How much is music worth?

The Village Voice has an article questioning the high prices charged for digital music downloads. It compares the prices of CDs, down to iTunes store, down to allofmp3.com, and finally the Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription store. Seems like the music that record companies are valuing so highly are inflated. The music downloading controversy rages on...

Artist royalties for legal downloads are a fraction of the retail price. When that fraction means a thin slice of a penny for a "legitimate" download, and major labels are selling CDs for less than digital files, it becomes mighty tough to make the case that unauthorized file sharing is a real financial threat to anyone—or that music you can't hold in your hand is worth the inflated prices we've been asked to pay for it until now.