unfortunately the real issue here isn't the distraction of music. the real issue meets at a point between management (those with the power of change) not understanding the full process and job of their subordinates and the lack of trust that MUST be placed in those that work for you. by corporates pyramid structure's very nature, the further removed one is from another position in the tree, the less one will know and understand another's job and tasks (in form, function, execution, and importance). this is a fact that is hard to accept for most with power because it means giving up some of that power (or at least not wielding it) and trading it for trust. also, if they have hired you to perform a task, they have to trust that you're doing that task, methods and perceived distractions aside. if they feel that the music is distracting you from your peak performance, then the real issue is that you're not performing as well as they want and the music is their diagnosis of a symptom. treating the symptom is almost never the right answer. i would (and have) challenge them to take corrective action on the disease. if you are under performing, have them write you up for it. if they can't document the performance issue as a performance issue then they aren't eliminating distractions by killing off the headphones they are stabbing in the dark at an experiment. an experiment based on a guess which is based solely on someones personal feelings about how they personally work, performing completely dissimilar tasks that have a completely different method and expected outcome. when this became an issue for me in my work place i transitioned to a telecommuter position.

I think that it is a bit dangerous and irresponsible to evaluate the effectiveness of a tool based on its licensing. The real debate about its effectiveness should not be linked to how much it costs. Doing that changes the debate from how good something is to pricing, and open-source community support. There are many closed source tools that are better than open, but you cannot then derive that all closed source is better. Software ease of use and effectiveness debates should remain licensing neutral, and not a forum for open or closed source advocacy.