I've said it before, Mick, and I'll say it again -

Great idea!

The only problem is that current wisdom from 'the big guys' is that they do not want that to happen. They prefer a system whereby they have exclusive control over what 'their' artists have available on the market - something that Napster and other 'P2P' services threaten, and something which they've put a lot of effort into making sure is their provenance (and not the original aritsts).

Though, actually, technically there is a problem. I'll go out on a limb here and say that there will never be an 'uncrackable' coding system to keep people from copying. It's the 'foolproof' dilemma. For every foolproof system, some damn idiot goes out and invents better fools.

Much the same for software security. A recent example was the 'unbreakable' coding that a company actually issued a challenge to the 'hacking' community over, claiming that their software was un-reproduceable within some very tight artificial confines - i.e., the code had to be cracked within a certain time, the ORIGINAL copy made from the broken code had to be doable by someone with limited skill (rather than the reality of a hacker breaking the code and then the MP3s spreading to the less enlightened), and other restrictions. Despite these artificial 'rules', and despite a fairly vigorous effort on the part of the "underground" to discourage anyone from taking the company up on the offer, it still took (I believe) One week for eight different groups to step forward with broken and copied files.

M