Beginning soon, the Spokane Public Library will offer you a legal way to download music for free.

It's called Freegal, and in mid-July the library will be offering the entire Sony music catalog, which includes a half-million tracks, including songs by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Adele, Britney Spears, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Bartok and Beethoven, along with thousands of others.

Library card holders can download three songs a week for free. And, unlike the old-fashioned method of checking out albums from the library, you never have to return them. They are yours to keep.

The library pays for the Freegal service, but it's a good deal for the library, since it's a lot more cost effective than shelving and maintaining that many CDS (and trying to keep them from getting stolen).

Go to the Spokane Public Library website to access this service. The library has not been any more specific than "mid-July" for the launch, which means we can start looking for it in the next two weeks, at least.

---

---