Peer-to-peer file sharing: Napster vs ITunes

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Apples says it's going to release ITunes for Windows by the end of the year. 
I've been saying for months that I would not pay $1 per song from Apple's ITunes. 
Why?  1) You don't get a disk; 2) it's a propriety format; 3) there isn't
the selection I want.  with WinMX, I can get the songs I want and I'm not
out $1 a pop.  I have thousands of songs that I wouldn't have if I'd bought
them online.  Face it RIAA, they aren't worth thousands of dollars.


I would have bee happy to pay a flat monthly fee (something like $5/month) to
continue using Napster, so that the artists could get something out of the deal. 
My tastes are mostly 70s and 80s music, and let's face it, there have been no
big dollars for anyone in the older music genres.  But I guarantee that the
minute people can get whatever they want, you'll see a lot more of the older
music being sold and subsequently more licensing dollars being charged.


What does an artist get for every record sold?  Probably a few pennies,
but it really depends on the deals they make.  Some agree to a small
residual, while others just sell their rights for cash up front, in which case,
they get nothing for an older song when it sells.


In any event, Apple has been negotiating with record labels and pursuing its
Windows port and may well release at Christmas time, which could be huge -- or
flat.


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