Deni - NMA representation just means that you have someone who can help you with technical stuff, and who is hopefully fairly active in the mp3.com community to write to stations about your music, try to create excitement about you and your music, and they get 5% of your CD sales. (You still get 50%, it's taken off mp3.com's portion.) (And I don't think NMA reps get anything from P4P, but I'm not sure.) And they will be one of your biggest fans except for your partner and family, hopefully!

Sorcha - any listen (hifi or lofi play, download, and mp3 radio play,) counts towards the money that the artist earns.

You don't need to pay to download music from mp3.com, but you do need to give them some information. If you sign up for "my mp3.com" and sign in, then you won't get "nag screens" asking you for your email and if you're over 21. Those can be annoying!