I may be stating the obvious since Napster is the only service I use. I can listen to at least part of any song. Some artists use 30 second clips until you buy, but they're in the minority. I pay the monthly fee to be able to listen and even download 90% of the 500,000 songs that Napster has available. In that sense I pay for music a lot like a I pay for cable. I pay for the music through my monthly fees and if they downloaded at a I higher quality I'd buy them that way. However I can record them at the same quality I could download them for and I don't see it being any different that taping Law & Order with my vcr.