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Just when you really started to get into Napster, exchanging tracks with unknown others across the world, Napster lost its court case. Trading copyrighted music on the site was declared illegal and the company began blocking downloads of your favorite hits. What's a music lover to do? Fans of free file trading take heart: No matter whether Napster lives, dies, or mutates into a pay service, you still have abundant alternatives.

Napster's overwhelming success spawned dozens of competitors offering peer-to-peer music sharing--and in some cases even more. We tried the most promising 25 (out of at least 60 available). Our testing found four Napster alternatives that are good at what they do and a few more that show promise.

We tested each tool for ease of use, and evaluated the song selection available. We searched for popular songs, like Jennifer Lopez's Top 40 hit "Love Don't Cost a Thing." We sought songs that are filtered on Napster, such as Metallica's "Enter Sandman." And we looked for the obscure, in this instance a San Francisco-based jazz ensemble named Tin Hat Trio. All were available on Napster before the service began filtering. A couple of sites in development look interesting, but weren't ready for our testing.

If you have ethical concerns about using Napster, the alternative sites offer some solace. None has been taken to court for violating copyright laws--though many of the sites do freely share copyrighted materials, the same thing that got Napster in trouble. If you want to avoid any worries about illegal sharing, you can use one of the many sites that charge users a fee to download copyrighted music.

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