Now a music download site called Qtrax with a library containing over 25 million songs will launch on Sunday, offering customers free and legal songs to download. It is set to revolutionize the way fans access music and shake up the whole industry. Benjamin Cohen reports.

They've been fighting it for years, but at last, the music industry as a whole has caved in, accepting the inevitable that the market of paid music is shrinking. Launching on Sunday with the blasting of the major labels, Qtrax will give 25 million songs away for free online if you accept their advertising.

"Qtrax is the first free legal downloading music site. So this is rather unique because this is actually an ad-supported site. So in exchange for downloading music and being able to have access to over 25 million tracks for free, you will be exposed to some advertising. That revenue generated is then directed back towards the labels and the artists that are currently losing out on the music that has been downloaded illegally."

Illegal downloads have caused UK album sales from artists like the Spice Girls to fall by 11% last year. In the US, the drop was almost 20%, all meaning billions of pounds of lost revenue to artists and their record companies. The R&B singer Mary J. Blige, starred in adverts of Apple, whose i-Tune's music store has sold four billion songs since 2003, but she now accepts that giving away her music for free is unavoidable.

"I think we are in a time where, you know, if it gets to the point where people can download music for free. I mean apparently it is what it is and you just, you know, as the artist, you always gotta start think(ing) about why are you doing what you are doing, or you are doing this to connect with your fans, you know or you are doing this to pull somebody else to do something. And, you know, just kind of, you know, kind of accepted for, you know, for now, you know, until someone stands up and says, ok, let's pull the plug on this."

"Apple's model is tried and tested. Qtrax is a wonderful exciting idea, but that hasn't yet been tested in the market place. I think one of the key strengths of the Qtrax model is that they do have seemed to have a large library of content available and that is one of the key challenges that they seem to have already addressed."

Adverts will be shown every time you hear a song. Initially, it won't work on i-Pods, but we understand it will do within a month, posing a real threat to Apple, the dominant player in legal online music.