To a large extent, those terms were shaped by Napster, an early Internet star that drew millions of fans before being sued and shut down by the labels. Some of the terms are simply impossible for the industry to meet. Competing against Kazaa and Morpheus on price can't be done, since those sites don't charge a cent.
Then again, the labels have largely ignored consumer demand for song-at-a-time buying. CD singles are being phased out, apparently to push consumers to the far more profitable full-length CD. And the labels have only recently allowed subscribers to their pay-to-play Web sites, like Pressplay, to burn music onto discs.
"They've got a promotional system designed to implant a 30-second hook in your head, but it's difficult to buy just that song," said Garland of BigChampagne. "That's like Coke advertising cans on TV but selling only 12-packs in stores."
The industry counters that even if fans don't like their buying options, swiping songs isn't justified. "If I wanted to buy pants and the store will only sell it as part of a suit, I'm not allowed to steal the pants just because I'm [ticked] off," says the RIAA's Rosen.
Fans like Travis Daub don't think of themselves as shoplifters. He's running afoul of the law by downloading from LimeWire, but he's also the sort of regular CD buyer that labels adore. "I use it like radio," Daub says of the Internet. "It's easier to get hooked on an artist via MP3s."
It's getting harder now. Daub says that recent searches for an Eminem song turned up hundreds of hits that were obviously "spoofs," making it nearly impossible to find non-spoofed copies.
That delights Marc Morgenstern, CEO of Overpeer, a company that specializes in spreading spoof files over the Internet. Morgenstern is diplomatically tight-lipped: He won't disclose the names of his clients, nor will he discuss Overpeer's methods.
"We use various methods of disguise," he said. "When someone clicks on our file, they're not getting an illegal file. They receive what our clients want them to receive."
Spoofing is hardly a permanent solution to the file-sharing problem. The most downloaded album in Internet history -- the recently released "The Eminem Show" -- is also the best-selling album of the year, which suggests that at least some fans were spurred to buy the disc even though they already had it stashed on their hard drives. At best, spoofing is an annoyance and one that some file-sharing sites are already working to outsmart through user rating systems that, in theory, will relegate unlistenable files to the bottom of search lists.
Long-term solutions to piracy, say experts, won't come through hurdles dreamed up by techies but in authorized Web sites and technology so irresistible, so loaded with extras and so convenient that it's more appealing than anything offered by rivals.
"They'll come up with a compelling model, but the question is whether it will be compelling enough to win back consumers," said Orin Herskowitz of the Boston Consulting Group, a consulting firm. "If they just sue and hassle people without an alternative, they'll eventually lose."
That might leave money in the pocket of Travis Daub that otherwise might have been spent on music. "I lost interest in that particular song," he says of his unhappy attempt to listen to the Moby tune. "And I didn't buy the album, either."
