An idea that's been discussed for years and apparently is now a hot one for various startups is to try to create a legitimate file sharing system, where before you can listen to the music, you have to first pay attention to an advertisement. It's simple for recording industry execs to understand, so they like it -- but they seem to be missing the key point: it's not what music listeners want. Just look at how many people were willing to jump to satellite radio claiming the lack of ads on many satellite music stations was a key driver. Also, these file sharing systems need to recognize that they're still competing with the ad-free versions (also known as unauthorized file sharing programs). The trick to making money in these spaces isn't to saddle the content with some annoyance no one wants -- but to make it more valuable in a way that people are willing to pay.