Gene Halaburt writes ...

>I must be missing something. Rhapsody wants me to spend 4.95 per month
>and 49 cents per burned track for the first 3 months then its 9.95 per
>month and 99 cents per burned track for (at this point) mostly Naxos
>recordings.

I read another article (in the Seattle Times) about this service. First,
there is a much better collection of non- classical music at this point
but they are growing the business. Second, you can burn a CD of the
music. Most people don't want to be aurally tethered to their PC while
CMing. Any charges are put on your credit card so you can burn, say,
CM cds at the library or at the office and take them home for listing.
Forgetting the burning, its $9.95 per month to listen to music (all
genres), build play lists, etc. About 35 cents a day, way less that the
price of a coke per day.

According to the article, they are trying to show the recording industry
that if the burn price is low enough (99 cents is too high), people would
use it and they may get some of the money that is going into the Napster
type black holes. I am going to support them just to do my part to help
this work since I think is the way of the future. Imagine a live concert
with Kyung Wha Chung playing the Mendelssohn in New York and being able
to burn a CD of it from Rhapsody the next day for 99 cents. Coming soon?
This might make it profitable to record all concerts for "I-distribution".

The recording industry is going to have to get it through their "indecent
profit driven" heads that the jig is up, shed that econo-political
infra-structure and get to the point of recording studios feeding the
Internet - that's the model..As they put live music out of business with
technology, now its their turn. We actually owe a debt to the Napster
types for pushing the industry off its ivory tower.

Bill Pirkle
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