Tonspion (e.g. "tone spy") is the first German MP3 blog founded in 1998 in Cologne, Germany and moved to Berlin in 2001.
Due to strong copyrights and a monopolist collecting society it is not legally possible to host free downloads on webpages and blogs in Germany.
In 2001 Tonspion set up an English website under the name "Tonespy" with an own team of editors, which was temporarily discontinued in 2003 due to the different legal situation in the US and the UK.
In 2009 Tonspion relaunched the website, now offering free preview streams for all albums and downloads in partnership with 7digital.
New features include a tourguide, videos and newsfeeds of the best music blogs in German and English language.