Free music downloads, sweet! Digital music newcomer SpiralFrog went live yesterday, giving away tunes to all us Thifty McLintpockets, sticking it to iTunes, asking only that we show a little love to its sponsors. Are we back in the Napster shopping-spree days of 2000, ready to grind our employers' networks to a standstill?

Not quite. The tragically titled SpiralFrog -- run by the private Mohen Inc., whose interests appear to be solely this venture -- bills itself as "the market-driven solution to illicit pirate file-sharing sites." It claims to be gunning not so much for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iTunes or Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN)'s forthcoming MP3 site, but instead challenging amorphous peer-to-peer MP3 networks like LimeWire and Soulseek, priding itself on being free of viruses, spyware and other nasties.

Not that this is a bad idea -- it's actually a very good, very natural idea. No need to point out that well before websites gave away content for a smattering of mortgage lenders' ads, radio, network television, magazines and newspapers were all available freely or at least affordably as advertisers footed the bills. So why couldn't music downloads work as well?