Stephen Downes

Here's a question for you: when was the last time you rented music? That would be never, right? So why do you suppose a company behind a new Microsoft online music initiative says this? "We believe this is it. This is what consumers are going to want. We want to be big participant in changing consumers' attitude towards what music really is." What "this" is is a new tamper-proof digital music player that will allow users to 'rent' music on a subscription basis. Is this, indeed, really what you want? Or does it sound like a money grab?