i’ve been thinking recently about how messed up the whole napster thing is. the record industry really brought it on themselves, but as usual the artists are getting screwed. i think that the ideal solution would be to create a large account system where samples could be listened to (or the whole song even) and then purchased with one click (f u amazon), hooked up to a micropayment system. the details like price, pricing system, etc. would still have to be nailed out.
i for one would be more than willing to shell out 25-50 cents to d/l a song and have a copy on the server as well as access to all the song info etc. also, even if it was available streamed for free, i would pay a fee to be able to create my own libraries / playlists, and stream them from anywhere a la the mp3.com’s beam-it service. hook this kind of thing to your wireless device (in addition to the pc) and i think you’d have a killer app that would more than make up for money lost from freebees (and also result in a more equitable system for both artists and listeners).