That’s what the Universal Music Group, a division of Vivendi would have us believe. According to Reuters, a new music service making available 43,000 songs on the web via Liquid Audio is a “direct blow to the peer to peer services”.

I’m sorry, but these guys really ought to share whatever it is that they are smoking. This is just stupid. Why pay for a download when you can get it for free on Kazaa or Morpheus? 99 cents per song, or $9.99 per album, is still too high to attract the average music listener. If the songs were a quarter a pop, or maybe $2 to $3 per album, you might see some change in behavior, but otherwise it’s just plain dumb to think that downloaders are going to pay at prices that barely drop below what a CD costs in the store.

Your thoughts?