights protection, so you can use them on everything from your iPod to a burned CD with no hassle.

The catch (if you can call it that) is that card holders only get three free downloads per week, with the download counter resetting to zero every Monday. But hey, you can’t really complain when the music is free, and you can always check out a thirty second clip of each song by hitting the “Play Sample” button displayed next to it.

Thanks, local library – you're the best!