[inflatablenerd]

I don't think selling is broken provided purchasing is easy. Like how iTunes does it.

iTunes couldn't be more painless - search, click, password. It's true that the death of scarcity makes it hard to compete with hundreds of other sources offering it for free, but many people, myself included, find it worth the $15 AUD to get it legally without having to dick around with seeders, shitting ID3 tags, album artwork, and deleting original files after an iTunes import.

What Alphabasic is doing is fantastic. I love Bandcamp. I wish everyone used it. It has lossless files, and all the music is streamable.

Convenience is a big deal, it's why iTunes, and hotel room service, is popular and profitable.

[scott_s]

To me, this is the main point. Filesharing is never going away. But legal selling of music is viable even in the presence of filesharing if the experience is easier and more pleasant than the alternative.