Originally Posted by SoulRebel

Maybe so, but I think this is more of a case of the music business playing catch-up than anything else. What made mp3s popular in the first place were peer-to-peer filesharing programs like Napster or Kazaa - both around before iTunes - and their popularity blew record companies' business models wide open. It's the technology and people's adaptation to it that has rendered CDs obsolete rather than evil corporates - for once they were behind the game. In London at least, the big music retailers (those still in that business) have been offering in-store downloading for a good while now.

To my mind what's being suggested actually makes some sense. Plus there's plenty of ways around copy-protection - and it's a complete irrelevance if you own a vinyl source recording.