The American ad-supported music service SpiralFrog has finally launched out of beta.

After nearly a year in testing phase, the new service offers fully-licensed music and video downloads for free to the American public.

"SpiralFrog offers music-lovers a compelling alternative to illicit file-sharing and pirate sites, with a secure environment for them to satisfy their unyielding passion and thirst for music and entertainment information at no cost except for their time and attention."

The catch? Well, there's two - the music is ad-supported so you have to listen to advertising, and the downloads won't work on iPods.

Boasting 800,000 titles at launch, it's not the most extensive catalogue but does include tunes from EMI and Universal.

Here in the UK the website We7 recently launched offering ad-supported free music downloads.

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