Barely covering a late-night slice of pizza, the dollar seems to have lost its value. Now, a new Web site is offering students a better alternative for their pocket change.

Lala.com wants students to put their dollar toward expanding their CD collection through a legal swap system.

"Everyone has bought a CD they didn't like. With Lala, you can trade that CD for something you would rather have," said John Kuch, director of business development at lala.com. "It's a great way to hear new artists."

Users register for free and list the CDs they want and the CDs they have, and then lala.com finds a trading member with your requests. A user's first trade is free of charge. Each additional trade is one dollar, plus a 75 cent shipping fee.

"It's pretty hard to beat that price," Justin Sung, marketing analyst for lala.com, said.

An impressive perk to the service, Sung added, is that unlike other file-sharing services, lala.com is legal.

Napster Inc. created the first network that enabled users to download music from other people's computers through the Internet seven years ago. The service remained wildly popular until it was sued for copyright infringement in 2001 and then put out of business by the federal courts in California.

Other peer-to-peer file sharing programs have also faced similar lawsuits since then, including a lawsuit last month against LimeWire that alleges the company encourages computer users to steal copyrighted music.

Lala.com's legitimacy might not only keep the company in business, but its customers out of court.

The site's logistics are simple -- to find music, users browse other member's profiles or search by album title, genre or artist among a broad range of albums from newly released titles to old school classics.

"I think it's a good idea, because it's only a dollar and you are not stealing. It's legal," Erin Kelly (senior-elementary education) said.

The music-sharing organization helps to support working musicians through their charity, The Z Foundation, Kuch said.

The Web site has a definition of a working musician as "any individual who has performed live or on a recorded release in the last year and whose music-related income accounts for more than half of their total income."

Bill Nguyen, co-founder of lala.com, said he is glad to see musicians finally getting compensated for their work.

"For the first time, musicians will receive economic support directly from their fans," he said.

Twenty percent of each traded CD goes to The Z Foundation, Kuch said.

"Giving back even 20 percent can help them buy more studio time or new equipment, so they can make more music," Sung said.

The money collected by the Z Foundation provides musicians with medical and dental care, he said.

"It's very hard for developing artists to support themselves -- we thought we could help foster the continued creation of music," Kuch said.

Lala.com also provides pre-paid envelopes for participants to ship their CDs.

"It's hard for students to get new music on a tight budget, this gives them a legal alternative," Sung said.

Cheap prices and the convenient swap system ensure students can get new music within their budget.

"College students are a great audience, because they have stacks of CDs collecting dust, " Kuch said. "It's just like going to go a used record store but it's much more efficient."