Music Streaming Business Isn't Perfect, But It's Better Than Piracy

It wasn’t about Napster. Otherwise when the music industry succeeded in shutting the service down, CD sales would have burgeoned and happiness would have reigned. The customers just went elsewhere. An endless game of Whac-a-Mole ensued. Suddenly there was Kazaa. And eventually, BitTorrent and the The Pirate Bay. Turns out consumers didn’t want Napster, they wanted free music. [...] When will the music industry accept that the landscape has changed? That albums have broken apart and people believe they have a right to hear whatever they want whenever they want? When will artists realize getting paid forever is better than getting paid once? And when will everybody learn that it’s not about intermediaries, but the end consumer. Otherwise sales for iTunes — approved, it must be remembered, as a reluctant response to P2P — would keep going up instead of down. Spotify is the best response to P2P we’ve got. - Bob Lefsetz ,Variety [via/web:http://streaming-tv.us]