Rick Rubin - "subscription only way to save music industry"

Co-Chairman of Colubmia Records, Rick Rubin told the New York Times, "The subscription model is the only way to save the music business. If music is easily available at a price of five or six dollars a month, then nobody will steal it" (http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/123852/ipod-will-be-obsolete-says-record-label-boss.html).

He goes on to make the claim that "the iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home."

Can't you just feel the hatred for Apple in these comments?

I hate to break it to Rubin but there are a lot of subscription music services out there right now, none of which are doing very well. Consumers aren't responding well to having to keep purchasing access to their music catalog every month. Neither high profile http://www.napster.com/ or http://www.rhapsody.com/ have made much of a dent in iTunes grip on the industry.

If there were this mystical service, where all labels joined hands with ALL of their respective libraries and extended content AND the service was really just $4.99 a month for total access 24/7, then I think that could have real legs. That is tremendous value for the price but I don't see that even getting close to the meager revenues that labels are getting right now when you calculate the average price of a CD (which contrary to popular belief is selling more than online tracks are selling).