Into the free music downloads fray comes MP3 Rocket, Inc., a company that is trying to do legally what others have failed at pulling off: creating a point-to-point file-sharing network that starts legal and stays legal. Tricky stuff to do, especially in light of the music industries martyrization of Jammie Thomas, a Minnesota native who was hit with legal penalties for illegal downloading and distributing of MP3 files with a financial penalty that came to over $9,000 per song.

Sorry, but there’s no Britney Spears song worth that much, even before the failed marriages and sham comebacks.

MP3 Rocket has been around for a while; since at least 2005, according to their site’s copyright notice. Their software, which includes a free version and a one-time fee version, hooks you into the network that claims acces to about 12 million songs and 250 million users.

The network has strengths and weaknesses. First, it’s search is relatively effective, but a bit slow in returning results. Since MP3 Rocket is attempting to keep their site legal, it you’re looking for the complete works of well-known artists, you might find it a bit of a struggle, but if you’re into wacky, goofy and obscure, you’ll have better results.

For example, just for kicks, I looked up American Idol winner from two seasons ago, Carrie Underwood, and found about half the songs available from her two albums, within the network. When I looked up Brandi Carlile, who also has two albums out, as well as a lot of live tracks recorded from last summer’s concert tour, I found almost nothing except some audio captures from the couple songs she contributed to Grey’s Anatomy last season.

That’s not a great average of matches for two higher-profile artists.

However, I found a wealth of Weird Al Yankovic material within MP3 Rocket, as well as a good amount of material from musical satirist Paul Shanklin, who is pretty much the conservative political embodiment of Yankovic. Unfortunately, I also found a ton of stuff attributed to Yankovic and Shanklin that were actually the work of other artists.

Such mis-identification of the proper artist of given material is usually evidence that there’s a ghost in the machine and there may be some less-than-legal files kicking around in the MP3 Rocket network, despite the company’s efforts to run their company legally.

Despite the 12 million songs claim, MP3 Rocket, Inc., doesn’t appear to be in the same category as the announced, but not fully launched, Qtrax music network, which is promising free and legal downloads with studio agreements in place. Instead, MP3 Rocket appears to be more in the mold of Spiral Frog, Imeem, Napster and the like.

The network is relatively fast; I downloaded about 50 songs just to test the speed and had about a 92 percent success rate for a completed download, in about two hours of effort. That’s not bad, although I had to babysit some of the songs, telling them to resume several times.

The software also hooks you up with access to free TV viewing sites, although the quality of the image will depend on your network speed and conditions. There’s also some access to software downloads, but I didn’t test that out.

In the end, MP3 Rocket’s primary appeal is as a source for MP3 music; there’s plenty to be found, but it’s certainly not a one-stop shop for everything you might want access to. The software is free, though they have a one-time-fee version that runs between $30-50, depending on the special offer active at the time you visit. The pay-software is supposed to increase network performance and speed and claims to give you access to files that folks who access the network with the free software can’t get to.

While I’m not completely convinced yet that MP3 Rocket isn’t walking a legal tightrope already tread by Napster before they got stomped on, what I can say is that the software works reasonably well, the files seem mostly of good quality, and it delivers at least some of what it promises. That’s not bad. Worth a gamble, at least while the company appears to be operating in the clear from legal issues.