There's a new player in the free music industry

A new Web site devoted to getting you, the consumer, free music launched today. Based out of New York, ad-supported spiralfrog.com seeks to supplant file-swapping P2P programs as the primary source for free music. There is one upside, at least, to the new Web site -- it's free and legal. Not that the illegality of P2P programs stopped anyone from downloading free media. SpriralFrog pays license fees to the record companies with a cut of the site's advertising revenue. The site also promised to be safer, as far as viruses, than P2P programs.

"We believe it will be a very powerful alternative to the pirate sites," said Joe Mohen, chairman and founder of New York-based SpiralFrog Inc. "With SpiralFrog you know what you're getting ... there's no threat of viruses, adware or spyware."

Too good to be true, right? If you're used to the file-use freedom you get from pirated media files, you will be limited in those liberties by SpiralFrog. The limitations include not being able to burn the files to a CD. The files are also copy protected, similar to the protection placed on files downloaded from the iTunes Store. The files can, however, be transfered to to many digital music players. Which brings forward the biggest drawback.

The songs cannot be used on Apple computers or the iPod -- the leading portable digital music player on the market. So, if you use a windows-based system and a non-iPod music player, there's a good chance you'll like what you find at spiralfrog.com.

Currently, the Web site offers more than 800,000 songs with plans to add more than 2 million over the next several months.

-- Parts of this post were contributed by Associated Press reports.