Rent or Buy

It's hard to disagree with the register's analysis of the value for money rental on-line music stores like Napster provide - this seems to have been (and still is?) the big plan behind current evolutions in the music/film publishing business: push video on demand, push music on demand, get away from ownership.

An observation that the reg doesn't make: - what if i stick with my $249.99 20GB music player that leaves me $538 to spend on actual (physical) CDs instead of Napster OR iTunes. Even if we guess generously they cost on average more than $9.99 via iTunes - say $14.99 - we still get 36 albums (instead of 49 on iTunes) BUT we own them, we can copy them, rip them, change media, ... sell them second hand.

Except maybe in 5 years time we won't be able to buy CD's with those rights anymore - at least for new music. DVD's are alreayd more restrictive. Copy protected "CD's" are already more restrictive. In a dream scenario for music companies CD's sales would be phased out to be replaced entirely by digital delivery and renting - music on demand. Then we would all be paying for a lifetime.