These kids today: They think all the world’s music should flow freely onto their computers and that musicians should work for the fun of it — don’t they? Well, maybe not. A new survey conducted in England (and given credibility by digi-savvy sites like Boing Boing) found that the majority of music fans between 14 and 24 (and 80 percent of those who currently swap files online) would be happy to pay for songs. The trick is, most won’t pay using the services that currently exist. Respondents evidently know what many iTunes customers don’t: That most files sold online come with burdensome restrictions and aren’t the highest quality possible; moreover, today’s commonplace pay-per-tune system makes it too expensive to try new music on for size. Instead, fans crave a subscription format — not one based on streaming music that can’t be downloaded, but one allowing files to be downloaded, stored on MP3 players, and burned to CDs. Though the survey’s summary doesn’t mention a price for this hypothetical service, it says respondents would “place a considerable monetary value on” it. Curiously, most of those questioned said they would continue to buy physical CDs even while paying for an ideal file-sharing system. One suspects they might even buy more than they do today, if only they felt that the record companies earning the proceeds had finally stopped viewing them as criminals and begun to understand their 21st-century relationship with music.













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