Fairsharemusic has launched a website where users can legally download music whilst giving to charity.

The company says: “Fairshare fuses the best of iTunes with the feel good factor of donating money to a good cause.”  

“Partnering with many of the country’s leading charities, fairsharemusic uniquely combines legal music downloads with charitable giving. It gives you the option to give while you get – and it won’t cost you a penny more to feel better about your purchase.”

The site boasts an extensive catalogue of 8.5 million tracks where tracks start from 79p. Half the profits of each purchase will go to charity as chosen by the customer, where an additional donation can also be made.  

Co-founder Lee Cannon said: “The music industry needs to motivate people into purchasing music rather than prosecuting people that don't. Our unique music platform is a step forward in the download-to-own market - not only doing good for recording artists and song writers, but is also doing good for a wide range of extremely worthy causes.”

The charities include Amnesty International, Great Ormond Street Hospital, WWF and the British Heart Foundation.  Users can also suggest other charities they would like to support and split their donations across one or more charities.

Former commercial director of Warner music Jonny Woolf (one of the founders of Fairsharemusic) estimates that if every legal download were to go through their site it could generate £9.5 million for charities founded the company.