But then again, as far as I know, companies like SoundExchange don’t collect money from local radio stations for each song they play. It’s interesting how Internet radio is treated so differently. I wonder how many stations would have shut down if they had to pay high prices for every song played.

So you have sympathy for artists but you tell people to steal?

You think its better for fans to steal from musicians than big labels?

You’re an idiot.

Wayne Rosso discusses some more theories in this interesting article from The Music Void http://bit.ly/bvOmFa

On-demand streaming at today’s royalty rates ($.005/stream at the low end) requires direct consumer payment to be sustainable. As Pandora has shown, an internet radio service taking the compulsory license can, despite rates that are still really expensive ($.001/stream), achieve profitability.

Fundamentally — and as Jobs has noted in the past — music is different from video content in that its utility continues over time; as such, it lends itself to an ownership model. Cable TV works just fine as a subscription b/c you don’t have much need to “save” the programming.

While I think music acquired illegally (P2P, iPod-swapping, CD-burning) will likely always remain the largest component of the market, and internet radio may well take over from iTMS and other a la carte download services to become the second-largest category over time, an on-demand subscription could gain some traction if it also incorporates downloads at a reasonable price/track, i.e. either eMusic incorporates something like Rhapsody, or vice-versa.

To say this as a foregone conclusion is short sighted and naive. The future will be whatever turns a profit. Because if no one’s making any money there won’t be any media to stream on those free services.

So IF we can find a way to monetize this it will no doubt be a part of the future. Otherwise free services will have no content and so will dry up and disappear.

It also generated some revenue…