Comment by Shenglong

I don't know what the demographic spread here is, but I'm 99.99% sure that none of the 800 people on my phone/facebook pay for every CD they want. More frequently, I find people buy CDs to support certain artists, and not just to have a legal copy.

If this is the case, Apple's move is actually ingenious. I daresay a lot of pirates (who currently contribute $0) will pay $25/year for their music to be legal... for legal or moral reasons. The potential loss of revenue will lie on the people who buy 1-2 CDs/year. However, $25/year is likely more than the average amount these people pay, so it's still a plus, even if they stop buying the original CDs. I bet though, they won't.

I see this as a huge gain in revenue.