"The excuse to pirate music is over"
Not at all. Let's take "Hail to the thief" from Radiohead (hehe). 14 songs, that would make it 14$. The CD retails at 13,49$ on CDNOW, and popular music stores. It costs the same thing, but you don't get the actual CD, casing and cover. You don't get the original sound, you get a compressed tune and not even at the sampling rate of your liking. Not to mention this kind of business is completely ignoring the fact that popularity of this service will eat in music store revenues, and thus jobs.
What this service all comes down to is Apple squeezing some extra money out of the already outrageously high takes of the record companies (eg. Sony). Nothing solved here, it's just more of the same abuse.
The only advantage it offers is being able to buy on a tune by tune basis. And even then, I'd say it comes with a twisted side effect. With free file sharing, you'll download all of an artist's work easily, and be prone to discover some interesting songs that aren't played on the radio. With 1$ tunes, and the average consummer's interest in getting the most out his money, only the latest hits and tubes will truly profit from the service. This means worsening the current musical picture, making artists tube producing machines (well, more then they already are with the gross marketing of the big players in the recording industry) and stiffling creation.
There's a lot more to free music sharing than just being able to get songs online, and iTunes in this regard aught to be considered a step back for art and one forward for the ill minded corporative exploitation of it.
I believe in paying artists for their work. It's just that this isn't an acceptable solution. Take Sony and their likes out of the picture (or miraculously give them some sense of ethic that would stop them from making such unacceptable profits out of artist's work), sell at an acceptable price and keep free file sharing legal. With decent selling prices, and the intrinsic satisfaction of owning the CDs of your favorite artists, free file sharing would only broaden the choice, discovery and promotion of music, new and old, local or international.
I'll finish by adding that free file sharing permits to poor people to have as wide a musical culture as any richer person, which is desirable both from a social and economic perspective.
