Magnatune: Is this the answer?

The music industry has been suffering from piracy since the introduction of the MP3 format. Many online music stores have been trying to solve the issue of piracy with many different ideas and models but with little success.

Magnatune appeared as a rather promising solution to the situation. Instead of trying hard to protect their rights, they generously respect choices of the consumers by making many restrictions loose. Just to name a few:

• All of their albums can be listened in full before you decide to buy. And the sound quality is very nice, too.
• All of the work you purchase has no copy protection mechanism(DRM) in them. You can play the music everywhere.
• You decide how much you pay! Starting from $5. Furthermore, 50% of what you pay goes straight to the artist.
• You are allowed to share the music that you purchased with up to 3 friends. And according to this page, "If you abuse our generosity, we're not going to break down your door and throw you in jail. We just want you to feel a little guilty about it ".
  

There are other freedom you can get which show why magnatune is not evil. Not a very long one so you should find it out yourself :)

With the advances in the IT industry, I think sooner or later artists will have their own websites selling their own work instead of going through an agent. When that time comes, they might use this model of payment without the 50% limitation. In other words, "Pay me as much as you like me" :P