APPLE HAS LAUNCHED an online music service, as expected. This is huge and potentially wonderful news for anyone interested in seeing a fair file sharing network built.

While industry executives have whined that they cant possibly compete with free illegal services, Apple may have just seen the illogic of that statement. Kazaa and its contemporaries are hardly perfect services.

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Its not hard to see how end-users might be more than willing to pay for a service that offered fast downloads, an excellent search engine, a wide variety of music, and, perhaps most importantly—gave users the ability to burn the music they purchased to CD-ROM.

Of course theres no word yet on what Apples online distribution system will look like, but wed be surprised if it didnt reflect a much better understanding of what the market wants than the stillborn Pressplay and MusicNet ventures the RIAA has launched. Consumers, amazingly enough, dont seem interested in services that force them to pay monthly to continue to listen to music theyve already purchased, or that refuse to allow them to burn or copy songs to an MP3 player once theyve been downloaded.

This is the kind of bold, gutsy move that could put Apple back on the map in terms of cutting-edge companies—a properly constructed file sharing network could rake the Cupertino company in billions of dollars long-term, and re-establish Apple as a house-hold brand. The folks at Apple have claimed for years that they understand what the market really wants in terms of computing and electronic devices far better than the PC/Windows market—for once, heres hoping theyre right.

If Apple can bring out a system that offers all of the above, and offers it at a good price, Ill be one of the first to sign up. How about you?

Via : Inquirer