Actually, DDW, I can attest to MANY times being told that a CD was not listenable to.

I used to work in a 'corporate' music store - "The Wherehouse". We were told quite firmly that if a customer wanted to hear music that WE HAD A DEMO CD FROM, that we were allowed to wait until the current CD on play was over and then put that in.

However, if a customer wanted something not on 'playlist', then they were out of luck. Didn't matter if the artist in question was selling well, or if we'd HAD a demo cd but someone on staff had 'borrowed' (i.e., stolen) the CD before the alloted time that we were required to have it available expired.

Blockbuster Music (for all I'm aghast at the corporation) had for a short while before they folded a 'listen to any CD in the store' policy. Of course, there, the problem was that they didn't stock anything too far out of mainstream, and special order CDs were exceptions to the policy. Our chain attempted to create a similar program (which you can still find in place) with 'listening stations'. However, speaking for the store I worked for, the station had 6 pre-set CDs and was locked to prevent anyone but the designated corporate rep from changing out the discs within.

Further, I believe what Matt's referring to above is not even so much the issue that he can't listen to the CDs he wishes to in store, but the fact that the stores don't carry them.

So, no. Unfortunately, listening in-store isn't a viable option. In 'major urban' markets, neither is listening to the radio. I recently relocated to the sticks, and find the musical variety on the air INCREDIBLE compared to the tripe that I could get in the city. Whereas before there was nothing but mass market radio and 2-3 low band NPR stations that you could only recieve a few hours a day, out here there are dozens of non-mass stations. It's heaven. Too bad it's so miserable otherwise.

And Mick... I do agree with you to a large extent. However, I think that unfortunately Napster rather blew up in a naive programmer's face. The original programmer wrote something that I don't believe he ever put the forethought of 'right or wrong' into, and it became something MUCH larger than he'd ever intended it to be. When Napster first started gaining popularity, an interview with the guy basically said that he had no clue that anyone besides he and a few friends would find it useful, and that he'd posted it mainly because that's what most independent developers do - write programs of limited use, post them on a website, and hope that someone who has money recognizes their talent and hires them on to a REAL job.

That being said, I do agree that when it started expanding he should have taken the route you suggest. I can only surmise that by that point, he was probably rather taken with the 'pirate' aspect of what was going on - it's a big 'net ethic' thing to tweak the noses (and wallets) of the 'big guys' who want to restrict 'your fun'. Of course, this is the same rationale that results in credit card numbers being stolen, websites hacked, virii being written...

Anyway, enough ranting. In my mind, if you want to think about where the guy's mind was when he wrote this and how big he thought it would get, just think about the name... he named it after his cat.

M