it isn't people leaving illegal services as much as it is people who had never got there music online now seeing it available. If it wasn't for Napster, the Recording industry and (term used very loosly) artists, wouldn't even know such a money making medium was even possible.

Law suits and other "Piracy" talk has given people the impression that the music industry was on track for this all along.

So, what can i say? I am glad that RIAA is finally catching on to another way to fill my head with Crap music and get money from people for 2nd rate entertainment... oh boy!

If you are serious about legally purchasing your music and getting the quality that you want, I would highly recommend allofmp3.com.

Russian copyright laws work differently than North American laws and you can get most songs for close to one to three *cents* each... kind of blows the big American etailers away! Why wait for prices to come down... they already have!

You also get to choose your encoder (from regular MP3 Lame all the way up to several lossless formats including DRM free AAC for the ipodders out there).

I've been using it and recommending it to friends for close to a year. No complaints and no problems. Get your tunes cheap and legal!

The big record companies used to sell the latest singles releases for 99 cents in the stores. Remember those old 45s. A few months later, they were just 39 cents each or 3 for a dollar at WOOLWORTH'S and other outlets.

New downloads are 99 cents. Why don't the prices go down when these songs are off the Top 40 playlists like vinyl once did?

Maybe when they come down in price further, you'll get to a tipping point. It's not there yet for me, and I'd have no qualms about buying online. It's probably about 30-50¢/tune for pop stuff. It's just too easy to get it for free...

Get rid of the protection on these music sites and i'm sure sales will increase even more many of the people use illegal downloads because the refuse to pay for an over priced cd for 1 or 2 good songs and won't buy online because they want the right to do whatever they want with the music they legally purchased.

I agree, the protection they throw on the files limits what you can do with it. Without using tools to remove it it makes it a pain to burn to cd in regular cd for example. While the protection does not stop me, it does stop tons of others and makes them not want to purchase another song simply because of the limitation. They are trying to kill 2 birds with one stone by providing music for easy access at a somewhat low price, (though still overpriced most time cheaper to just but a cd after you add up the songs you paid for) as well as keep it from being shared illegally.

Anyways, wasting time and energy on something that they wont prevent is just killing their own profit potential. They don't see it that way as many don't but it is the truth. I would buy more myself if not for that. Most people rather hop on torrent or dc++ or some other location to get something that they do not have to tamper with when it is much quicker to go that route. Wrong maybe, but look at it this way. most of these sites, in order to listen to the music on another system, you have to transfer the digital license to do so, there is where they also get you, most limit the ammount of times you can transfer as well as limit the ammount of times you can download the song. Not eveyone can afford to backup everything, and in the event your downloads are used and you have a unfortunate mishap and your hdd dies before backup was able to be done or any other reason, then you get to hear, well you gotta buy the song again, then those people are like sorry no thnx and will dl it somewhere.

Maybe I am wrong about the way I think on this topic, but I think it just makes people look more towards illegaly gaining the file rather than go through that kind of bs. License should be just that, you buy it, it is yours. The license should remain avail on your own account online and be able to access your bought digital goods when you need them or what them.

Altman: They probably took lessons from the BSA. Make outragous claims that are unsubstantiable.

Personally if I purchase music it is never online. I mean quality is nothing on those unless I'm getting a fully uncompressed wav that I can burn to a CD.

I'm not going to be one of those record junkies though who use the 4000 dollar turntable in a completely padded room with 6000 dollar headphones, my hearing isn't anywhere near that good.

OK I see how they can say that 180 million songs were downloaded legally and be somewhat close. But how could they even come close on estimating the illegal downloads?

They can because they know some hard core people prefer not to pay at all, and will download for free and take the risks even if its practically for free. Obviously its near impossible to convert these. Make it easy and cheap enough and the rest are obviously back as online customers.

Supple and demand, business adataption at its best.

Get the number of total legal downloads and then add xx% to it. Easy.

However, every year or two, change it so it's dramatic enough to show a difference.

all of their claims are estimated and based on statistics. All of their so called "loss" is also based on that.

They do the "well last year we sold xx, this year we sold xx, so this coming year we should sell xx" and when they don't hit that mark, hey they have to blame it on someone and tell their share holders something.

If user -A- does not have the money and does not buy it but instead downloads it. Chances are user -A- would have never bought it regardless if they had the money or not. This is not grounds for claiming a loss when there was not a buy potential for user -A- in the first place.

There are those dedicated fans that will continue paying whatever to get the latest song legally, but not everyone is always into music, it is like a trend. One industry may see a decrease in sales while another may see an increase. That is just how the economy works. Now days. if they all don't see increases, hey, lets blame software pirates, I have stock/share holders calling me every 2 seconds asking why the dow dropped. I have to tell them something. While we are at it, lets makes some exagerated figures and estimated losses and makes it look as legit as possible,

Ahh, the power of the media.