The problem with lyrics was solved after a protracted legal wrangle with this answer:
Someone responsible to the song industry, ASCAP, took over the rights problem from http://www.lyrics.ch
They restrict the downloading of lyrics to non-permanent means. Then, they are essentially PROMOTING the industry, and providing a way to buy legal copies of the lyrics, with the money going to the authors.
Napster could do the same thing. Rare works could be heard, at least as samples, and then bought direct from the studios.
This becomes a way to A) find rare songs, and still B) provide recompence where due.
There’s no such thing as a non-permaneat download.
Part of the problem with all the “solutions” sugested is that they miss the main point. It’s the consumers who are making the mp3s and distrubting them to each other. For any of these money making methods (a service to use napster, selling mp3s on line, ect.) to work you have to take the primary distrubtion out of the hands of the consumer.
As of todate no one has sugested any realalistic method of acomplishing this.
Today’s Business headline in the Oakland Tribune: Napster agrees to pay artists
Not that it took to much for me come up with a solution that’s as old as “if you can’t beat them, join them”, or perhaps “thesis, antithesis, synthesis”.
As one of those Napster users who only goes after songs that are old and rare, I’m just grateful that Napster wasn’t shut down. I’d have gladly paid for everthing I’ve downloaded, but it was always unavailable in stores.