Here are the three basic options available:

* Freebies: A lot of people just starting out their music careers will release their songs for free download in order to gain public attention and hopefully land a contract deal. You might also find some oldies or classics available for free, legally. A good place to start is Cnet's own download.com, which now includes a music/video section. Amazon.com also offers some free songs, including a decent collection of Christmas music. (Click here.)

* Download subscriptions: Services such as Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo allow you to download/listen to an unlimited (only limited by the number they have available) number of songs for a monthly fee. The catch is that you must connect to the internet and re-activeate all of the songs on a monthly basis or they will cease to play. In addition, music downloaded based upon a subscription cannot be burned to a CD because a standard CD player cannot verify your subscription. The only way you can listen to the songs on the go is through the use of an MP3 player, PDA, etc, but some services charge extra for the ability to transfer the songs to a portable device.

* Purchase individual songs: The only way you can have unlimited access to a song is to purchase it. (Prices range from $0.59 to $0.99 each.) Apple's Itunes is by far the most popular, but Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo, Walmart, and dozens of others are available to choose from. (You can click here for a guide to MP3 players and music services...just click an icon of a service at the top for more information and a review.) Just check which services are compatible with which methods of play. (eg Itunes is one of the few services where you can only play their music on select devices, and cannot burn it do disk for general use.)

Hope this helps,
John