If I go to iTunes, I don't go there to license songs from EMI or Universal - I go there to buy songs. If stealing music via p2p is like walking into a store and stealing a CD - then buying music on iTunes is like walking into a store and buying a CD.

The fact that more online music is wrapped up in DRM than CDs (not for much longer I fear) is neither here nor there. I'm buying, iTunes is selling. That's called sales.

A licensing agreement on the other hand is where a radio station pays a fee to play all music under the license for a given fee per song or 1000 songs or whatever the terms happen to be.

It's also relevant when I chose to use someone's song in an advert. In those cases I'm not buying a song, because it's for public broadcast - you can only license songs for this purpose.

If I did a cover album I would have to license music, etc. There are lots of ways to license music. But if you are buying for your personal collection, that is a sale pure and simple. You are bound by a copyright agreement, not a licensing agreement.

It seems to me that publishers would be better off not dealing with music labels in the first place - if they have the personnel and systems to market and distribute the music themselves. That way they would be in control of everything, and would receive more than just royalties for sales.

Unfortunately for them, most publishers or management are just a bunch of people that have contacts with record labels - and essentially take their cut by hooking up so-called talent with people that do have the personnel, contacts and distribution system to actually sell the artists music. I don't like labels, I think they all rip off the people they represent - but if they go, for the sake of the artists, something needs to replace them. Without labels there would be no marketing, no talk show appearances, radio play or anything else that would actually bring the attention of the public to the artist's music.

Doesn't take a genius to work out what's needed to wipe labels from the face of the earth - but until thats in place I don't see how artists can do without them.