It seems that YouTube has one set of rules for The Church of Scientology and another set for Scientology's critics.
no one is going to listen more than say 20 times a song
Perhaps my listening habits are abnormal, but I can think of many, many songs that I've listened to more than 200 times. $0.05 * 200 = $10 per song. Hell, there are times I'll put a good song (usually something ambient-ish) and put the thing of repeat and listen to it in the background more than 4 times in a sitting. I'd be totally broke by pay-per-play. The pay-per-play model may work for movies, but for a 3 minute song I think it's borked.
"The voters have spoken, the bastards..." -- unknown