nod, I think you're noddin' off thinking about that joint from The Netherlands (Holland is just a province, btw). The international laws that apply here are not necessarily invalid. There is no reason to make a blanket statement that outside US law, this site is not paying royalties to artists.

In any case, they are pricing their downloads according to popularity and bandwidth use. To me that sounds a lot fairer that paying a flat, inflated uniform price across the whole industry. CD's are generally the same price but they shouldn't be. Just because they re-re-released AC/DC's Back-in-Black does not mean it's worth as much as Madona's Confessions. Microwaves, on the other hand, vary in price from $25 to $400, so that's actually not supporting your argument.

And I'm not an economist, but stockholders don't start businesses, they buy in when the companies go public. Hence the reason that privately held companies tend to play fairer (Edward Jones & Kingston come to mind).

$1 a song is what the US record industry arbitrarily decided on w/o letting the US market decide this. There was never any competition or fair market valuation here. No one was allowed to make a better mouse trap. Apple ran with the price the record industry imposed and somehow it became the standard. I don't know what kinds of back-door deals were made, but I know that anyone offering a lower priced option (Napster, MP3.com) was snuffed out.

This is why we have to look abroad for fair competition in the marketplace. It seems that the country that invented the market-driven system is now trying its darndest to kill it. Go figure. I believe that any artist should be able to sign a deal directly with an online provider like allofmp3.com and come out making far more than with all the middle-men who control the industry here in the US. Many artists have (Prince, Annie DiFranco, etc.). I also think it is outrageous that I should have to pay the same price for a Mozart Minuet recorded in the 50's as I would have to pay for a brand new pop hit.

So no, there is absolutely no reason why anyone should pay $1 per song across the board. Maybe some should be more, but most, if not all, should be less. A fair market means different prices, no?