Know what's funny about posts like #27 and #24? now that the music industry is providing an 'up-to-date and modern' system to obtaion music people still find a way to bitch about it. Wasn't that one of the major gripes of pirates, outdated distribution models that don't serve them well? (not necessarily these individuals but in general) 'If they provided a simple way to buy music online I would.' So what's wrong, now that the bluff has been called the goals are moved to something else?

I am quite content with ThePirateBay's offer to download unlimited MP3's at the moment.

Virgin teamed up with the Music Industry, which of course gets a nice share of the revenue. For that reason I would NEVER buy this service. I'm sick of all lies and corruption the RIAA has done.

Just like they claim an IP adress and a timestap is enough proof to sue someone, even if the IP comes from an office printer.

Penny Arcade is awesome.

What's with all this subscription services for music download? I want to treat my MP3 just like I did with my cassette tapes 20 years ago: they're MINE! I can record whatever I want from whomever I want! I want to be able to go to friends and the record from their tapes and then those recordings are MINE and no one should come to charge me! Come on!

I personally hate those services! I can't wait to see them gone! I don't wanna pay anything for the mp3 files!

However, Virgin also plans to suspend Internet access temporarily for "repeat offenders" who continue to pirate content.

So they can cut off your access without having to prove, in court, you did anything illegal or wrong?

How this model works rewarding the singers you like? I don't want the junks get subsidized.

Hmm, $30k to fill up a 120GB iPod? iTunes songs are 256kbps. 4 minutes each, that's 7.5MB a song. 120GB / 7.5MB = 16000 songs. But songs on iTunes cost 99 cents, which is even less. That's half the price that Microsoft claim!

I've got Virgin Media internet, so I'll see what they're offering - most likely it won't include any interesting music, just the bland mass market crap. I also wonder how long it will be before they block someone for downloading legal material like Linux images.

It's like the music industry claiming that piracy cost them £120 billion a year. Turned out that they had an order of magnitude error in their calculations, and that's before you consider that the arguments are worthless. http://www.badscience.net/2009/06/home-taping-didnt-kill-music/

I'd love to see a download service that offers open-source alternatives like .ogg and lossless like .flac

I mostly use Amazon for music downloads, but it still annoys me that they (and now this) only offer mp3.

1) Impose aggregate bandwidth caps but allow overages at rediculously inflated $$/GB
2) Offer unlimited downloads to use lots of bandwidth
3) ???
4) Profit

I still don't like this model, even coming from the perspective that you can download tons of music, and if you don't like it, no big deal...to you.

The problem is that when you do download it, the artist and record labels undoubtedly get a cut of what you paid. If I go downloading music willy nilly just to "try it out," then I'm going to end up with a boat load of crap I never want to hear again, that I never would have been interested in supporting. I have no interest in encouraging the music industry's failed business model by supporting crappy music. They are just trying to suck everyone into that, rather than truly adapt. It never ends. This is just another pig wearing lip stick.

If you can stand being a Virgin Media customer then you deserve a medal as well as free music!

I think this is a move to strike back against Nokia. They just released the Nokia comes with music service in europe and it's amazing. 1 year all you can download tracks for free. All you have to do is buy a cell phone.

Neat, an inferior version of Microsoft's Zune service that will be praised.

I would be amused if they just did a dns redirect to piratebay.

I like this idea...