http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10268199-93.html

scary scary stuff. V. difficult to believe. How do these people sleep at night??

it’s the confluence of the term ‘unlimited’ with ‘agressively police usage’ that seems like a total non-starter. It’s a land-grab, with DRM by the back door (or even DUM – Digital usage management – that seems to fit better) – the idea being that ‘if you’re going to get it, we’ll make you pay for it’, the ‘we’ being the labels, not the artists. As you point out, this means that anyone wanting to get onto that service has to do a deal with Universal for digital distribution. Not a company with a particularly glowing history of championing the underdog, empowering indie musicians and undermining their own iniquitous power-base.

It also says nothing about the value of the music as culture. The whole message is ‘get what you want, so long as you get it from us, don’t go straight to the artists, make them come through us, don’t think about the cultural value of this, just download it, listen, but don’t you dare share the MP3s with your friends, or we’ll sue your arse‘

It stinks.