No Rock And Roll Fun

GRUBBING FOR CASH: Beleagured music giant Vivendi Universal is finally starting to realise that people who download music off the web are a market and not a bunch of criminal scum, and are putting a nervous tow in the water of selling downloads. For a reasonable $9.99 a month, you'll be able to take as much as you want from the thousand albums in the pilot scheme, and will be free to burn them to CDs or whatever you choose. A freebie trial is available if you're happy to trust the company with your credit card details; fifty MP3 tracks can be yours.
All in all, a positive step, although we are slightly concerned that apparently one of the measures for the project's success will be whether it stimulates back catalogue sales in stores. Now, call us stupid, but why would being able to get the music you want through your computer, bought and paid for, lead to an increase in physical sales? "Having bought a legal, full copy of this record, I shall go out and buy it again" doesn't make a great deal of sense to us...
Read about it here...
... and do it here