This is a big sign-off on downloadable music. It brings some valid and legitimate content to MP3.

Although MP3.com has entered into settlement agreements with the five major record labels, they have chosen to ignore their infringing actions with respect to independent record labels.

The idea is that instead of going to an online retail site ... and buying a physical CD and having it shipped to you, you actually can buy the song and download the song to your computer hard drive.

It's a great way for the RIAA to act like they're doing something progressive without really doing anything. The recording industry wants to control all channels of distribution ? that's the issue for them, and nothing's really changed.

I wanted to invent some kind of American dance that was danced to the music that I grew up on: Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart and Irving Berlin. So I evolved a style that certainly didn't catch on right away - but I had some good mentors in New York who encouraged me.

And in music, it's the great aphrodisiac that says that even though I'm short, fat, ugly, bald, and... and I'm hung like a second-grader, but if I'm in a rock band, I've got a better than average chance of bedding you down than if I was a dentist.