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Arts & Culture

Go Ahead, Download Those Songs – But Legally, Through Miami-Dade Library

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They can’t charge you late fees for this service.

The Miami-Dade Public Library System now allows card holders to download up to three free songs a week, and keep them indefinitely.

The music service, Freegal, features a collection of about 285,000 artists and 3 million songs. It tracks each user’s downloads and resets every Monday.

The Miami Herald chatted with Sylvia Mora-Oña, assistant director of public services for the library system.

“Instead of going to a bookstore, instead of going to a music store, instead of going to Barnes & Noble, you come to us,” she said.

According to the same story, Miami-Dade Library pays $75,000 each year to access the collection.

The subscription fee is based on the population served by the library. The Miami-Dade library’s taxing district has around 2.1 million people. “We make arrangements with the music labels. The libraries pay us a subscription, and a large portion of that gets passed on to the labels and, of course, their musicians,” said Brian Downing, founder and CEO of Library Ideas.

The service can be accessed through the library website or the free iOS and Android apps. Users will be asked to log on with their library card number and four-digit pin.

For detailed instructions, check out this fact sheet.

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