So, what if you could pay a flat monthly fee to download as many songs as you want and transfer them to your music player -- but they'd only be playable for a certain length of time?

Rented Music

no.

we don't need anything else (alongside commercial radio, mtv) that pushes music for quick, temporary popularity without long-lasting replay value. isn't it wonderful how your old vinyls (or even your dad's old vinyls) are *still* there in your shelves? they're timeless...

i wouldn't mind CD rentals at decent prices like they have (had?) in Japan. not crappy DRM'd, Lossy BS...

I think you're crediting most people's parents with much better taste in music than they actually had!

Cheers,
David.

Probably!

Still David, consider how many times you (and I only mention this because I know it is also applicable to yourself...) have re-purchased certain jazz albums, when the session was remastered by the original engineer, or a higher quality source was discovered. Now consider that we are the exception.

Folks like us do such things; the majority of people do not. Most folks aren't even completists enough to purchase an artist's entire catalogue, being content with "Greatest Hits" packages and albums that feature their more popularly accessible material. And then those albums sit on the shelf collecting dust after the first few plays, until nostalgia hits or they are consigned to the used-record shop.

If the average consumer was given the opportunity to have as much music as they wanted for a single flat fee each month (assuming that fee could be set low enough to be attractive) I suspect it would be as successful as the guy selling hot chocolate in Times Square on New Year's Eve. People like immediate gratification. Never mind that your cup chocolate cools off waaaaayy too fast, and you can't get a refund for the styrofoam cup. You got to drink it while it was hot.

The risk is not that this method of distribution would be successful, but that record companies would allow it to supplant physical distribution methods. Some of us are going to keep buying the music we love, with the intent to keep it even after the container has cooled off.

- M.