Chalk me up in the camp that thinks there are basically two options now for music sales: compulsory licensing (ie, $10/month pass to absolutely everything), or no sales at all.
I suppose this is true, if your business model is selling music to people who don't pay money for music. It is also true in software, if your business model is selling software to people who don't pay money for software.
I generally recommend selling software to people who pay money for software. It is probably good advice for music, too. (These people exist! Step away from the techy cocoon and you will meet a whole world full of all types of interesting people. Many of them have strange habits like working from 9 to 5, routinely paying money for goods and services, and using weird non-electronic implements to cause glyphs to appear on paper -- which they sometimes even use for paying for goods and services!)
Techy cocoon? It's really interesting that you say that, because the situation, for me at least, is the exact opposite! The only people I know who still buy music are the techies, and it's a grand total of four, including me.
Maybe it's a more nuanced appreciation of intellectual property rights, or more obscure musical tastes, or wealth, or insistence on the best possible bit rate - I don't know. But I'm telling the truth here.
It's the non techies who don't care about quality and just like the top 40 that do not buy music. All it takes is one person to teach them about BT or - for the real novices - iMeem. I know teenagers whose "music collection" is a collection of links to iMeem songs. I don't know how or why they put up with it, but they do.
This ideal music consumer, who dutifully pays $1/file from iTunes, is in the minority and I'm honestly surprised there are so many even now. You simply cannot stop people sharing 3-5MB files in the age of BT and broadband. It is only going to get easier. In my opinion, the whole model is utterly doomed.
I suppose this is true, if your business model is selling music to people who don't pay money for music. It is also true in software, if your business model is selling software to people who don't pay money for software.
I generally recommend selling software to people who pay money for software. It is probably good advice for music, too. (These people exist! Step away from the techy cocoon and you will meet a whole world full of all types of interesting people. Many of them have strange habits like working from 9 to 5, routinely paying money for goods and services, and using weird non-electronic implements to cause glyphs to appear on paper -- which they sometimes even use for paying for goods and services!)